One of the earliest investigators to recognize the unique contribution of the subject’s individuality in understanding the essential dynamics and power of indirect suggestion was Albert Moll in his text on [tag-tec]hypnotism[/tag-tec] (1890). He describes and illustrates his views as follows: The subject in this way completes most suggestions by a process resembling the indirect suggestion . . . . The external suggestion [from the operator] does not remain an isolated phenomenon, but causes a series of other mental processes, according to the character of the subject and to the hypnotic training he has received. I say to the subject, Here, take this bottle of Eau de Cologne! He believes that he feels the bottle in his hand, which in reality is empty; besides which he believes he sees the bottle and smells it, although I add nothing to my original suggestion. In short, he completes it independently. This is a very common occurrence.

In this illustration Moll recognizes that the subject completes the operator’s bare suggestion of the presence of a bottle of Eau de Cologne by adding and apparently appreciating the visual and olfactory components of it. Simple and obvious as it may be, this example clearly illustrates a basic and most significant characteristic and power of indirect suggestion: The subject’s own unique repertory of associations and behavioral potentials makes an important contribution to the [tag-tec]hypnotic[/tag-tec] response. A more revealing description of the role of nonverbal indirect suggestion is given by Sidis (1898) as follows: Instead of openly telling the subject what he should do, the experimenter produces some object, or makes a movement, a gesture, which in their own silent fashion tell the subject what to do. To illustrate it by a few examples, so as to make my meaning clearer: I stretch out the hand of the hypnotic subject and make it rigid, and while doing this I press his arm with an iron rod. In the next seance as soon as the iron rod touches the arm the hand becomes rigid. I tell the subject to spell the word Napoleon, and when he comes to “p” I stretch out my hand and make it stiff. The subject begins to stammer; the muscles of his lips spasmodically contract and stiffen . . . . Such a kind of suggestion may be properly designated as [tag-tec]indirect suggestion[/tag-tec].

The principles of association and generalization implied in this illustration, where an iron rod or the operator’s stiffened arm is enough to make the subject’s facial muscles stiffen, are also highly characteristic of the process of indirect suggestion. In the following exposition Sidis illustrates how the principles of contiguity, similarity, and contrast are additional means by which the subject’s own unique psychodynamics make a contribution to the hypnotic response: In short, when there is full and complete realization of the idea or order suggested, directly or indirectly, we have that kind of suggestion which can be designated as immediate.

Instead, however, of immediately taking the hint and fully carrying it into execution, the subject may realize something else, either what is closely allied with the idea suggested or what is connected with it by association of contiguity. A suggestion given to the subject that when he wakes up he will see a tiger is an example. He is awakened, and sees a big cat. The subject is suggested that on awakening he will steal the pocketbook lying on the table. When aroused from the [tag-tec]hypnotic state[/tag-tec], he goes up to the table, does not take the pocketbook, but the pencil that lies close to it. The buyer does not always choose the precise thing which the salesman suggests, but some other thing closely allied to it. In case the suggestion is not successful, it is still as a rule realized in some indirect and mediate way. Man is not always doing what has been suggested to him; he sometimes obeys not the suggested idea itself, but some other idea associated with the former by contiguity, similarity, or contrast. Suggestion by contrast is especially interesting, as it often gives rise to counter-suggestion. Now such kind of suggestion, where not the suggested idea itself but the one associated with it is realized, can be designated as mediate.

The subject’s tendency to mediate or actually construct his own hypnotic responses out of the stimuli and suggestions proffered by the operator is an essential insight. It does away with the still all too common misconception of the hypnotic subject as a passive automaton who is programmed and controlled by the operator.

Another view of the dynamics, effectiveness and power of suggestion is that of the Pavlovian school discussed by Platonov (1959) as follows: In indirect verbal suggestion the effectuation of the suggestion is, as a rule, related to a particular object or influence by means of which the suggestion must actually be effectuated. Thus, for example, a waking subject is told that the indifferent white powder offered to him is a soporific. The subject therefore falls asleep as soon as he takes the white powder . . . . It follows that indirect verbal suggestion is based on the formation of a conditioned bond between the stimulus of the second signal system (the words of suggestion) and the stimulus of the first signal system (the white powder placebo), and the realization of the suggested effect (which provokes certain phenomena or acts), each of these three elements having definite direct cortical bonds with the past experience of the subject . . . .

At the same time, in an indirect suggestion the moment of execution of the suggestion may be postponed. Thus, the execution of the suggestion is connected not only with a definite object (or word, or place) but also with a definite time for which it will be set. By force of this, the very fact of the suggestive verbal influence recedes into the background. In other words, the suggestion by word becomes latently active . . . . It is precisely the conditions under which the suggestion is effectuated that are of importance in this case, because they help in reducing criticism and sometimes make possible a direct uncritical attitude to the suggested state or action. This circumstance was reflected in A. Forel’s well known words: Suggestion is the stronger the more concealed it is (in other words, the more indirect it is).

Indirect suggestion may be successfully used with the subject awake; its suggestive influence is much greater than that of a direct suggestion. It frequently exerts an effective influence on people who do not yield to direct suggestion, as was pointed out by V. Bekhterev, A. Forel, F. Lowenfeld, et al. Even this poor overview of indirect suggestion reveals a number of basic features that are of particular interest:

(1) Indirect suggestion permits the subject’s individuality, previous life experience, and unique potentials to become manifest;

(2) the classical psychodynamics of learning with processes like association, contiguity, similarity, contrast, etc., are all involved on a more or less unconscious level so that …

(3) indirect suggestion tends to bypass conscious criticism and because of this can be more effective than direct suggestion.

These features are entirely in keeping with our experienc (Erickson, Rossi, and Rossi, 1976; Erickson and Rossi, 1976), which led us to summarize the microdynamics of trance induction and indirect suggestion as a five-stage process:

(1) the fixation of attention,

(2) depotentiating conscious sets and habitual frameworks,

(3) unconscious search,

(4) unconscious processes, and

(5) hypnotic response.

In essence, an indirect suggestion is regarded as one that initiates an unconscious search and facilitates unconscious processes within subjects so that they are usually somewhat surprised by their own response when they recognize it. More often than not, however, subjects do not even recognize the indirect suggestion as such and how their behavior was initiated and partially structured by it.