What Braid Really Said: The Original Meaning of Hypnotism

Copyright (c) Donald Robertson 2009

For more information on the origins of hypnotism see my new book The Discovery of Hypnotism: The Complete Writings of James Braid (2009).

James Braid was the Scottish physician and surgeon who coined the term “hypnotism” and essentially founded hypnotherapy as we know it today, in opposition to the “animal magnetism” of the Mesmerists.  Fourteen years after discovering hypnotism, Braid wrote his last book on the subject, The Physiology of Fascination (1855), the text of a lecture to be read before the prestigious British Association.  By this time, Braid had come to define hypnotism as “the study of the reciprocal actions and reactions of mind and matter upon each other”, the key term here being “reciprocal” because hypnotism originally involved not only the power of the mind over the body but also the power of the body over the mind.

Braid carried out many ingenious experiments to test the claims of the mesmerists and convinced himself that their perceived effects were not due to animal magnetism or any special force or subtle energy transmitted by the mesmerist.  Instead,  he found that “the condition arose from influences existing within the patient’s own body, viz., the influence of concentrated attention, or dominant ideas, in modifying physical action, and these dynamic changes re-acting on the mind of the subject.”  Hence, although the terms “mesmerism” and “hypnotism” are often confused today, Braid was clear that he introduced the term “hypnotism” to distinguish his psychological and physiological theory from the supernatural theory of Mesmer and his many followers.  However, after over a decade of experimentation and clinical practice in hypnotism, Braid now proposed to modify his terminology. 

First, Braid rejects the notion that hypnotism refers to a single state of mind.  “This term has met with most favourable consideration from many able writers on the subject; still it is liable to this grave objection – that it has been used to comprise not a single state, but rather a series of stages or conditions, varying in every conceivable degree, from the slightest reverie, with high exaltation of the functions called into action, on the one hand, to intense nervous coma, with entire abolition of consciousness and voluntary power, on the other.”

The word “hypnotism” was originally an abbreviation for the term “neuro-hypnotism” meaning “nervous sleep”, as Braid puts it, or neurological inhibition, as we might put it today.  Braid never intended the term to imply that subjects were asleep in the ordinary sense of the word, and this turn of phrase caused much confusion among his patients.

I am well aware that, in correct phraseology, the term hypnotism ought to be restricted to the phenomena manifested in patients who actually pass into a state of sleep, and who remember nothing on awakening of what transpired during their sleep.  All short of this is mere reverie, or dreaming, however provoked, and it, therefore, seems highly desirable to fix upon a terminology capable of accurately characterising these latter modifications which result from hypnotic processes.  This is the more requisite from the fact that, of those who may be relieved and cured by hypnotic processes of diseases which obstinately resist ordinary medical treatment, perhaps not more than one in ten ever passes into the state of oblivious sleep, during the processes which they are subjected to.  The term hypnotism, therefore, is apt to confuse them, and lead them to suspect that, at all events, they cannot be benefited by processes which fail to produce the most obvious indication which the name imports. 

So, according to Braid here, as elsewhere, only 10% of his patients experienced complete amnesia during hypnotism, or anything which could be compared to a sleep-like state.  It may surprise many people to realise that this observation agrees with that of Bernheim and most other Victorian hypnotists.  Only a small minority of their patients entered the sleep-like state called “somnambulism” and it was not generally considered particularly important to the practice of hypnotherapy.

Braid apparently intended to continue using the established term “hypnotism” to refer to the subject of mind-body interaction in general, when speaking loosely, but to clarify that, strictly speaking, the term “hypnotism” should only be taken to describe a minority of subjects who experience profound amnesia during the process.

Let the term hypnotism be restricted to those cases alone in which, by certain artificial processes, oblivious sleep takes place, in which the subject has no remembrance on awaking of what occurred during his sleep, but of which he shall have the most perfect recollection on passing into a similar stage of hypnotism thereafter.  In this mode, hypnotism will comprise those cases only in which what has hitherto been called the double-conscious state ["somnambulism"] occurs; and let the term hypnotic coma denote that still deeper stage of the sleep in which the patient seems to be quite unconscious at the time of all external impressions, and devoid of voluntary power, and in whom no idea of what had been said or done by others during the said state of hypnotic coma can be remembered by the patient on awaking, or at any stage of subsequent hypnotic operations.  

Far from sleep, the essence of hypnotism was awareness.  Braid now defined hypnotism as a state of mental focus or concentration upon a dominant conscious idea.

Then, inasmuch as I feel satisfied that the mental and physical phenomena which flow from said processes result entirely from the mental impressions, or dominant ideas, excited thereby in the minds of the subjects, changing or modifying the previously existing physical action, and the peculiar physical action thus superinduced re-acting on their minds – and that, whether these dominant, expectant ideas existed in the minds of the subjects previously, or were suggested to them, after passing into the impressible condition, by audible suggestions or sensible impressions excited by manipulations of a second party – under these circumstances, I consider the following terms calculated to realise all the precision which we need desire on this point…

Braid proposed to use the term “monoideism”, and various cognate expressions, instead, meaning the concentration of the mind upon a single dominant idea or train of thought.  Braid borrowed the terms “ideo-motor reflex” and “ideo-motor reflex” from his friend Prof. W.B. Carpenter who proposed a theory of unconscious muscular action caused in a semi-reflex manner by certain ideas or images.  Braid added the concept of expectation and focused attention to this simple model of suggestion, to form the basis of his theory of hypnotism.

In order that I may do full justice to two esteemed friends, I beg to state, in connection with this term monoideo-dynamics, that, several years ago, Dr. W. B. Carpenter introduced the term ideo-motor to characterise the reflex or automatic muscular motions which arise merely from ideas associated with motion existing in the mind, without any conscious effort of volition.  In 1853, in referring to this term, Dr. [Daniel] Noble said, “Ideo-dynamic would probably constitute a phraseology more appropriate, as applicable to a wider range of phenomena.”  In this opinion I quite concurred, because I was well aware that an idea could arrest as well as excite motion automatically, not only in the muscles of voluntary motion, but also as regards the condition of every other function of the body.  [Braid had long recognised that hypnosis could either stimulate or depress nervous functioning in general.]  I have, therefore, adopted the term monoideo-dynamics, as still more comprehensive and characteristic as regards the true mental relations which subsist during all dynamic changes which take place, in every other function of the body, as well as in the muscles of voluntary motion.

To this he adds, “as a generic term, comprising the whole of these phenomena which result from the reciprocal actions of mind and matter upon each other, I think no term could be more appropriate than psycho-physiology.”  Of course, “psycho-physiology” means something like “mind-body” and Braid prefers it as an umbrella term for the many respects in which the mind and body inter-act reciprocally upon each other.  He concludes,

It must be obvious that these terms would comprehend every conceivable variety of phenomenon, according to the function of the part on which the dominant idea of the subject might be concentrated, and the liveliness of his faith.  Thus, let the mind of the subject be engrossed with the notion that he is to be irresistibly drawn, repelled, paralysed, or catalepsed, and the monoideo-dynamic or ideational condition of the muscles corresponding with this idea will take place, without any conscious effort of volition of the subject to that effect. 

In brief, contrary to popular misconception,

1. Braid opposed hypnotism to mesmerism, they are not the same thing.
2. Only 10% of Braid’s subjects felt as if they were asleep or unconscious, and this was not essential to hypnotism.
3. Far from being a passive state like sleep, hypnotism was defined as a variety of states revolving around focused conscious attention and heightened expectation.
4. Hypnotism was not simply a theory of the power of suggestion but of the reciprocal power of psycho-physiology, of the mind and body inter-acting in both directions.
5. In addition to verbal suggestion, therefore, Braid emphasised what he termed “muscular suggestion”, in which subjects changed their body posture or facial expression to evoke mental states.

I hope these brief comments will encourage some hypnotists to read Braid’s work more closely and rediscover the true nature of the original hypnotism, because many of the misconceptions about hypnotherapy which abound today are the result of confusing hypnotism and mesmerism, and a “return to Braid” would allow us to set the record straight in a way that can only benefit our clients.