I define hypnotism as the induction of a peculiar psychical condition which increases the susceptibility to suggestion. To define hypnotism as induced sleep, is to give a too narrow meaning to the word, to overlook the many phenomena which suggestion can bring about independently of sleep. Professor Bernheim was credited with popularising the view, largely taken for granted today, that hypnosis is fundamentally a state of heightened suggestibility itself induced by means of suggestion. The real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition is the induction of a habit of abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction, the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as, for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought.įollowing Braid, Bernheim is often referred to as the father of modern hypnotherapy, or certainly the most influential pioneer of hypnotherapy beside its founder.
However, Braid later reviewed his idea that hypnosis was a specific neurological state and replaced it with the theory that hypnosis was ‘monoideation,’ the fixation of consciousness on a single idea or object: The first definition here is the original one given by James Braid, the Scottish physician and surgeon who first discovered hypnosis in 1841 and founded hypnotherapyīy the term “Neuro-Hypnotism,” then, is to be understood “nervous sleep,” a peculiar state of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature. Here are definitions of hypnosis from various organisations and established authors which help to clarify the way hypnosis is normally defined by more credible sources. Unfortunately, the internet is a very unreliable source of information and many websites contain extremely misleading information.
Hypnotism has always been surrounded by misconception.
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