Muscular Suggestion in Hypnosis
The James-Lange Theory of Emotion
Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2008-2010. All rights reserved.
Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers. There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this, as all who have experience know: if we wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward motions of those contrary dispositions we prefer to cultivate. The reward of persistency will infallibly come, in the fading out of the sullenness or depression, and the advent of real cheerfulness and kindliness in their stead. Smooth the brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the genial compliment, and your heart must be frigid indeed if it does not gradually thaw! (William James, ‘What is an emotion?’, 1884)
William James
Although best-known as a theory of emotion, in this short passage William James clearly states how his ideas lead directly to a practical application which clearly pre-empts 20th Century behaviour therapy. By encouraging clients to “act as if” they are cured, adopting the body language, etc., of a relaxed or assertive person, early behaviour therapists attempted not only to change behaviour but also to evoke emotional transformation. James Braid, however, had already clearly described the same method, which he referred to as “muscular suggestion.”
The Danish physician and psychologist Carl G. Lange (1885) and the founder of American psychology, William James (1884) both arrived independently of each other at a similar theory of the emotions, subsequently dubbed the James-Lange theory. James and Lange both observed that most emotions are accompanied by emotional behaviour, changes in body language, posture, and also more subtle physiological changes such as changes in heart rate, breathing, and circulation. Most people ordinarily assume, or at least speak as if, these physical manifestations of emotion are the effect of subjective feeling of emotion, i.e., that people feel an emotion of sadness inside and then, immediately or after a short delay, their posture slumps and they begin to cry as a result. However, both Lange and James questioned this.
James took his cue from Charles Darwin who had earlier examined the physiological expressions of emotion in animals and, by a natural process of extension, interpreted human emotions largely on the basis of the same physiological changes and behaviours. Of course, as animals do not speak, we are less tempted to attribute a purely subjective sense of emotion to them but naturally assume that their emotions are physical processes. For Darwin’s evolutionary theory, human emotion was essentially a special case of animal emotion and it therefore seemed obvious to him that it should be viewed as largely a physical phenomenon.
An example of “acting as if”, so obvious as to appear banal, is that when people act as if relaxed and sleepy, they often begin to feel so. Even Pavlov observed that dogs tended to fall asleep when prevented from moving around. Relaxation techniques almost universally require the subject to close their eyes, sit down or lie down in a recumbent manner, remain silent, stop moving, relax their skeletal muscles, and to encourage themselves to breathe in a progressively more relaxed manner. It would be difficult to distinguish these components of relaxation technique from the actions of an actor attempting to enact the role of a relaxed or sleeping person convincingly.
Muscular Suggestion in Hypnosis
In his earliest writings, James Braid, the founder of hypnotherapy, placed more emphasis on certain forms of physical suggestion than upon verbal suggestion. Braid’s follower Dr. J.J.G. Wilkinson wrote of his method,
Another curious study is the influence of the patient’s postures on his mind in this state. Double his fist, and put up his arm, if you dare, for you will have the strength of your ribs rudely tested. Put him on his knees and clasp his hands, and the saints and devotees of the artists will pale before the trueness of his devout actings. Raise his head while in prayer, and his lips pour forth exulting glorifications, as he sees heaven opened, and the Majesty of God raising him to his place; then in a moment depress the head, and he is dust and ashes, and unworthy sinner, with the pit of hell yawning at his feet. Or compress the forehead so as to wrinkle it vertically, and this little attitude of gloom, glooms the whole mind, and thorny-toothed clouds contract in from the very horizon; and what is remarkable, the smallest pinch and wrinkle, such as will lie between your nipping nails, is sufficient nucleus to crystallise the man into that shape, and to make him all foreboding; as again the smallest expansion, in a moment, brings the opposite state, with a full breathing of delight. Raise the head next, and ask, if it be a young lady, whether she or some other is the prettier: and observe the inexpressible hauteur, and the puff sneers let off from the lips, which indicate a conclusion too certain to need utterance; depress the head, and repeat the question; and mark the self-abasement with which she now says, “She is,” as hardly worthy to make the comparison. In this state, whatever posture of any passion is induced, the passion comes into it at once, and dramatises the body accordingly. (Wilkinson, 1851)
Indeed, in the conclusion and summary to Neurypnology, Braid states that one of the main principles of his method is,
That during hypnotism, by manipulating the cranium and face, we can excite certain mental and bodily manifestations, according to the parts touched. (Braid, 1843)
In his last article, On Hypnotism (1860), Braid writes in a manner which strikingly pre-empts the James-Lange theory of emotion,
In this way, we influence the muscles of physiognomy [facial expression] and it is possible for us to arouse any passion or sentiment whatsoever; the contraction of the interconnected muscles, constituting “the anatomy of expression,” evokes in the brain of the hypnotized person certain impressions just as these, in the waking state, determine the whole facial expression. It is thus merely a reversal of the usual order [of causation] between the emotions and their physical manifestations. (Braid, 1860)
The father of hypnotism may perhaps claim to have pre-empted James and Lange, and to have conceived of “muscular suggestion” as a therpeutic method long before the advent of “acting as if” in modern psychotherapy. Braid, notably, observed that hypnosis appeared to amplify the effect of this technique, and if featured prominently in the armamentarium of the original hypnotherapeutic method.
