Braid’s Theory of Hypnotic Suggestion

Excerpt from The Discovery of Hypnosis: The Complete Writings of James Braid (2009) edited by Donald Robertson.

Contrary to common misconception, Braid appreciated and employed the technique of verbal suggestion in hypnosis.  Moreover, he considered suggestion essential to the practice of hypnosis and utilised an array of suggestion methods.  Braid clearly distinguishes between suggestions given by the hypnotist and those arising from within the subject, e.g., due to expectant ideas, which we would now call “autosuggestion”.

            In Magic, Witchcraft, etc. (1852), Braid acknowledged that in addition to those “fully” hypnotised, many subjects were “partially” hypnotised, and that others did not respond to the induction at all.  Nevertheless, they could be influenced by a variety of suggestive factors which he claimed were essential to the production of phenomena even in susceptible hypnotic subjects.  In one passage alone, he lists the following six factors, which I have labelled using more contemporary terminology, supplying Braid’s description in quotes, 

1. Spoken Verbal Suggestion.  ‘The patients hear the ideas suggested when uttered in a language known to them.’  Braid clearly recognises that changes in voice tonality have a profound effect upon verbal suggestions, and refers to this several times in his later writings.
2. Written Verbal Suggestion.  ‘When they see them written (which is sufficient to affect many).’
3. Role-Modelling or Imitation.  ‘When they can see, by ordinary vision, the movements made in their presence which it is intended they should be forced to imitate, through the power of sympathy and imitation.’
4. Mental Association.  ‘When they feel sensible impressions, associated with certain ideas or previous feelings.’  For instance, the subject may hear a piece of music which reminds them of sad feelings; or sense the hand passes of the Mesmerist, and by association, imagine being a child once again, soothed by its mother’s touch.  Note that the Victorian concept of psychological association was a subjective precursor of the later physiological theory of conditioned responses pioneered by Pavlov’s laboratory research.
5. Muscular Suggestion.  ‘When they feel sensible impressions […] which call subjacent muscles into action.’  For instance, when the body posture or facial expression (“Anatomy of Expression”) is manipulated so as to evoke the corresponding idea or state of mind.  For instance, the hypnotist may firmly grasp and briskly straighten a subject’s arm in such a way as to suggest that it should become stiff and cataleptic.  Alternatively, by clenching a subject’s fist and furrowing his brow, Braid would evoke feelings of aggression, etc.  In fact, this was the form of suggestion primarily employed by Braid in Neurypnology (1843), and used by him as the basis of his radical re-interpretation of phrenological phenomena.  This notion, perhaps surprisingly, has many parallels in modern therapy, e.g., the notion of “acting as if” in George Kelly’s work and subsequent cognitive-behavioural therapy.
6. Focused Attention.  ‘Direct attention to the special organs of sense, which excites ideas corresponding with the functions of these different organs, or arouses former ideas arbitrarily or accidentally associated with such and such sensible impressions.’  As in the experiments on attention, debunking the Reichenbach phenomena, which show that prolonged or focused attention, can, by itself, lead to hyperacuity or create spontaneous hallucinatory sensations.  Several modern studies have likewise shown that merely asking subjects to stare at a wall, or even sit with their eyes closed and contemplate their experience, tends to evoke a flow of surprisingly unusual experiences.

At the start of Hypnotic Therapeutics (1853), Braid again writes of ‘suggestions received through words audibly uttered in his hearing [verbal suggestion], or ideas previously existing in his mind [autosuggestion], or excited by sensible impressions made by touches or passes of the operator [association], which direct the attention of the sleeper to different parts [focused attention], or excite into action certain combinations of muscles [muscular suggestion], and thereby direct his current of thought’.  To a large extent, Braid’s common sense philosophy of hypnotism and suggestion can be seen as deriving from the three basic laws of psychology adopted in his writings: the law of sympathy and imitation, the law of habit and association, and the ideo-dynamic response, which might be termed the “law of dominant ideas”.