suggestion

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noun

1. Something that is put forward for consideration: proposal, proposition, submission. See offer.
2. Something, such as a feeling, thought, or idea, associated in one's mind or imagination with a specific person or thing: association, connection, connotation. See suggest.
3. A subtle pointing out: clue, cue, hint, intimation. See knowledge/ignorance, suggest.
4. A slight amount or indication: breath, dash, ghost, hair, hint, intimation, semblance, shade, shadow, soupçon, streak, suspicion, taste, tinge, touch, trace, whiff, whisper. Informal whisker. See big/small/amount, show/hide.

n

Definition: advice, plan
Antonyms: declaration, demand, order, telling

James Braid, the British doctor who popularized hypnotism, was the first to use the term "suggestion" to describe experiments in which the hypnotist, using a gesture or word, triggers the subject's automatic obedience. Around 1860 Ambroise Liebeault decided to make use of suggestion for therapeutic purposes: orders, formulated in an authoritarian or well-meaning manner, would help trigger hypnosis and the therapeutic process. Hippolyte Bernheim extended this by claiming that suggestion had explanatory powers. In 1891 he defined suggestion as "the act through which an idea is introduced into the brain and accepted by it." According to Bernheim, an idea suggested verbally by the operator triggered a representation-adherence on the part of a subject endowed with "crédivité." Unless inhibited, this idea tended to be translated into actions ("ideo-dynamism").

Bernheim noted that some subjects were more susceptible than others and used the term "suggestibility" to describe the ability to respond to suggestion. Contrary to Jean Martin Charcot, he did not see this as pathological, but as a very general psychological phenomenon, present to a varying degree in everyone. Thus, suggestion helps to explain hypnosis as well as the mechanism or process of education, the adherence to a belief, and so on.

Gabriel de Tarde in Les Lois de l'imitation (1890), and Gustav Le Bon, in La Psychologie des foules (1895), used suggestion to describe the connection between two or more people that serves as the basis for a society or a crowd. For Bernheim, however, hypnosis only facilitated therapeutic suggestibility, and suggestive psychotherapies could be practiced in a waking state. This identification of hypnosis with suggestion resulted in criticism from Liebeault, and especially from Charcot and his followers.

Originating in the School of Nancy, for which Bernheim was the spokesman, all of Europe took an interest in experiments, therapies, and models of suggestion. Experiments were conducted on "suggested" crimes, which triggered theoretical, ethical, and juridical polemics. Although experiments with suggestion were met with trepidation, its therapeutic use generated tremendous hope. It was believed it would be able to eliminate certain symptoms, like pain, associated with organic illnesses and heal "nervous disorders" such as hysteria, as well as sexual inversion and alcoholism.

Suggestion, as a therapy and as a concept, raised questions and criticisms from many of its practitioners. Bernheim remarked that some subjects can present resistance to "direct suggestion." In such cases it is better not to give a direct order, but rather to tell the patient nothing can be done, and the problem will heal itself. In this context Bernheim also spoke of "indirect suggestion," an expression used in a similar sense by Charcot and his school. The Belgian Joseph Delboeuf emphasized self-suggestion, the ability to resist, and the will of the patient. The Dutch practitioner Frederik Van Eeden, who was, like Delboeuf, part of the Nancy School, pointed out that suggestive psychotherapy must involve collaboration between the doctor and his patient, respecting the patient's autonomy to as great an extent as possible. Pierre Janet criticized the overly broad extension given to the concept of suggestion and proposed, in 1889, in L'Automatisme psychologique, a more limited definition: "The influence of one person on another, who carries it out without the intermediary of voluntary consent." At the same time he reactivated the older notion, associated with animal magnetism, of "rapport." Auguste Forel, a Swiss practitioner, noted the ambiguity of the word suggestion, which designates both a therapeutic procedure associated with an order from the practitioner and a psychic process that leads the subject to respond to someone else's influence.

The articles Freud wrote in 1895 on hypnosis and suggestion situate him within the critical movement outlined above. He subsequently abandoned suggestion both as a therapeutic practice and as a psychological explanation. Nonetheless, he claimed in the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-17a) that "in our technique we have abandoned hypnosis only to rediscover suggestion in the shape of transference" (p. 446). Although we can do away with suggestion, the problems associated with the process remain and have been shifted toward the transference. In 1921 Freud returned to the question of hypnosis and suggestion, and of suggestion as a model of the social bond.

Looking at contemporary techniques of hypnosis, we find that the therapies inspired by Milton Erickson have reactivated the identification of hypnosis with suggestion. The procedures used (the proposal of metaphors, paradoxical orders, or prohibitions) seem less authoritarian than those employed at the end of the nineteenth century, but may still be compared to the "indirect suggestion" used in the past.

Bibliography

Carroy, Jacqueline. (1991). Hypnose, suggestion et psychologie: l'invention de sujets. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Chertok, Léon, and Stengers, Isabelle. (1992). A critique of psychoanalytic reason. Hypnosis as a scientific problem from Lavoisier to Lacan (Martha Noel Evans, Trans.) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1989)

Ellenberger, Henri. F. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious: The history and evolution of dynamic psychiatry. New York: Basic Books.

Freud, Sigmund. (1921c). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. SE, 18: 65-143.

Gauld, Alan. (1992). A history of hypnotism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

—JACQUELINE CARROY

Sensitivity of an entranced subject to suggestion is the characteristic and invariable accompaniment of the hypnotic state and is also a distinctive feature of hysteria. Indeed, many scientists gave to hypnotism the name "suggestion." An abnormal suggestibility implies some measure of cerebral dissociation. In this state every suggestion advanced by the operator, whether conveyed by word, gesture, or even unconscious glance, operates with abnormal force in the brain of the subject, which becomes relieved from the counterexcitement of other ideas and stimuli.

In the view of psychologist Pierre Janet, all suggestibility implies a departure from perfect sanity, but this, although perhaps true in the strictest sense, is somewhat misleading, since all individuals are more or less amenable to suggestion. In hypnotism and hysteria, however, the normal suggestibility is greatly exaggerated, and the suggestion, meeting with no opposition from the recipient's critical or judicial faculties (be-cause there are no other ideas with which to compare it), becomes, for the time, the subject's dominant idea. The suggestion thus accepted has a powerful effect on both mind and body; hence the value of suggestion in certain complaints is incalculable.

The miracles of healing claimed by Christian Science, New Thought, and other groups, the efficacy of a pilgrimage to Lourdes, the feats of healing mediums—all testify to its powerful effect.

Posthypnotic suggestion is the term applied to a suggestion made while the subject is entranced but which is to be carried out after awakening. Sometimes an interval of months may elapse between the utterance of a command and its fulfillment, but almost invariably at the stated time or stipulated stimulus the suggestion is obeyed, the recipient usually being unaware of the source of the impulse.

Autosuggestion does not proceed from any extraneous source, but arises in one's own mind, either spontaneously or from a misconception of existing circumstances, as in the case of a person who is persuaded to drink colored water under the impression that it is poison and exhibits every symptom of poisoning. Autosuggestion may arise spontaneously in dreams, the automatic obedience to such suggestion often giving rise to stories of "veridical" dreams.

The outbreaks of religious frenzy or ecstasy that swept Europe in the Middle Ages were examples of the results of mass suggestion (i.e., suggestion made by a crowd, and much more potent than that made by an individual). Cases of so-called collective hallucination may have the same cause.

Psychical researchers have been interested in suggestion because it involves abnormal conditions of mind and body. It may be an aspect of healing by faith, for suggestion can cause and cure diseases and bad habits, remove inhibitions, mitigate deficiencies of character, stimulate the imagination, vivify the senses, and heighten intellectual powers.

William James described suggestion as "another name for the power of ideas, so far as they prove efficacious over belief and conduct." According to F. W. H. Myers, the power is exercised by the subliminal self. He defined suggestion as "successful appeal to the subliminal self." It is well known that dreams may be influenced by external stimuli applied to the sleeper, such as whispering in the ear or moving the limbs. Suggestion is also a powerful factor in advertising, particularly in the use of persuasive repetition and "subliminal suggestions" in television commercials.

IN BRIEF: n. - A proposal offered for acceptance or rejection.

When others come to you with an unprompted idea or suggestion, stop what you are doing and listen with your eyes, ears, and heart. — Mitch Thrower, Source: "The Attention Deficit Workplace" by Mitch Thrower

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Quotes:

"Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought." - Napoleon Hill

"Repeat anything often enough and it will start to become you." - Tom Hopkins

"Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality." - Earl Nightingale

"Every suggested idea produces a corresponding physical reaction. Every idea constantly repeated ends by being engraved upon the brain, provoking the act which corresponds to that idea." - Scott Reed

"To begin with, you must realize that any idea accepted by the brain is automatically transformed into an action of some sort. It may take seconds or minutes or longer -- but ideas always produce a reaction of some sort." - Scott Reed

"You affect your subconscious mind by verbal repetition." - W. Clement Stone

See more famous quotes about Suggestion

n

1. the process by which one thought or idea leads to another, as in the association of ideas. 2. the use of persuasion to implant an idea, thought, attitude, or belief in the mind of another as a means of influencing or altering behavior or state of mind.

For a list of words related to suggestion, see:

• Tools, Techniques, Principles, and Practitioners - suggestion: induction of an idea that is accepted and readily acted on, esp. under hypnosis; idea so induced

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See words rhyming with "suggestion."

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - forslag, antydning, henstilling, vink, mindelse, fingerpeg, suggestion

Nederlands (Dutch)
suggestie, raadgeving, aanwijzing, hint

Français (French)
n. - suggestion, soupçon (de), pointe (de), (Psych) suggestion

Deutsch (German)
n. - Spur, Vorschlag, Andeutung

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εισήγηση, πρόταση, υπόδειξη, υπαινιγμός, νύξη, μνεία, υποβολή, υποβολιμαίος επηρεασμός, ίχνος, υποψία

Italiano (Italian)
consiglio, suggerimento, indicazione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - sugestão (f)

Русский (Russian)
предложение, совет, намек, внушение, предположение

Español (Spanish)
n. - consejo, dictamen, sugerencia, sugestión, indicación

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - förslag, antydan, vink, uppslag, föreställning, idé, anstrykning, nyans, antagande

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
提议, 暗示, 意见

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 提議, 暗示, 意見

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 암시, 시사 , 연상

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 提議, 提案, 暗示, 示唆, 連想, 風

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) اقتراح‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮הצעה, רמז, סימן קל, שמץ, השאה, סוגסטיה‬

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