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Braid sought to replace unscientific [[ideas ]] and practices with a [[scientific ]] conception of a "peculiar [[state ]] of the nervous [[system ]] induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the [[mental ]] and [[visual ]] eye." He also hoped to do away with what magnetizers called "rapport." In the mid-nineteenth century, the [[English ]] physiologist William Carpenter provided scientific support for "Braidism" by making hypnosis the paradigm of the reflexive and automatic [[activity ]] that he called "[[unconscious ]] cerebration." Introduced to the topic by the young physiologist Charles Richet, Jean Martin Charcot experimented with hypnosis on [[hysterical ]] [[patients ]] in his [[clinic ]] starting in 1878, basing himself on Braid's and especially Carpenter's neurological approach. In 1882, in an article that was noted by the Académie des [[Sciences]], he [[identified ]] a [[pathology ]] unique to [[hysterics]], the "grand [[hypnotism]]" characterized by [[three ]] specific nervous states (catalepsy, lethargy, and somnambulism).

Starting in 1860 in Nancy, where he had set up a "clinic," Ambroise Liebeault also made use of hypnotism, employing methods established by J.-P. Durand de Gros, one of the proponents of Braidism in [[France]]. He paid special attention to Braid's experiments with [[suggestion]], using hypnotic suggestion for therapeutic purposes, unlike Charcot, whose [[practice ]] was almost purely experimental. Hippolyte Bernheim went even further and treated hypnosis as a [[particular ]] type of suggestion. He also popularized the term "[[psychotherapy]]," which he borrowed from the Briton Hack Tuke, and practiced psychotherapy by means of suggestion with and without hypnotism. After 1884 two opposing [[schools ]] of hypnosis developed around Charcot and Bernheim. In [[Paris]], the emphasis was on the [[idea ]] of a pathological nervous state; in Nancy, on that of a link or [[psychological ]] influence that was not necessarily pathological.

Nonetheless, although they often took their cue from a particular [[school]], some practitioners and researchers tried to look beyond prevailing [[theoretical ]] and therapeutic dogmas. The psychotherapist could thus refuse merely to issue commands, and attempt through hypnosis, to discover [[memories ]] forgotten during waking [[life ]] that could be at the root of [[neurotic ]] [[symptoms ]] (see the [[case ]] of Pierre Marie in L'[[Automatisme ]] psychologique by Pierre Janet, 1889). Several stories of cures associated with the [[return ]] of forgotten memories were published at the end of the nineteenth century.

In discussions of hypnotic suggestion the question of "rapport" was again raised. Joseph Delboeuf introduced the idea of reciprocal suggestion. Pierre Janet and Alfred Binet spoke of "electivity," of "somnambulant [[passion]]" and "experimental [[love]]." Additionally, there was interest in the [[psychology ]] of hypnotic states of [[consciousness]]. These were described in [[terms ]] of dissociation (Janet) or hypnoid states (Sigmund [[Freud ]] and Josef [[Breuer]]). Finally, contrary to the dominant medical view at the [[time]], the idea arose that the unconscious was not only reflexological but psychological. Experiments with post-hypnotic suggestion, in which a [[subject]], while awake, obeys an [[order ]] given during a hypnosis that he has apparently forgotten, seemed to the [[philosopher ]] [[Henri Bergson ]] to prove the [[existence ]] of unconscious ideas and a psychological unconscious. Freud the [[psychoanalyst ]] undoubtedly emerged from this plethora of research and debate: 1885-1886 (Paris), 1889 (Nancy), and 1895 (publication of the Studies on [[Hysteria]]).

Hypnosis refers both to a state of consciousness (or unconsciousness) and to a [[relationship]]. [[True ]] to the legacy of Charcot and Bernheim, [[present]]-day proponents of hypnology are still [[divided ]] into "statists" and "relationists." Some points of view, especially within the relationist school, draw on [[psychoanalysis]], while [[others ]] seek to reinstate hypnotism as part of an anti-[[psychoanalytic ]] tendency. For hypnosis, like [[animal ]] magnetism before it, does not refer only to a state or to a relationship. Since the nineteenth century it has become a magical [[word ]] with strong [[negative ]] or positive connotations and as many staunch advocates as militant opponents—a tireless vector of [[fascination ]] and stigma.

The practice, [[phenomenology]], and [[theory ]] of hypnosis have evolved, of course, since the time of [[James ]] Braid, and hypnosis can now be seen as a largely [[cultural ]] phenomenon. All the same, some questions, contradictory and probably unanswerable, seem to remain after more than a century. Is the hypnotic state akin to [[sleep ]] and dreaming, or to wakefulness and lucidity? Does it imply an unconscious dispossession, or is it a [[form ]] of playacting? And is "hypnosis" a functional [[concept ]] that can explain certain phenomenon, or a word that precipitates the very state it is supposed to account for?

See also: [[Alienation]]; [[Anna O]]., case of; Autosuggestion; Bernheim, Hippolyte; Cäcilie M., case of; [[Cathartic method]]; Charcot, Jean Martin; Chertok, Léon (Tchertok, Lejb); [[Cinema ]] and psychoanalysis; "Confusion of Tongues between [[Adults ]] and the [[Child]]"; Congrès international de l'hypnotisme expérimental et scientifique, Premier; [[Cure]]; Delboeuf, Joseph Rémi Léopold; Emmy von N., case of; Five Lectures on [[Psycho]]-[[Analysis]]; Freud's [[Self]]-analysis; Freud, the [[Secret ]] Passion; [[Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego]]; Hypnoid states; Janet Pierre; Liebault Ambroise Auguste; "Lines of Advance in Psycho-[[Analytic ]] [[Therapy]]"; Look, [[gaze]]; [[Masochism]]; Negative [[hallucination]]; Psychoanalytic [[treatment]]; Psychotherapy; Relaxation psychotherapy; [[Repression]], lifting of; [[Resistance]]; [[Self-consciousness]]; [[Studies on Hysteria]]; Suggestion; Trance; Qu'est-ce que la suggestion? (What is suggestion?).