<P> When James Braid first described hypnotism, he did not use the term "suggestion" but referred instead to the act of focusing the conscious mind of the subject upon a single dominant idea . Braid's main therapeutic strategy involved stimulating or reducing physiological functioning in different regions of the body . In his later works, however, Braid placed increasing emphasis upon the use of a variety of different verbal and non-verbal forms of suggestion, including the use of "waking suggestion" and self - hypnosis . Subsequently, Hippolyte Bernheim shifted the emphasis from the physical state of hypnosis on to the psychological process of verbal suggestion: </P> <P> I define hypnotism as the induction of a peculiar psychical (i.e., mental) condition which increases the susceptibility to suggestion . Often, it is true, the (hypnotic) sleep that may be induced facilitates suggestion, but it is not the necessary preliminary . It is suggestion that rules hypnotism . </P> <P> Bernheim's conception of the primacy of verbal suggestion in hypnotism dominated the subject throughout the 20th century, leading some authorities to declare him the father of modern hypnotism . </P> <P> Contemporary hypnotism uses a variety of suggestion forms including direct verbal suggestions, "indirect" verbal suggestions such as requests or insinuations, metaphors and other rhetorical figures of speech, and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation . A distinction is commonly made between suggestions delivered "permissively" and those delivered in a more "authoritarian" manner . Harvard hypnotherapist Deirdre Barrett writes that most modern research suggestions are designed to bring about immediate responses, whereas hypnotherapeutic suggestions are usually post-hypnotic ones that are intended to trigger responses affecting behaviour for periods ranging from days to a lifetime in duration . The hypnotherapeutic ones are often repeated in multiple sessions before they achieve peak effectiveness . </P>

Describe the processes and practical uses of hypnosis