Hypnosis is used for: desensitising phobias and for dealing with bad habits.
Smoking cures
Obesity
Sports and other performance issues
Childbirth in emergency conditions
Anaesthesia in emergency conditions - surgery, dental etc.
Nervous rashes.
Hypnosis for most people means a process in which one person called a
hypnotist influences the behaviour and experience of another referred to as the
subject. The subject to all appearances becomes a kind of puppet of the
hypnotist. Also common, is the idea that subject is in a kind of sleep.
However, the only one of these statements that is unequivocally true is the
first sentence.
No one doubts that people can influence each other. The statement that
hypnosis is a kind of sleep is unequivocally false as it is known beyond all
doubt that a hypnotised person is no more asleep than someone involved in
reading a book or absorbed in solving a problem. The other statement, that the
subject is a puppet of the hypnotist is definitely not true. In fact, for hundreds
of years psychologists and other academic specialists have argued
over whether or not there is really any scientific or logical reason for a
concept of hypnosis at all. That is, it is argued by many that there is no
evidence providing support for some special state of mind called hypnosis
because in reality it does not make anything possible that cannot be done
without it. These points will be further amplified below.
One thing about which no one disagrees is the fact that the human imagination
can exert enormous power over our behaviour, what we believe, what we perceive,
our emotional experience, our physiology or the balance of processes going on
in our bodies and even what we can achieve. Further there is no disagreement
that one person's imaginings" can be influenced by the suggestions
of another, whether given directly and verbally or via the media of books,
theatre, radio or movies. There is no disagreement about the fact that some
persons have imaginations that are more easily influenced than others. Some
people have an ability to create more life-like or real ideas and images in
their minds than others, to become more totally absorbed in those ideas and
images and shut out what is going on around them. There is no disagreement that
there are certain well established techniques and laws concerning how people's
imagination is influenced. These are the laws of suggestion.
Hypnosis is the art of influencing another person's imagination and hence
potentially, that persons behaviour and experience. And so it is argued that
hypnosis is what we all perform (and are subjected to) every day as in the
course of communicating with others we either seek to influence them or
unwittingly influence them. As an example of unwitting influence in everyday
life, I have had clients visit me in a state of anxiety because their doctor
had told them, Your blood pressure is quite low. The doctor had thought he
was complimenting his patient but had inadvertently triggered the patients
imagination in a negative way.
People in professional positions, such as lawyers and doctors, need to be
careful about their choice of words and the care with which they explain things
because their utterings have considerable suggestive power and their clients,
being often in an anxious state of mind are particularly susceptible to
suggestions (ideas) related to the source of their anxiety, e.g., the letter
from the taxation office or the recurrent chest pains etc. This problem is
amplified by the fact that people do not always fully understand what their
professional consultants tell them. Further, when people are anxious their
minds are overloaded and they listen selectively to what they are told, often
ignoring or not absorbing important contextual material. Thus, they misinterpret
what they are told, or in popular language, go off half-cocked.
The background to hypnosis.
I want this manual to be concise and free from long-winded historical padding
and referencing. However, some knowledge of the history of the hypnosis"
concept is necessary to its understanding. One can trace the use of suggestion
back into the history of the healing arts and religions in many ancient
cultures. The European history of hypnosis as we understand it, however, begins
with Anton Mesmer (1734-1831). He held that all space was permeated by an
invisible fluid called animal gravity or animal magnetism. Our nervous systems,
he thought were channels for this substance. Illness was caused by blockages in
the nerve channels and cures required that the channels be unblocked. The way
to free up these blockages Mesmer thought was to use magnets. Mesmer believed
the metal nickel was especially good for concentrating magnetism and he used it
in his treatments. The freeing up of a nervous system blockage by the use of
magnetism, Mesmer claimed, would cause a crisis. Thus his patients upon being
treated with magnets would fall down and begin to twitch and convulse. They
would then get up claiming to be cured of whatever ailed them.
Mesmers reputation was such that the French government set up a Commission
to investigate the reality of his cures. The Commission included some of the
greatest intellectuals in modern history - Benjamin Franklin, Antoine-Laurent
Lavoisier, biologist de Jussieu and Joseph Ignace Guillatin (who invented
the guillatine as a more humane way of dispatching
criminals). This commission performed its work so thoroughly that its findings
have never been effectively challenged. It found that whether or not people had
this crisis would depend on whether or not they believed they had been treated
with objects magnetised by Mesmer. A lump of lead was just as good as nickel if
the subject was told it was nickel. Crises could be induced in subjects by
having them touch a tree they were told was magnetised by Mesmer - even though
Mesmer had been nowhere near the tree. In other words the process depended on
Mesmers reputation and the imaginations of the subjects.
The commission concluded, quite correctly that Mesmers cures were the work
of the imagination. Dr Mesmer was deemed to be discredited and he ended his
days breeding canaries. The French investigating team missed something very
important, specifically that the cause of the dramatic phenomena should not
logically diminish them. It was apparently outside the teams brief to
investigate further into what feats precisely the imagination is capable of
producing. We now know that in sports for example it can be the difference
between success and failure and that the imagination can be used to train us to
consciously control autonomic nervous functions, like heart rate as just one
very simple, non-dramatic example.
It is worth noting that Mesmer used showmanship in his treatments. He was
flamboyant. In his group healing sessions he would use mirrors, music (he was a
personal friend of Mozart) and when he judged the group mood had reached an
appropriate stage he would appear dressed in lilac robes carrying a glass wand.
The patients would draw metal rods, like wands, from his baquet,
a tub of water containing glass and iron filings. They would touch themselves
and each other with the rods. Then they would fall down twitching in a crisis,
(like the teenagers at big-name rock concerts) before getting up and claiming
to be cured.
The Abbey (A French priests title of respect) Joseph Faria
(1756-1819), recognised that the all-important fact was the desperation of the
patients or subjects. (The great importance of the subjects needs and
motivation is reinforced throughout this manual.) Dr.
A. A. Liebeault (1823-1904) recognised that
Mesmeric phenomena or hypnosis was the result of suggestion and psychological
factors. Subjects had crises or convulsions because this is what the publicity
surrounding Mesmer had lead them to expect. Today, we
know we dont need any hardware such as nickel, magnets or iron rods (although
physical gimmicks can still be useful tools, and modern practitioners have
found it more convenient to use the term hypnosis and to condition the
public to an expectation of hypnosis as being something like sleep which is far
less disruptive than a convulsion and less likely to encounter emotional and
intellectual resistance. Would you the reader, sooner be given a convulsion or
put into a harmless sleep?
The special state controversy.
As stated above, there is an academic controversy concerning the scientific
justification for a concept of hypnosis. This is not a formal academic
treatise but for purposes of practical education something more must be said
about this. A great many experiments have demonstrated that anything that can
be done with hypnosis can be done just as well without it. In reality hypnosis
cannot reduce the pain threshold any more than in someone who is simply using
his imagination without the direction of a hypnotist. It is known beyond doubt
that hypnosis cannot improve ones memory, and even the demonstrations of
hypnotic regression (having the subject becomes a child again) are not in
reality, accurate representations of what that person was like as a child. Claims
that infantile regression can reinstate physiological reflexes (plantar reflex)
only found in babies, and childhood handwriting have
not stood up to close scrutiny. The fact that hypnosis does not make possible
anything that cannot be done equally as well without hypnosis has given rise to
the non-special state theory which holds that there is no scientific reason
for a concept of "hypnosis
This point of view does not deny the power of imagination when used in a
methodical fashion but merely says that the use of the full power of the imagination
does not require any special state of mind or any particular ritual. The most
well-known proponent of this point of view is T. X. Barber.
The opposing point of view is that there is sufficient reason for a concept
of hypnosis as a special state of mind. A major problem for the special state theorists
is the difficulty of distinguishing between hypnotised persons and persons who
have not been subjected to any particular ritual but have been asked to pretend
to be hypnotised. The pretenders are able to perform all perceptual, memory and
pain resisting tasks as well as the hypnotised subjects. One leading American
special state theorist, Martin Orne proposed a
concept of trance logic which he said distinguished hypnotised persons from
the pretending control persons. According to Orne if
genuinely hypnotised persons are told to hallucinate a double of themselves, and subsequently receive instructions such as,
Would the hallucinated you raise his hand please, the subjects raise their
hands. When pretenders are treated in the same way, Orne
said, they do not raise their hand. However other investigators have found that
Ornes experiments with trance logic are not reliably
replicable. My own non-published experiments in a clinical setting have failed
to replicate Ornes findings.
Professor Peter Sheehan (one of my lecturers at UNE) had 2 groups, a
hypnotised group and a group of pretenders both following tape recorded
instructions. One group was hypnotised and obeying the hypnotic instructions
of a voice from a tape recorder. The control group of pretenders were following
the same tape recording of instructions but were told to pretend to be
hypnotised. After the sessions had been in progress for some time the tape
recorder was made to break down so the instructions suddenly ceased.
According to Sheehan the hypnotised group continued for some time to behave
as if hypnotised and in a trance, gradually arousing themselves,
whereas the pretenders almost immediately dropped the pretence.
A problem in interpreting this ingenious experiment lies in the fact that
the hypnotised group was selected in the first place for their hypnotic
susceptibility meaning they had already been tested and had displayed the
characteristics of people who are commonly said to be very hypnotizable. In other words
they were selected in the first place because they behave differently from most
people, to commands and ideas issued in a particular way, and further were
operating under a totally different set of instructions. Therefore the fact
that they behaved differently from other people when the tape recorder broke
down should not surprise anyone. One group was concerned that they should be
obeying the tape recorder and the other group was less concerned.
Some successful special state theorists nevertheless, to my mind, behave
as if they were non-special state theorists. For example, the late Milton
Erickson, an American psychiatrist who was acquiring virtually cult leader
status amongst young psychotherapists even before his death, believed that
hypnosis involves a special state. His technique however, seemed to me from
watching videos of his sessions, to suggest otherwise. Erickson, like most good
hypnotherapists saw no need to make any special mention of hypnosis to his
patients or go through any dramatic rituals. He simply capitalised on his
patients needs and expectations about which he was quite intuitive, his
reputation, and he engaged their imaginations with colourful word pictures and
stories. He was noted for getting ideas and suggestions across to his patients
by means of metaphor or parables, fictitious stories that make points in subtle
and yet easy to digest ways, even subliminal ways.
The Experience of Hypnosis.
A hypnotist will often use terms like, You are becoming drowsy, sleepier and
sleepier, or Your eyes are getting heavier, and possibly, Your
arm is becoming heavier, numb and heavy etc. More will be said about such suggestions
under the heading, What it Involves. The point to be
made here is that hypnosis has nothing to do with sleep. The word sleep as
used by hypnotists is nothing more than a useful metaphor that stimulates the
subjects imaginations in a way that induces a relaxed and calm state of mind.
A hypnotised person is no more asleep than someone who is reading a book or
just day dreaming. If you are the subject and a plane flies overhead or a
truck rumbles past the chances are that you will hear it and remember it quite
distinctly. If you are a very good well motivated subject or your hypnotist a
particularly good communicator you might not notice the plane or truck because
of your total absorption in what is being suggested.
Most people who have had hypnotherapy will tell you that they were aware of
everything. Many will add, I dont think I was really under. Most
hypnotherapy clients immediately after a session will say something like, That
was good. I havent relaxed so deeply in a very long time. Another typical
comment: He told me I couldnt separate my hands but I could have if I had
really wanted to. Such clients are telling the literal truth. The glued hands
response (or similar demonstrations) shows that the subject was being fully
cooperative and willingly entering into the spirit of the enterprise. But there
is more to it than just "simply going along" with situation to humour
the hypnotist. Very susceptible persons become to a point, captives of their
own motives and needs.
The Factors That Make Hypnosis.
Hypnosis as a contract (and therefore as a relationship): Hypnosis is an
unspoken, unwritten contract between two people. The subject agrees to let the
other person play hypnotist. The hypnotists function is that of a movie
director who suggests scenes, ideas and behaviour for the subject to follow.
The subject is in effect saying to the hypnotist, I will do whatever you
suggest and immerse myself as fully as possible in whatever phantasies or ideas
that you suggest just as long as this is consistent with my needs or motives,
and not harmful to me in any way, and for as long as seems appropriate given
the context of our meeting and relationship. The time frame is usually defined
by a ritual of induction and of waking up.
Needs and motives.
The kind of needs and motives that might be involved in hypnosis could be to
give up smoking, overcome a fear, say of public speaking, the need to receive
special attention or to indulge a need to behave in a certain way without
actually having to take responsibility for the behaviour. It is this latter
need that makes possible an entertaining stage hypnosis show. Unfortunately it
is the idea, implicit within the popular concept of hypnosis, that it involves
transferring responsibility to the hypnotist that attracts many clients to
hypnotherapy. They are hoping (although they invariably deny it at first) for a
magical change without effort or pain. The hypnotist too, brings his or her
needs and motives into the situation. These might include a need to earn a
living in an agreeable way while having the satisfaction of helping people, a
need to try the most effective ways possible to help his or her client, a need
to find prestige in playing the wizard, or the good and powerful doctor or
simply to have a marketable profession.
The interesting but perplexing thing about our needs and motives is that we
very vigorously deny many of them, that is, we do not recognise some of them
because they contradict the ideas we have about ourselves - our self-image.
An important aside: Self Image and Cognitive Dissonance.
Educational studies going back to the Wilbur Brookover
study which covered students progressing from 7th to 12th Grade over the 6 year
period 1962-1968, have highlighted the extreme importance of self-image and expectation
with regard to academic achievement. It has been shown that self-expectation
can be more important than intelligence which has a disappointing correlation
with actual performance. Self-concept and self-expectation, i.e. self- image,
are the real factors limiting achievement, not intelligence. And this has been
shown to apply in every area of life, academic, sporting, social and business
achievement. Self-image once formed is hard to shift and we tend to resist any
information that is not consistent with our self-image. So the laws of
suggestion i.e. hypnosis can be used to help people modify their self-image,
the expectations they have of themselves.
Festingers cognitive dissonance theory is to my
mind one of the most important concepts in psychology for it is testable and
has withstood empirical investigation. Lets say that although not a mechanic,
you are proud of your knowledge of motor cars and think you are competent to
make a good choice in purchasing a second hand car. Lets say having made a
purchase a mechanic friend tells you the car you bought is no good. You now
have cognitive dissonance, you will get a sinking
feeling, and will seek to reduce the dissonance in the most cost efficient way
possible. Some alternatives that will come into your mind: A very clever
salesman cheated you and you are a trusting person, your friend is not really a
mechanics bootlace and has made a premature judgement, your friend is not
really a friend and is just trying to upset you. The truth, namely that you
were outside your area of competence and should have sought professional advice
before buying the car will be the very last idea that you will seriously
entertain. Harking back to the Brookover study
mentioned above, it was found that students with poor expectations of
themselves but who managed to get surprisingly good results, likewise tried to
reduce their cognitive dissonance by mentally disparaging their good result and
the reason they got it. In other words these people felt more comfortable with
failure! This is because failure was consistent with their self
image.
The above material on self-image or self-concept and cognitive dissonance is
of vital importance to hypnotherapists who are expected to help people with all
sorts of performance issues, from sporting performance to performance in social
and business situations.
Trust.
A person will behave as a hypnotised subject only for as long as the hypnotist
does not go beyond the unspoken terms of the hypnotic contract. These terms,
having never been actually spelled out exist only implicitly, and arise out of
whatever the subject understands hypnosis to mean and out of any communication
between hypnotist and subject that might precede an induction ritual.
If a hypnotist were both naive enough to believe that he or she really did
have direct control of the subjects mind and behaviour, and unethical enough
to try to exploit the situation at the subjects expense, then the subject
would immediately rescind the contract. In other words the spell or hypnotic
rapport would be broken. If the subjects eyes were closed at the time, he or
she would simply open them and cease responding in accord with the hypnotists suggestions.
The subject may make no reference to the attempted exploitation and simply seem
confused, or he or she might enter into a heated confrontation with the
hypnotist depending on the precise situation and the personalities involved.
I have witnessed several demonstrations of this breaking of the contract
with subjects of the very highest susceptibility to suggestion. No one enters
so deeply into the hypnotist- directed make-believe world of the imagination
that they cease to monitor consensus reality and their orientation within it.
Trust is also important because at the outset a subject does not know what
to expect of hypnosis and unless he or she feels safe is unlikely to completely
relax and let go to the extent required. Hypnosis means relaxing and letting
someone else be director of the action on the stage of ones mind. This is not
possible with a tense, untrusting attitude. The quality of hypnosis achieved
depends on the quality of the subjects cooperation or rapport with the
hypnotist. As in any constructive, psychological relationship between people
this involves trust.
Expectation.
University psychologists have performed many experiments demonstrating that
people tend to see or perceive whatever they expect (and what people expect can
be sometimes manipulated by the processes of suggestion). In one student
experiment, carried out in a public place, a man withdrew a banana from under
his coat and pointed it another person, who dropped to the ground as someone
else let off a firecracker. Witnesses swore they saw the first man draw a gun
and fire it! Movie directors (and stage magicians) make use of this quirk of
human psychology in order to get their effects cheaply and without risk to
actors. Expectation is also related to what is written about self- image above.
Consider the effect of the following cinema shots if joined in rapid
succession: A camera shot of a man driving a car, followed by a shot
(presumably through a windscreen) of a pedestrian in the middle of the road
being approached by the camera at alarming speed, followed by successive
close-ups of an alarmed driver and his foot stamping on the brake, followed by
an extreme close-up of the now alarmed pedestrian through the windscreen,
followed by a long-shot of a now stationary car with a body on the road nearby.
Viewers of such a movie sequence will report that they saw the car hit the
pedestrian, especially if sound effects are skilfully employed. Movie makers
have discovered that sound can have extremely powerful suggestive force and can
contribute more to our emotional reactions than a visual image.
The books and movie about the house of the Amityville Horror was merely a
hoax, and yet many people who visited the location of the house reported
strange sights and experiences. A young woman who visited the property fell
down in a convulsion on the front lawn only to be told she was at the wrong
address! This anecdote demonstrating the power of belief and expectation has
parallels in the early history of hypnosis as explained above.
Belief and faith.
Some of the most powerful demonstrations of belief and faith lie in the
established facts of placebo medicine.
A placebo is any substance or object or process which is known to have no
medicinal or other noticeable effect but is administered to a patient in lieu
of a useful or active substance or procedure. In some experiments patients or
experimental subjects are given a placebo but are made to believe (e.g. by
telling them a lie) that they have been given a potent substance or medicine.
Some American medical reports in the 1970s indicated that placebo medicine
could be 80% effective compared against morphine in reducing pain. Does your
headache disappear because you took the aspirin or because you expected the
aspirin to cure your headache? How many times has your symptom of illness
disappeared almost at the very moment you hung up the phone from booking an
appointment to see your doctor? Your doctor, lawyer, or accountant is likely to
be just as generally competent and effective in dealing with your problems as you
believe or expect him or her to be.
Needs and motives.
Academic psychologists have long known from the results of experiments that
there is a tendency for people to see or perceive what they need to see or
perceive. If, for example, you are very hungry you will perceive indications of
food even where in reality there are none (that is you may misinterpret
ambiguous data), and you will detect signs of food that others might miss.
Beliefs (or expectations) combined with needs (or motives). These two sorts
of factors make an extremely powerful combination. They are very important in
any craft that seeks to manipulate the experiences and behaviour of human
beings and are therefore kept well in mind by hypnotists, psychotherapists,
salespeople, advertising agencies, marketing experts, movie directors,
politicians, leaders of religions etc. It is worth noting that beliefs and
needs are not necessarily distinctly separate factors because human need is all
powerful and can even apparently determine what one believes. Surely youve
known, for example, of a mother who against all evidence has believed what she
needed to believe about her child, and perhaps youve noticed that people who
are dependent on government grants or who have a high likelihood of needing
social security payments will be more likely than others to favour socialist
philosophies, and likewise those who aspire to the acquisition of significant
capital will favour conservative political philosophies?
Imagination.
Imagination is central to hypnosis. At the Hypnotists direction we imagine our
hands have glued together, or we imagine ourselves behaving fearlessly in
certain situations. It is important to note that there appears to be very
significant differences amongst people concerning how they use their
imaginations. Some people can absorb themselves more fully in their
imaginations than others and give their imagined experiences more depth of
reality. We say such people are more suggestible than others.
Can people be hypnotised against their will?
Hypnosis is a voluntary relationship. No one can be hypnotised against his or
her will. However, to some degree people can be manipulated without them being
aware of the process because the human imagination is not entirely under the
influence of the will and (though we may vehemently deny it) we are all slaves
to our deepest needs and fears. For example, I was explaining to a female
friend the processes and instrumentation used in a surgical procedure called a
dilation and curette. At first she merely showed interest in what I was saying,
but then suddenly fainted at my feet.
Perhaps youve sat with your family at a meal when one member (probably a
junior) began talking about an unsavoury subject? The other family members
would have complained that junior was putting them off their
meals. In other words, junior was influencing the imagination of the others and
hence their experience of the meal, in a way they found unpleasant. Although we
cant be made to do anything against our will without coercion, it is true that
our imagination can be triggered against our will, as every child knows. The
behaviour and experience of people can be manipulated against their will to the
extent that their imaginations can be manipulated against their will. If a
manipulator also has insight into the emotional or other needs of the other
person he can tailor his or her suggestions to create an expectation that if
certain things are done, those needs will be fulfilled.
Artists, marketing experts, religious leaders, and politicians are all
successfully manipulating us by capitalising on our imagination and appealing
to our beliefs and motives. In this sense they are hypnotising us. Their task
is made easier by the fact that we do not recognise all of our needs or
motives. For example a need for prestige is quite pervasive but because we are
taught that seeking self-aggrandisement is shameful we tend not to recognise
the full extent of this need in ourselves. This lack of insight makes humans in
general very susceptible to flattery, especially the more subtle forms and to
any suggestions appealing to our need for admiration (simply showing great
interest in, and respect for what someone is saying can be a subtle and yet
very powerful form of flattery). For the same reasons we are also extremely
susceptible to appeals to our greed..
The manipulator can use various psychological devices to help us rationalise
these motives, that is to disguise or redecorate them so that we feel
comfortable with our behaviour. This sort of manipulation is much more the
province of salesmanship and showmanship than true hypnosis: Im so happy to be
in your very beautiful city (barely 5 minutes after stepping off the plane),
or, You Aussis are so much more advanced than us Americans
in this respect.). But salesmanship, demagoguery or social-political
manipulation does not take place in the same context that more or less defines hypnosis.
Hypnosis is a voluntary and collaborative relationship operating within
limitations, like a contract.
Hypnotists, both of the show business and psychotherapeutic variety have a
conflicting need to convince intending subjects of the reality and power of
hypnosis while at the same time assuaging any fear of it. This leads them to
say such things as, But dont worry because under hypnosis you cannot be made
to do anything against your moral code or anything you really dont want to do.
Few people, including I suspect most hypnotists themselves, ever think about
the logical meaning of such statements. A person can do something because they
themselves will it or alternatively because they are made to do it. There is no
other alternative. If hypnosis (or anything else for that matter) cannot make
or force you to do something you dont really want to do, what can it MAKE you
do? (Something against your moral code is simply something you strongly dont
want to do) The answer obviously, is nothing! So once again we see hypnosis
involves the subjects own motivation.
The real value and power of hypnosis is that it is a method for getting
subjects to focus their imaginations in new and hopefully constructive ways. It
is this concentration of the mind in the act of imagining that gives rise to
the notion of hypnosis as a trance. Hypnosis is also a device for allowing
subjects to try out uncharacteristic behaviour safely both in imagination and
in real life because they are not being required to assume responsibility for
their own behaviour. Psychotherapists say this in different words when they
speak about the liberating and empowering, permission granting power of
hypnosis and the value of hypnosis in ego strengthening. Another technique
every bit as powerful as hypnosis with regard to its permission granting power and
behaviour modification potential is group work where people with a similar
focus come together to learn from each other and support each other. If youve
ever been to a live-in seminar you might have experienced the so called
seminar-high. Groups have the problem that they rarely persist across
sufficient time to have a permanent effect.
It is our imagination that gives a persons reputation the power to
influence us. If for example we believe that a person has the power to
influence us in some way it will tend to be true.
ldeo-motor tendencies.
Our imagination can affect our bodies in various ways. Just thinking about an
action can cause us to start to make that action with minute movements of the
relevant muscles. Even when we are thinking or reading, the muscles in our
voice box move slightly in what is called sub-vocal speech. If youve ever
become engrossed in watching a boxing match you might have noticed your
tendency to duck and weave. Hypnotists sometimes make use of ideo-motor tendencies to convince subjects that they are
being influenced by his or her (the hypnotists) suggestions and thus further
increase their belief and expectation of being influenced. More will be said about
this under the heading How it is Done.
Suggestion.
Hypnotists and others influence us by manipulating our imagination via the use
of suggestions. Suggestions are simply assertions or ideas delivered verbally,
by the written word, and audio or audio-visual representations. Suggestion, the
stock-in-trade of all of the theatrical arts, can also be created by the
expectations that are built up by the logic of a string of events. For example,
in a James Bond film an Asian bodyguard appears to slice the head off a garden
statue with a steel brimmed hat. However in the shot of the head separating
from the statue the hat does not actually appear when the film is slowed down.
Again, in an old silent film comedy, a lovely young woman goes behind a high
screen. Then, piece by piece her hand is seen throwing items of clothing and
underwear over the top of the screen while 2 male clowns standing nearby become
increasingly excited. Finally, the screen is knocked over to reveal that the
woman was merely taking clothes out of a cupboard. In live theatre an entire
city or countryside can be suggested by just a few carefully designed props or
pieces of stage scenery.
Stress can increase ones susceptibility to suggestion, especially if the
suggestions are perceived as being even remotely relevant to the source of
stress. For this reason political-military brain washing techniques make heavy
use of insecurity, terror, pain, loss of dignity, isolation, hunger, thirst,
sleeplessness and perceived security and trust in the company of compatriots
who have already adopted the patterns of thought and behaviour rewarded by the
captors. The captors may characterise themselves as being the victims of the
captives society and present a line of argument that taken at face value has a
significant degree of credibility. Such suggestions are more likely to be
accepted by someone who is under great stress and who stands to gain by his or
her acceptance of such an argument. Because hypnosis involves a voluntary
relationship, hypnotists rely almost entirely on verbal suggestions and normal
physical reactions which the subject is encouraged to believe are the result of
the hypnotists suggestions. The hypnotist will make use of any simple
psychological devices calculated to raise the subjects expectations of being
influenced in some way and to increase his or her credibility as a hypnotist,
that is, as someone who has extra ordinary powers that can modify the
experience and behaviour of other people.
A stage hypnotist playing in a city for the first time without an
established reputation can ensure the success of his show by simply having a
video of his earlier shows playing in the foyer of the theatre (or better
still, in TV adverts) before his performance starts. This conditions the
expectations and suggestibility of the audience. He or she can also spike the
audience with stooges or people he/shes hypnotised before. The sight of one
person being influenced increases the suggestibility of all who watch. One of
the simplest and yet most powerful devices for amplifying the effect of ones suggestions
(as all politicians quickly learn) is merely to comport oneself and speak with
an air of total self-assurance and conviction. Such an air of confidence is
absolutely essential for anyone who earns a living through influencing others.
The Technique of Hypnosis or How it is Done.
It can be argued that in reality there is no need for any special technique or
ritual if the conditions for hypnosis are already present. For example a suggestible
subject, one who has an imagination that is vivid and easily influenced might
respond in hypnotic fashion immediately without any need for ritual if he or
she believed the other person or hypnotist had special powers and if that hypnotist
or other person issued suggestions consistent with the subjects beliefs,
expectations and needs. As Ive said elsewhere, many of us are hypnotized the moment
we walk into our doctors consulting room.
Perhaps youve seen televised faith healing sessions? After a few prayers, a
person who has been publicised to the congregation as having special powers
calls each supplicant forward, places a hand on their head, utters a few
prayer-like words and the supplicant collapses to be caught by other
congregation members. The ritual may be reasonably brief and minimal but gains
its power from the reputation of the operator together with the beliefs,
expectations and especially the needs of the supplicants. The main requirements
for the faith healer are a reputation (or at least some artificially contrived
prestige as the next best thing), an air of total confidence and, above all,
some congregation members who desperately need hope, as recognised by the 18th.
Century Abbe Joseph Faria mentioned above.
In clinical situations some form of ritual is used if the client
specifically seeks hypnotherapy. This is necessary firstly because otherwise
the clients would not feel they had been hypnotised! In reality, however, it is
possible that the client may have such faith in the therapeutic competence of
the doctor or psychologist that he or she could be beneficially influenced
without the need for any ritual of the sort traditionally recognised as being hypnotic.
In such a case the doctor or psychologist could merely carry out some form of
examination, utter a few hmmms and ahas and then make a pronouncement concerning the patients
problem and the appropriate cure.
Of course it is not easy for a doctor or psychologist to gauge the extent of
the patients faith in his or her competence and a
person who actively seeks hypnosis will require some formal application of hypnosis
order to be satisfied.
Step 1 in the formal induction of hypnosis is to allay any fears that the
subject might have and then to encourage deep relaxation. Relaxation of the
client is often accomplished by the method of progressive relaxation similar to
that used in yoga. The client is asked to pay attention to and relax each
muscle group in the body, one at a time until the whole body, including the
facial muscles have been relaxed. At the same time the hypnotist will encourage
anything that produces a sensation of tiredness or heaviness of the eyes. This
usually involves a request that the client gaze steadily at some object above
eye level. A hypnotist will intersperse his or her instructions with
suggestions such as, Your eyes are growing heavier and heavier, your eyes are
blinking, drooping, closing", etc. If the subjects eyes have been gazing
steadily at a spot above eye level for some minutes they will in fact be
feeling heavy. The subject will tend to attribute this heaviness to the Hypnotists
suggestions and this increases the credibility and imagination shaping power of
the suggestions that follow. The challenge: At the end of the induction ritual
the hypnotist should ideally introduce a challenge, e.g. "Your eyelids are
now stuck down so very firmly and are so incredibly heavy, the harder you try
to open them the more stuck and impossible to open they become. Try as hard as
you like. (pause) OK, stop trying now and just relax,
and listen to my voice."
One of the laws of suggestion (and behaviour manipulation) is that each
suggestion that is obeyed increases the probability that a subsequent suggestion
will be obeyed, and thus increasingly difficult suggestions can be given. By difficult
I mean either suggestions of decreasing credibility or suggestions which are
likely to meet more resistance. For example, if a subject has been staring at a
spot on the wall (or say, a swinging fob watch) for some minutes, then the
suggestion, Your hands are gluing together, will have less credibility than, Your
eyes are growing heavy and tired. Therefore the latter suggestion should be
given first. A competent hypnotist issues a string of suggestions of gradually
increasing difficulty. It is also considered beneficial to have the suggestions
linked together, e.g., “As your eyes grow heavier
your hands are beginning to glue together. Hypnotists must also try to prevent
the subject from mentally challenging, analysing or failing to pay attention to
the suggestions. This can be especially necessary with subjects who are anxious
or whose minds are over active. Some individuals have grass-hopper minds.
Preventing a subjects mind from challenging the suggestions or straying to
incompatible ideas can be accomplished by techniques of distraction. In
practice this may mean interspersing the suggestions with deliberately
confusing instructions or a task that keeps the mind occupied. For example, the
hypnotist might ask the subject to count backwards by 7s from say, 200. As the
subject concentrates on counting backwards the hypnotist issues his or her
suggestions.
Another commonly used method is to ask the subject to visualise chalking a
big letter A on a blackboard, "looking" at it and then erasing it
with a duster. This is followed by an instruction to replace the A with a B , look at it and then erase it, and so on. These
monotonous mind numbing directions are interspersed with the hypnotic
suggestions. Demonstrations of instant hypnosis where the hypnotist quickly
performs some minimal ritual and the subject appears to fall into a trance by
dropping his or her head as if falling asleep (similar to the faith healing and
evangelical demonstrations) usually involves a subject who the hypnotist has
worked with before, or a subject who the hypnotist has reason to believe is
highly suggestible and impressed with his/her reputation as a hypnotist.
Books on hypnosis often mention trance deepening procedures. These consist
of repeatedly hypnotising and awakening the subject. Each time an attempt is
made to get the subject to respond to still more difficult suggestions. Whether
or not this procedure makes any real difference is hard to say. In my
experience it makes little difference in the clinical situation although it is
an attempt to condition the subjects behaviour through repetition, as in
learning by rote. Hypnosis is a graded process, of gradually getting subjects
to behave and to use their imaginations in ways suggested by the hypnotist, and
by using such means as appealing to the deepest needs of the subject, and thus
it is in essence a kind of seduction.
Why it looks like magic.
The reason hypnosis often looks magical to the onlooker, especially in show
business hypnosis, is that people have difficulty understanding the needs,
fears and motives, and hence the behaviour of others. The person who goes to
bed smiling and relaxed because he knows that tomorrow hell be the centre of
attention giving a speech at a large formal social function finds it hard to
understand the person who doesnt sleep properly for a whole week and is
suffering stomach cramps because he knows hell soon be expected to say a few
words at small friendly gathering. At hypnosis stage shows the audience sees
the subjects on stage as making fools of themselves.
Its hard for the audience to understand that the volunteer subjects
stampeded onto the stage for that very purpose! The perceptions of the subjects
are quite different from those of the audience. The subjects are volunteers who
actually compete for the laughter and applause. This is why the utterings and
activities of the subjects become increasingly outrageous and salacious as the
show goes on. And the beauty of it from their perspective is they are not taking
full responsibility for their behaviour! The responsibility is largely
transferred to the hypnotist who at the end of the show takes the bows and
final acclaim. What the hypnotist has done is to provide an environment and
opportunity for the subjects to safely act outrageously in front of an
audience. To show off in other words! The subject under the influence of
posthypnotic suggestion doesn't forget his "cues" because this is his
moment, like the symbol player in a symphony concert who only has to clash his
symbols once or twice in a long concert, but amazingly doesn't forget!
Many people believed that American mass murderer Charles Manson had hypnotic
powers and observers in the court room avoided looking into his eyes. This
belief stemmed from the power Manson apparently had over his followers.
However, Mansons followers were not representative of ordinary people. They
were people whose needs or desires (as with a stage hypnotists subjects) he
could fulfil in a mutually rewarding relationship.
I use the term mutually rewarding because what happened between Manson and
his followers was a lengthy 2-way selection process. Firstly, Manson, clutching
his guitar would regularly station himself on the steps of a University of
California campus and sing his self-written songs. Occasionally a student would
stop and talk to him, and this might be the tentative beginnings of a
relationship. Thus, a few students selected Manson as someone worth knowing.
In the second phase Manson would either reject or accept the friendship of
those students who had accepted him. It was important to Manson that he should
be in total control of any relationship so he would reject anyone of strong ego
or dominance characteristics. And so relationships were formed with people who
could fulfil his special requirements and whos dependency needs he could
satisfy (often students with poor social skills and strong dependency needs,
for example teenage runaways from very disturbed homes). The kind of people who
interested Manson tended to know similar people and so the growth of his
commune snowballed.
Like a hypnotist, Manson seemed to have an incredible amount of control over
a group a people. To observers, reading their newspapers or sitting in court,
Manson seemed to have magical powers of influence, but only because they did
not fully understand the emotional needs and psychological make-up of Mansons followers
and how Manson was able to appeal to those needs.
The hypnotic relationship.
It is recorded that hypnotic suggestions have been given to subjects that their
arm had been touched with a very hot object when in fact the hypnotist had
touched the spot only with the back of a pencil. At a later time the spot on
the subjects arm which the hypnotist touched with a pencil had shown signs of
blistering or similar irritation. Experiments in which
such hypnotic suggestions have been given prior to the subjects being seated
behind a 2-way mirror, have shown the subjects surreptitiously scrubbing at the
touched spot to produce a lesion. In other words the lesion always occurs at a
considerable interval after the hypnotic suggestions. This does not appear to
have occurred without the subject deliberately creating a lesion in situations
which have been witnessed, carried out in a scientifically controlled way and
recorded in detail. This raises interesting questions about the relationship or
rapport between the subjects and hypnotist and the emotional needs that are
being met.
Some text books will make a broad statement concerning some other
investigator who the author will cite as having looked into such reports and
found that a small number of cases cannot be explained by the subjects deliberate
intervention. Invariably, such reports are second hand and totally lacking in
methodological detail or any information allowing for verification. This is an
important criticism because there is a strong tendency for text books to
uncritically reproduce the material of earlier textbooks and carry
misinformation across generations.
I am especially sceptical because in 39 years of practising hypnosis I have
not witnessed any such demonstrations and nor have I ever met a colleague who
has. Books or articles dealing with "stigmata" invariably mention the
R. L. Moody article, "Bodily Changes During Abreaction"
in The Lancet, 1946, in which a patient developed old rope burns on his wrists
during a period of emotional excitement. It was claimed the burns had been
photographed but alas the photos were not published. More recently Arthur Janov of "The Primal Scream" fame published in
his "The Anatomy of Mental Illness" (Putnam) a photograph of lesions
temporarily appearing after a period of emotional excitement and which he
claimed were reinstated birth traumas. Included is a photo of the woman's chest
before her abreaction (reliving of her birth). Journalist-TV producers such as
Mike Willisee investigating religious stigmata, seem
to me particularly naive and fail to photograph close ups of the affected areas
before the trauma appears and out of respect for the histrionic display of
suffering do not photograph what is happening during the development of the
stigma.
On the basis of what is actually known a reasonable hypothesis is that area
is already scarred from past demonstrations and is easily abraded into a fresh
injury. Plain money is known to be the motive in some cases. Rather than
digress too far I want to make the point that the really interesting thing
about the experiments with hypnotically induced lesions and the subjects active
participation in the creation of such an illusion is what these experiments say
about the power of the hypnotist-subject relationship. They lend emphasis to my
earlier statements that hypnosis is of the nature of a contract and
relationship. The needs that are being satisfied by such relationships are
sometimes very hard to identify. Some theorists have taken the view that the
hypnotist serves as a symbolic father or mother and point to the fact that some
subjects respond best to paternal hypnosis (suggestions issued in a firm
dictatorial manner) while others respond best to maternal hypnosis (suggestions
issued in a kindly, persuasive manner ). Such psychoanalytic theories are blue
sky conjecture but it has to be said in their defence, there is no doubt that
some subjects will go to great lengths to please the hypnotist.
In most clinical situations the predominant motive of the subjects is to
achieve the fastest, most effortless resolution of a personal problem such an
irrational fear or a bad habit and they will work cooperatively with the
hypnotist as long as they perceive some hope of overcoming their problem. For
many (but not all) problems of psychological origin any technique capitalising
on the considerable powers of the imagination (whether its called hypnosis or
anything else) has a reasonable chance of success.
Can Subjects be Made to Do things Against Their
Own Will?
No! Many experiments have shown that subjects cannot be made to perform grossly
antisocial acts against their will. Some experiments deserve special attention.
For example, one paper describes how a World War 11 military psychiatrist
hypnotised a male soldier and told him that another soldier was a Japanese
enemy and ordered him to bayonet the Japanese soldier. The subject did attack
the soldier identified as being Japanese and had to be restrained by
attendants. However, this subject had already served as this psychiatrists
subject many times before in experiments with hypnosis, secondly the subject
was only a Private whereas the military psychiatrist was high ranking
Commissioned Officer and therefore responsible for anything done under his
orders, hypnosis or no hypnosis, and thirdly there were attendants on hand to
intercede. In short the subject understood the name of the game and had
incentives to play it.
No matter how impressive a hypnotic demonstration looks to the naive
observer, the performance, firstly, does not involve anything that could not be
done just as well without hypnosis, and secondly, the demonstration is
dependent on the subjects faith in the hypnotist and the fact that the
hypnotist will be taking responsibility for whatever the subject does. The
final editor is always the subject. If a subject is asked to do anything so outrageous
that it fails to meet the psychological needs of the subject and even threatens
to attack the subjects self-concept, then the hypnotic rapport will be
immediately broken. The subject will simply seem to wake up and cease behaving
like a hypnotised person. This means that no matter how deeply hypnotised a
person may seem to be, if that person were asked by the hypnotist to walk into
a busy street and remove all of his or her clothes, in most cases the subject
would simply wake up. Only a very tiny minority of subjects with weakly
repressed exhibitionistic tendencies would obey such a command.
The control that hypnotists appear to have over their subjects is illusion.
The illusion depends on hypnotists capitalising on the subjects own needs and
propensities, and in some cases by utilising the faith in the hypnotist factor
to encourage the subjects to accomplish tasks they could have accomplished in
any case, if only they had the confidence to try! The hypnotists role in this
latter case is that of providing ego support, i.e. the encouragement.
Ego support is what your mother gave you when/if she accompanied you to your
first job interview or into the doctors surgery. Ego support is what your
friend gave you by accompanying you to a large social event full of strangers.
Ego support is what your school teacher or music teacher gave you in those last
few seconds before you went out on stage to perform at a school concert. Ego
support is what you get from the one friendly face in a sea of critical
strangers.
Some people are made quite anxious about the prospect of being hypnotised.
The anxiety is totally unfounded because one can never be made a helpless
puppet of the hypnotist. One can never be made to go to sleep or lose
consciousness, or do anything against ones will. In
show business hypnosis the apparent memory losses, sleep, deafness, blindness,
negative hallucinations (not seeing a designated object or person and behaving
as if it was invisible) and post hypnotic suggestions are all enactments made
to please the hypnotist in a mutually rewarding relationship. The quality of
these enactments will depend to a large extent on the style or quality of the
imagination possessed by the subject (i.e. suggestibility, which appears to be
a personality factor in its own right), and the context in which the
demonstration takes place.
The term mutually rewarding relationship can be taken to mean rapport. If
you are a man, you might have had the experience of joining a social gathering
where perhaps a lady you would have been interested in meeting was already
engrossed in conversation with another man. Perhaps your attempts to join their
conversation left you with the feeling you must be either invisible or covered
in a horrible rash! In such a situation, the reason you could not properly engage
their attention was the rapport that existed between them. That is, their minds
were intensely focused on pursuing what each perceived to be an at least potentially
rewarding relationship.
Finally I recommend to clinicians, John Hartlands Medical & Dental
Hypnosis & its Clinical Applications (Bailliaire Tindall, Lond.). On page 7 of my 2nd edition he writes, Bernard C. Gindes summed up the situation admirably when he suggested
the following formula:
Misdirected Attention+Belief+Expectation=The Hypnotic State. To this we can also add Imagination,
which is the integrating factor which welds belief and expectation into an
irresistible force.
The above quotation is the most honest, comprehensive, and yet beautifully
succinct explanation of hypnosis I have ever read.
The last word. If you are a clinician
conducting psychological therapy and wish to utilise the principles of hypnosis
one of the things you should probably not do is ask your client to read this
paper. Intellectualising about the psychology of hypnosis tends to work against
you. Intellectualisation tends to be antithetical to the eidetic evocation of
imagery, sensation, and phantasy and hence the achievement of hypnotic reverie.
Instead you should give such information as to allay fears, explain that if a
truck goes past or a plane overhead the client will probably hear it but it wont
be a bothersome issue. Talk about hypnosis as a refreshing relaxant and as a
method that fosters the full focussing and idea-absorbing powers of the mind.
If on the other hand you are a potential client, then this paper should give
you heart for you should be starting to understand the power of your own
imagination. It means that once you understand this there is a lot you can do
to help yourself. You have probably been your own worst enemy (see note on
"self- image and cognitive dissonance" above). One of the most
important things I do is help people to enlist the power of self-hypnosis and
use relaxation, and visualisation to modify their self-image and boost their
performance in any area of life of concern to them, from sports performance
to business and social performances. I have guided the self-help programs of
specialist anaesthetists, helping them to qualify, little girls to perform
gymnastics at championship level and newly promoted executives to stand up and
talk confidently in meetings.
As a potential client you should remember the note about
"ego-strength" above, because when we are physically or mentally at a
low point, our ego-strength is lowered and it is precisely at such times that
we benefit most from having our hand held and being guided by an appropriate
expert professional person. Even when not under stress, because we are social
animals our confidence and achievement capacities tend to be enhanced by
working in collaboration with appropriately skilled and motivated others.
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