James Braid Research Articles

HYPNOTISM-ELUCIDATED REVIE

Hypnotism,once classified as an occult science,has grew,though only within recent years,a definite scientific status,and no mean place in genuine medicine.It typically involves an overview to the procedure during which the subject is told that propositions for imaginative involvements will be presented.Mesmer was a Scottish ophthalmologist,James Braid, who make up the word 'hypnosis'.The term neuro-hypnotism (nervous sleep), all of which were first coined by Étienne Félix d'Henin de Cuvillers in the 1820s.Hypnotism having a broad area of application including alleviation of symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), control of pain during dental procedures, management of certain symptoms of ADHD etc.A number of myths are related with hypnotism like hypnosis is similar to sleep,it is possible to be hypnotized against the client's will, hypnotherapy doesn't cause to lose control etc. During a hypnotherapy sitting, people are guided through a process to induce a trance-like state that helps them focus their minds, respond more readily to suggestions, and become deeply relaxed. Hypnotherapy utilizes the heightened awareness of the hypnotic state to help us to focus on a problem more deeply.

Arthur Conan Doyle in Mesmeric Edinburgh and Hypnotic London

Arthur Conan Doyle's spiritualist interests are often viewed today as idiosyncratic for a medical professional and anachronistic for the late Victorian era. However, historians of the era recognise that there was widespread fascination at this time in the possibility of communicating with the dead and the development of extraordinary mental powers like telepathy. Conan Doyle studied medicine in Edinburgh where the study of mesmerism and its role in therapy continued for much longer than the rest of Britain. The university and medical school produced most of the major names of British medical mesmerism including the physician James Braid, who coined the term hypnotism. By the late nineteenth century, there were many distinguished physicians and scientists who shared Conan Doyle's spiritualist views. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was the elite London association that investigated these possibilities using a scientific methodology. Hypnotism and the trance state were important tools in this study. Over the course of his thirty-six-year membership, Conan Doyle's convictions strengthened. The backdrop of Edinburgh and mesmerism is key to Conan Doyle's story ‘ John Barrington Cowles’ (1884) , while the scientific investigation of hypnotism described in The Parasite (1894) relies upon his experiences with London's SPR based in Dean's Yard, Westminster, and Hanover Square in Mayfair.

Acoustic parameters used in dental hypnosis practices

Dental hypnosis has been reported in many journals as a science since James Braid used hypnosis term in his publication in 18th century. Recent research supports the view that hypnotic communication and suggestions effectively changes aspects of the person’s physiological and neurological functions and can enhance the efficacy of various treatment interventions in dentistry. So, the dental hypnosis is truly science not a black magic. The acoustic parameter expression is a tool consisted of three parameters that are duration, pitch and intensity that is used to measure how effective the special sentences/phrases can bring the people consciousness state to unconsciousness state by giving some suggestion. It works by modifying people mind to change their fear of dental treatment for example, to be a contrary condition.

Abbé Faria (1756-1819): From Lucid Sleep to Hypnosis.

This statue in Goa, India, celebrates theologianphilosopher-scientist Abbe Faria placing a woman intowhat he termed “lucid sleep,”whichhe affirmed occurred due to the will and suggestibility of the epopt,Greek for “subject.”Hedisputed FranzAnton Mesmer’s reigning theories of animal magnetism, cosmology, and the primacy of the mesmerizer’s power. Abbe Faria was born Jose Custodio de Faria, on India’s west coast, in Goa, then under Portuguese rule. At age 15, he left with his father for Portugal. He then went to Rome, finished a doctorate in theology in 1780,moved toParis, and in 1813 joined the avant-garde in mesmerism (1). Mesmer’s theories were challenged in 1778 when a commission—authorized by the court of Louis XVI and led by Benjamin Franklin, American Ambassador—discredited Mesmer’s ideas about physical fluids and magnets. Nevertheless, mesmerism thrived, especially in the scholarship of Mesmer’s ardent student, Marquis de Chastenet de Puysegur, who became intrigued by his own patients’ suggestibility. Abbe Faria treated about 5,000 epopts in public. He was praised for his cures, also vilified and ridiculed. Yet he persevered. He forwarded an Epistle to Puysegur and requested his approval for the book he had just written: De La Cause du SommeilLucideOuEtudede laNaturedeL’Homme(Of theCause Of Lucid Sleep or Study of the Nature of Man) (2). Abbe Faria was a professor of theology and philosophy; his works also referenced metaphysics and physiology. He connected the patient’s will, auto-suggestion, and the power of mind over body to “lucid sleep.” He also criticized “the futility of assumption of a magnetic fluid” (2, p. 369). Faria meant to write three more volumes, but he died on the day the book was published—Sept. 20, 1819. His volume was well read in Europe but remained isolated on academic shelves. However, his formulation was later endorsed by Egas Moniz (1874–1955), Portuguese neurologist and 1949 Nobel prize winner, who called him “the creator of the doctrine of suggestion” (3, p. 327). Faria’s grave inMontmartre, France, has not been located. However, a fragile copy of a reprinted version (1909) of his book was unearthed in the rare book section of Central Goa Library, India. Psychiatrist Rajendra Hegde, who had searched vigorously for it, discovered the national treasure and commissioned its English translation. The hand-written translation by Dr. Manoharrai Sardessai (2) was completed in 2004. Goan intelligentsia celebrated Faria’s 258th birthday with a symposium in June 2014. Abbe Faria was extolled as the Father of Hypnotism (4). The symposium acknowledged his relentless inquiry into “lucid sleep,”which paved the way for the formulation of surgeon James Braid, who in 1843 labeled the phenomena of trance and mesmerism as “hypnosis” (5, p. xi). Hypnosis was used widely in the American Civil War for amputations. Medicare approves hypnotherapy (code 90880) “if reasonable and necessary for treatment of medical or psychological conditions.” Hypnosis can be offered as an adjunct to psychotherapy for varied psychiatric symptoms, PTSD, smoking cessation, surgery, and other ailments. The lexicon of modern hypnosis includes such terms as “trance capacity” and “aroused concentration” (6, p. 1228), echoing Faria’s 1819 critical observations. An Abbe Faria appears as a wise but eccentric priest in The Count of Monte Cristo (7), but the source of the Alexander Dumas character is unknown. The sculpture of Abbe Faria was made by Ramachandra Pandurang Kamat and was installed in1945 in thecapital ofGoa, India. The imagewas takenbyBryceEdwards. Itwas not changed by this writer. Under the Creative Commons Public License (a nonprofit) permission is given to share, copy, and redistribute the image (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/2.5/).

Uma nosologia para os fenômenos sobrenaturais e a construção do cérebro 'possuído' no século XIX

At the end of the twentieth century, supernatural phenomena such as so called trances and possession by spirits received a scientific classification, which includes the numerous diagnoses of the dominant psychiatry. At the end of the nineteenth century we can observe a process of scientific categorization of phenomena considered to have originated in superstition or popular imagination. In this work we show how trances and spiritual possession were studied by Franz Anton Mesmer and his followers when developing the concept of magnetism; by James Braid during the creation of his theory of hypnosis; and by Jean Martin Charcot, which marked the entry of hysteria into nosological classification. Despite the differences between these schools, we identify the use of the brain and cerebral metaphors as the foundation of theories of the mind.

Use of hypnosis as a substitute premedication and adjunct to anesthesia

Introduction Hypnosis is defined as state of focussed attention with heightened receptivity for acceptable suggestions [1]. Although hypnotism is known to have been practiced by many people, it was James Braid who popularised its use in anesthesia. With the advent and rapid popularity of nitrous oxide, ether and chloroform, and also

Indigenous Healing Practitioners and Their Use of Hypnotic-Like Procedures

AbstractAccording to Division 30 of the American Psychological Association, “hypnosis” typically involves an introduction to the procedure during which a subject, client, or research participant is told that suggestions for imaginative experiences will be presented. The so-called “hypnotic induction” is an extended initial suggestion for using one’s imagination, and may contain further elaboration of the introduction. The subsequent “hypnotic procedure” is used to encourage and evaluate the subject’s responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, one person (the subject) is guided by another (the hypnotist) to respond to suggestions involving changes in subjective experience, as well as alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior. In addition, persons can also learn self-hypnosis, which is the act of administering hypnotic procedures on one’s own. if the subject responds to hypnotic suggestions, it is generally inferred that hypnosis has been induced. Many practitioners, but not all practitioners, believe that hypnotic responses and experiences are characteristic of a so-called “hypnotic state.” While some practitioners think that it is not necessary to use the word “hypnosis” as part of the hypnotic induction, others view it as essential. In other words, there are agreements and disagreements concerning the definition and description of hypnosis even by researchers, theoreticians, and practitioners who have given considerable thought to this topic.In addition, the details of hypnotic procedures and suggestions will differ depending on the goals of the practitioner and the purposes of the clinical or research endeavor. Procedures traditionally involve suggestions to relax, although relaxation is not necessary for hypnosis and a wide variety of suggestions can be used including those to become more alert. Suggestions that permit the extent of hypnosis to be assessed by comparing responses to standardized scales can be used in both clinical and research settings. While the majority of individuals are responsive to at least some suggestions, scores on standardized scales range from high to negligible. Traditionally, scores are grouped into low, medium, and high categories. As is the case with other positively scaled measures of psychological constructs such as attention and awareness, the salience of evidence for having achieved hypnosis increases with the individual’s score.The term “hypnosis” was coined by James Braid (1795–1860), an English physician. Braid disliked the term “mesmerism,” which had been named after its originator, Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), an Austrian physician. Braid concluded that Mesmer’s purported cures were not due to “animal magnetism” as Mesmer had insisted, but to suggestion. He developed the eye-fixation technique (also known as “Braidism”) of inducing relaxation and called the process “hypnosis” (after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep) because he thought that hypnotic phenomena were a form of sleep. Later, realizing his error, he tried to change the name to “monoeidism” (meaning influence of a single idea) however, the orig inal name stuck. In other words, semantics played an important role in the history of hypnosis and actually directed the way that this modality was practiced.

“On Hypnotism” (1860) De L'Hypnotisme

James Braid's last essay on hypnotism, the culmination of his work, summarized in a French translation for the Academy of Sciences, is published in English with comments. According to Braid, hypnotism is a psychological (“subjective”) approach, fundamentally opposed to the paranormal claims and magnetic (“objective”) theories of mesmerism. Hypnotism operates primarily by means of dominant ideas that the attention of the subject is fixated upon. The reversibility of hypnotic amnesia is taken as evidence of “double consciousness.” However, over 90% of Braid's subjects did not exhibit this state of dissociation or any sleep-like responses but merely a sense of “reverie.” Good subjects are as suggestible in the “waking” state as others are in hypnotism.

The Discovery of Hypnosis—Braid's Lost Manuscript, “On Hypnotism” (1860): A Brief Communication

James Braid's last manuscript on hypnotism, summarizing his mature views and lost since his death, existed only in French and German translations. The author discusses the history and importance of this document, “On Hypnotism” (1860), as well as his new English version, translated back from the French and German editions. Braid's manuscript constitutes an important, missing jigsaw piece in the early history of psychological therapy and helps to explain the origin of hypnotherapy and correct certain historical misconceptions that have developed concerning the meaning of the term hypnotism. The rediscovery of this text provides additional evidence that hypnotism originated as an explicitly empirical and “common sense” reaction against the pseudo-scientific excesses of mesmerism. Although drawing heavily on excerpts from his previous writings, some of Braid's observations and techniques may renew interest among contemporary researchers and clinicians.

Note on Online Books and Articles About the History of Dissociation

ABSTRACT Students of the history of dissociation will be interested in the materials on the subject available in the digital document database Google Book Search. This includes a variety of books and journals covering automatic writing, hypnosis, mediumship, multiple personality, trance, somnambulism, and other topics. Among the authors represented in the database are: Eugène Azam, Alfred Binet, James Braid, Jean-Martin Charcot, Pierre Janet, Frederic W.H. Myers, Morton Prince, and Boris Sidis, among others. The database includes examples of case reports, conceptual discussions, and psychiatric and psychological textbook literature.

Gene Expression, Neurogenesis, and Healing: Psychosocial Genomics of Therapeutic Hypnosis

The historical lineage of therapeutic hypnosis in James Braid's “psychophysiology”, Pierre Janet's “physiological modification”, and Milton Erickson's “neuro-psycho-physiology” is extended to include current neuroscience research on activity-dependent gene expression, neurogenesis, and stem cells in memory, learning, behavior change, and healing. Three conditions that optimize gene expression and neurogenesis—novelty, environmental enrichment, and exercise—could integrate fundamentals of the theory, research, and practice of therapeutic hypnosis. Continuing research on immediate-early, activity-dependent, behavior state-related, and clock gene expression could enhance our understanding of how relaxation, sleep, dreaming, consciousness, arousal, stress and trauma are modulated by therapeutic hypnosis. It is speculated that therapeutic and posthypnotic suggestion could be focused more precisely with the time parameters of gene expression and neurogenesis that range from minutes and hours for synthesizing new synapses to weeks and months for the generation and maturation of new, functioning neurons in the adult brain.

Satanic agency and mesmerism reviewed--James Braid.

Satanic Agency and Mesmerism Reviewed, In A Letter To The Reverend H. Mc. Neile of Liverpool, is a 12-page book in which James Braid laid the foundation stone of medical hypnotism. The present copy of this book is said to be unique. No other copy of this book has been found in the United States or England. The book, which is in the Rare Book Collection at the Wichita State University Ablah Library, came from the library of Albert Moll. The age of mesmerism or animal magnetism was brought to a close by James Braid, and in this book, his first work on mesmerism. Braid used the word hypnotism to replace mesmerism. His first use of the word occurred in this work and not, as is generally believed, in his later work, Neurypnology.

James Braid's psychophysiology: a turning point in the history of dynamic psychiatry.

James Braid is both a neglected and integral figure in the history of dynamic psychiatry. With the introduction of his neurophysiologic theory of hypnosis in the early 1840s he buried Mesmer's doctrine of animal magnetism and established hypnotic phenomena as data suitable for scientific inquiry. He subsequently elaborated a sophisticated psychophysiology with emphasis on the psychology of suggestion and the phenomenon of double consciousness. His espousal of hypnotism as a tool of scientific investigation and his innovative use of hypnosis to cure hysterical paralysis profoundly influenced the debates of the 1880s and 1890s concerning suggestive therapeutics and the nature of hypnosis.

Origins of the term hypnotism prior to Bp5id.

Abstract Although James Braid, a Scottish physician, is generally credited with originating in 1843 the term “hypnotism,” later to become known as hypnosis in the 1880s, it was actually a Frenchman, Etienne Felix d'Henin de Cuvillers, who in an 1821 publication first applied the “hypn-” prefix to a wide array of words descriptive of the mesmeric process. Likewise, the trance induction technique of optical fixation, frequently called the Braid Effect, was known centuries prior to Braid.

The use Of hypnotism As an Ethnologic research Technique

The use Of hypnotism As an Ethnologic research Technique