James Braid

A  SURGEON  IN  MANCHESTER  ENGLAND;
      . . . Re-examined these so-called magnetism phenomena, later in the nineteenth-century.   He recognized that certain mesmeric phenomena were genuine but rejected all mesmeric theories of external influences and considered them as strictly neurophysiological!   His therapeutic efforts were attempts to excite or depress the Nervous Energy of the patient in need of psychotherapy.

      In his early theory, Dr. Braid used the name of the Greek god of sleep (Hypnos) to create the term Hypnotism, (as he renamed 'Animal Magnetism'), which he introduced in his book,  ^«Neurypnology, the rationale of nervous sleep (1843).^»

      Taking as his starting point the eye fixation induction technique, he theorized that staring fixedly at a bright object for a protracted period induces fatigue of the levator muscles of the eyelids, which in turn promotes a general exhaustion or derangement of the nerve centers.    By deliberately fixing attention on a single, continuous, monotonous stimulation, a special nervous sleep or stupor results, in which the functional activity of the central nervous system is decreased.   This condition Braid termed  'Neuro-Hypnotism.'

      He believed Hypnotism was a useful therapeutic tool to determine a variety of somatic ailments, and an effective means of Anesthesia for surgical procedures.   The secret of which he believed could be discovered by researching human physiological processes.

      Braid's theory of hypnotism shifted in 1847, from the more mechanical-physiological process of exhausted nervous centers, toward an explanation that was more psychologically bases.   The psychological concept of Monoideism became central for Braid.

   In Monoideism, the mental attention of the individual becomes so engrossed in a single train of thought, or a single idea, that for a time the attention is rendered insensible and indifferent to other influences and considerations.
   One active train of ideation becomes extraordinarily intense and subjectively real to the subject, because all of his attention is exclusively concentrated on it, rather than diffused and distracted into a multitude of competing ideas and impressions.
   All of the various mesmerically, hypnotically, and verbally suggestive induction procedures have but one objective:   to help promote this state of single-mindedness, of exclusively concentrated attention, letting other ideas pass into torpid oblivion.
   Because the monoideized attention has heightened the intensity of the one focal or dominant idea, the power of the imagination on Mïind and body is considerably greater than in the ordinary waking state, and thus, suggestions are more likely to initiate correspondingly greater influences.

            Monoideism became for Braid the central unifying concept, of which neuro-hypnotism was but a subconcept, designating a special extreme state characterized by oblivious nervous sleep with subsequent amnesia until again hypnotized.   Braid said, this rare state was achieved by only about one tenth of his subjects, the majority showed no loss of consciousness.
   Moreover, some subjects immediately passed into an alert, active somnambulistic state with eyes open the very first time they were hypnotized, without previously going through a condition in any way resembling the nervous sleep.   He continued, however, to maintain that the Trance Phenomena were the result of definite physiological changes in the subject.

      Ultimately he abandoned this position and proposed that Hypnotism produced its effects through the operation of an Idea implanted in the subject's Mïnd by Suggestions of the Hypnotist (Braid, 1852).

      This view of Braid's; namely that those Hypnotic Phenomena observed by the therapists were the result of ^«Hypnotic Suggestions^» and not any magnetic fluid, became widely adopted by clinicians and investigators throughout France.

            This Idea of Hypnotic Suggestion which did not embrace Mysticism made it acceptible to many clinicians!