Dr James Braid – Father of Hypnotherapy?

Book review by Bryan M. Knight, MSW, PhD.

Hypnosis Depot

The Discovery of Hypnosis

The Complete Writings of James Braid
‘The Father of Hypnotherapy’
National Council for Hypnotherapy
Edited with Commentary by Donald Robertson

Many of today’s hypnotherapists may be shocked by the modernity of Dr

Braid’s concepts of hypnotherapy. Born in Scotland in 1795, he died in 1860
leaving behind a body of work that laid the foundation for the scientific
understanding of hypnotherapy.

This meticulous compilation of Braid’s prolific writings allows us to not

only admire the brilliant surgeon’s theories but to be amazed at his
anticipation of what we hitherto considered to be modern innovations such
as cognitive behavioural therapy and the non-existence of the subconscious.

Braid took issue with Mesmerism, the fashionable therapy/entertainment of

the 19th century. He distinguished the fantasies and fairy-tales of Mesmerism
from the scientific approach he took with patients, many of whom he treated
without charge.

Braid’s scientific observations progressed from cautious acceptance that

hypnotism relied on the physical (re-)arrangement of a subject’s limbs to
proving that suggestion is the key ingredient.

His intimate knowledge of physiology meant he was able to explain eye-

closure and other hypnotic phenomena in medical, i.e. scientific, terms
rather than in the supernatural explanations offered by the Mesmerists.

The latter used to put on what today we would call stage shows. Since,
according to Braid, suggestion is the essence of hypnotism and anything you
can ask a person to do in hypnosis can be equally well accomplished without
formal inductions, the elaborate rituals of “hypnosis” stage shows have little
to do with hypnosis and more to do with entertainment accomplished
through suggestion and imitation.
I particularly enjoyed Braid’s accounts of his exposure of those Mesmerists
who continued to proclaim the power of magnets – in one case he walked
around the room with a powerful magnet concealed in his pocket. Of course,
this had no effect on the subject whose mortification at the subsequent
exposure can only be imaged.

Donald Robertson’s study of Braid’s work leads him to a sure-to-be-

controversial conclusion: “He carried out many experiments debunking
pseudoscientific placebo therapies including “subtle energy” treatments like
Mesmerism, magnets, crystals, homeopathy, etc. Ironically, these Victorian
“nostrum” (i.e. quack) remedies were the precursors of the currently popular
complementary therapies [such as Reiki, EFT, TFT] with which modern
hypnotherapy is frequently associated.”

Braid disputed the notion of special powers being transmitted from the
hypnotist to the patient. He was the first to proclaim what most of us today
parrot as gospel but which an ego-driven minority still doesn’t accept: that
the patient puts himself into hypnosis by following instructions to focus on
certain dominant ideas.

Included in this remarkable volume is an 1896 summary of Braid’s work by

another physician, John Milne Bramwell whose own work in hypnotizing
thousands of patients mirrored Braid’s transition from the emphasis on
“trance” to “suggestion.”

I agree with Donald Robertson that James Braid richly deserves the
honorific of “Father of Hypnotherapy.”
Many of today’s
hypnotherapists may
be shocked by the
modernity of Dr
Braid’s concepts of
hypnotherapy. Born
in Scotland in 1795,
he died in 1860
leaving behind a
body of work that
laid the foundation
for the scientific
understanding of
hypnotherapy.