Editing Hypnosis (section)

== Suggestion ==
{{Main|Suggestion}}
When [[James Braid (surgeon)|James Braid]] first described hypnotism, he did not use the term "suggestion" but referred instead to the act of focusing the conscious mind of the subject upon a single dominant idea. Braid's main therapeutic strategy involved stimulating or reducing physiological functioning in different regions of the body. In his later works, however, Braid placed increasing emphasis upon the use of a variety of different verbal and non-verbal forms of suggestion, including the use of "waking suggestion" and self-hypnosis. Subsequently, [[Hippolyte Bernheim]] shifted the emphasis from the physical state of hypnosis on to the psychological process of verbal suggestion:

{{blockquote|text=
I define hypnotism as the induction of a peculiar psychical [i.e., mental] condition which increases the susceptibility to suggestion. Often, it is true, the [hypnotic] sleep that may be induced facilitates suggestion, but it is not the necessary preliminary. It is suggestion that rules hypnotism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RVtNAQAAIAAJ|title=Hypnosis & Suggestion in Psychotherapy: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism. Tr. from the 2d Rev. Ed|first=Hippolyte|last=Bernheim|date=11 July 1964|publisher=University Books|via=Google Books|access-date=11 October 2019|archive-date=2 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702163308/https://books.google.com/books?id=RVtNAQAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>
}}

Bernheim's conception of the primacy of verbal suggestion in hypnotism dominated the subject throughout the 20th century, leading some authorities to declare him the father of modern hypnotism.<ref name="Weitzenhoffer, 2000"/>

Contemporary hypnotism uses a variety of suggestion forms including direct verbal suggestions, "indirect" verbal suggestions such as requests or insinuations, metaphors and other rhetorical figures of speech, and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation. A distinction is commonly made between suggestions delivered "permissively" and those delivered in a more "authoritarian" manner. Harvard hypnotherapist [[Deirdre Barrett]] writes that most modern research suggestions are designed to bring about immediate responses, whereas hypnotherapeutic suggestions are usually post-hypnotic ones that are intended to trigger responses affecting behaviour for periods ranging from days to a lifetime in duration. The hypnotherapeutic ones are often repeated in multiple sessions before they achieve peak effectiveness.<ref>{{cite book|last=Barrett|first=Deirdre| name-list-style = vanc |title=The Pregnant Man: Cases from a Hypnotherapist's Couch|year=1998|publisher=Times Books}}</ref>

=== Conscious and unconscious mind ===
Some hypnotists view suggestion as a form of communication that is directed primarily to the subject's conscious mind,<ref name="Rossi">{{cite journal |url=http://www.studiopsicologiamantova.it/psy/psicologia/miltonerickson/what-is-a-suggestion.pdf |title=What is a suggestion? The neuroscience of implicit processing heuristics in therapeutic hypnosis and psychotherapy |first1=Ernest L. |last1=Rossi |first2=Kathryn L. |last2=Rossi |name-list-style=vanc |date=April 2007 |journal=American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=267–81 |doi=10.1080/00029157.2007.10524504 |pmid=17444364 |s2cid=12202594 |access-date=24 April 2013 |archive-date=28 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131228151737/http://www.studiopsicologiamantova.it/psy/psicologia/miltonerickson/what-is-a-suggestion.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> whereas others view it as a means of communicating with the "[[unconscious mind|unconscious]]" or "[[subconscious]]" mind.<ref name="Rossi"/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://bscw.rediris.es/pub/bscw.cgi/d4523426/Lovatt-Hypnosis_suggestion.pdf |title=Hypnosis and suggestion |last=Lovatt |first=William F. |name-list-style=vanc |publisher=Rider & Co |date=1933{{ndash}}34 |access-date=24 April 2013 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304115910/http://bscw.rediris.es/pub/bscw.cgi/d4523426/Lovatt-Hypnosis_suggestion.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> These concepts were introduced into hypnotism at the end of the 19th century by [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Pierre Janet]]. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory describes conscious thoughts as being at the surface of the mind and unconscious processes as being deeper in the mind.<ref>Daniel L. Schacter; Daniel T. Gilbert; Daniel M. Wegner, ''Psychology'', 2009, 2011</ref> Braid, Bernheim, and other Victorian pioneers of hypnotism did not refer to the unconscious mind but saw hypnotic suggestions as being addressed to the subject's ''conscious'' mind. Indeed, Braid actually defines hypnotism as focused (conscious) attention upon a dominant idea (or suggestion). Different views regarding the nature of the mind have led to different conceptions of suggestion. Hypnotists who believe that responses are mediated primarily by an "unconscious mind", like [[Milton Erickson]], make use of indirect suggestions such as metaphors or stories whose intended meaning may be concealed from the subject's conscious mind. The concept of [[Subliminal message|subliminal suggestion]] depends upon this view of the mind. By contrast, hypnotists who believe that responses to suggestion are primarily mediated by the conscious mind, such as [[Theodore X. Barber|Theodore Barber]] and [[Nicholas Spanos]], have tended to make more use of direct verbal suggestions and instructions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Spanos |first1=Nicholas P. |last2=Barber |first2=Theodore X. |date=1974 |title=Toward a convergence in hypnosis research. |url=http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/h0036795 |journal=American Psychologist |language=en |volume=29 |issue=7 |pages=500–511 |doi=10.1037/h0036795 |pmid=4416672 |issn=1935-990X |access-date=28 September 2022 |archive-date=2 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702163814/https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/h0036795 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Ideo-dynamic reflex ===
{{Main|Ideomotor response}}
The first neuropsychological theory of hypnotic suggestion was introduced early by James Braid who adopted his friend and colleague [[William Benjamin Carpenter|William Carpenter's]] theory of the [[ideo motor response|ideo-motor reflex response]] to account for the phenomenon of hypnotism. Carpenter had observed from close examination of everyday experience that, under certain circumstances, the mere idea of a muscular movement could be sufficient to produce a reflexive, or automatic, contraction or movement of the muscles involved, albeit in a very small degree. Braid extended Carpenter's theory to encompass the observation that a wide variety of bodily responses besides muscular movement can be thus affected, for example, the idea of sucking a lemon can automatically stimulate salivation, a secretory response. Braid, therefore, adopted the term "ideo-dynamic", meaning "by the power of an idea", to explain a broad range of "psycho-physiological" (mind–body) phenomena. Braid coined the term "mono-ideodynamic" to refer to the theory that hypnotism operates by concentrating attention on a single idea in order to amplify the ideo-dynamic reflex response. Variations of the basic ideo-motor, or ideo-dynamic, theory of suggestion have continued to exercise considerable influence over subsequent theories of hypnosis, including those of [[Clark L. Hull]], [[Hans Eysenck]], and Ernest Rossi.<ref name="Rossi"/> In Victorian psychology the word "idea" encompasses any mental representation, including mental imagery, memories, etc.