Definitions[edit]
Historical definitions[edit]
The earliest definition of hypnosis was given by Braid, who
coined the term "hypnotism" as an abbreviation for "neuro-hypnotism",
or nervous sleep, which he contrasted with normal sleep, and
defined as: "a peculiar condition 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."[21]
Braid elaborated upon this brief definition in a later
work, Hypnotic Therapeutics:[22]
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. The hypnotic sleep,
therefore, is the very antithesis or opposite mental and physical condition to
that which precedes and accompanies common sleep
Therefore, Braid defined hypnotism as a state of mental
concentration that often leads to a form of progressive relaxation, termed
"nervous sleep". Later, in his The Physiology of Fascination (1855),
Braid conceded that his original terminology was misleading, and argued that
the term "hypnotism" or "nervous sleep" should be reserved
for the minority (10%) of subjects who exhibit amnesia,
substituting the term "monoideism", meaning concentration upon a
single idea, as a description for the more alert state experienced by the
others.[23]
A new definition of hypnosis, derived from academic psychology,
was provided in 2005, when the Society for Psychological Hypnosis, Division 30
of the American Psychological Association (APA),
published the following formal definition:
Hypnosis typicall