A thread about hypnosis

[Senex]

Placebo. And a none too effective one for anything other than getting people to cluck like a chicken.

That's a legitimate way to look at at this. However, your outlook leaves unaswered questioned.

Well, I don't know if I'm adding anything to the thread, I came here hoping for a definative answer.

When I was in college (High School for those from the US ) I had a friend who had been learning Hypnotism. He did a couple of "tests" to see if I was suceptible. I played along and he showed me a few things.

I felt in a deep state of relaxation, but nothing I couldn't achieve at home by myself without any knowledge of hypnosis.

Fast forward 2 years and we had a stage Hypnotist come to our University (College) for one of the student nights. The Hypnotist had asked for volunteers and I said to my friends "hold my camera and film, I'm gonna get up on stage and take my clothes off"

Once I got on stage there must have been about 20 others there and he said we were going to do some simple things to get started. He did the same "tests" my college friend had done on me under a theraputic pretense. I knew exactly what I needed to to to pass these tests and when I opened my eyes at the end of them, sure enough I was one of the few still up on stage. The others had been told to go and sit down.

From then on I was free to do exactly what I wanted. They told me whenever I heard certain music I would strip and from there it was a rush to get as many clothes off as possible before the music stopped (hey, I was having fun ;D) They obviously had a level of nudity that was acceptable, and I made it my goal to breach that without blowing my cover and being told to sit down.

However when it came my turn to do something I didn't want to do (I just didn't participate) he came over, gave me the "You are feeling sleepy, deeper, deeper" stuff and I sat that exercise out.

Afterwards my friends came up to me and said it was hilarious and asked if it was "real" I told them I was in no altered state, and when they didn't believe me showed them a section of video where I was giving them the thumbs up as proof that I was my normal self and in no altered state.

I will say that I had a lot of fun, and so did my friends, but I felt absolutely nothing strange or no compulsion to comply. I guess for a lot of people that get on stage the fun is in making people believe that they were under and doing stuff they wouldn't normally do. For me, as a skeptic, the fun was in letting people know that I felt nothing and that I was still willing to do that stuff.

Anyway, that's just what I think.

What a great story. I have to admit that the gender of "Alex" makes a difference. Guys that disrobe under hypnosis is ho hum -- but young ladies is worth its own thread

I have read many of his books and they are filled with fascinating stories. I will say that the books helped me through a difficult period. On the other hand, the casual reader may come away with the idea that people can be put into deep trances with something as simple as an unusual handshake and common phrase. In reality, Erickson spent quite a bit of time preparing these subjects before they went into a trance.

Still, he must have been quite a person; if I were able to meet people from history, Erickson would be high on my list.

I have to say that I suspect he is a woo. He believed he could hypnotize people using some sort of confusion technique.

Honestly, his technique isn't any more valid than other hypnotic techniques. It's woo. Don't think I don't have dozens of expensive woo books in my library. I believe Erickson believed what he did -- I also believe that he had some success. I believe hypnosis works as a placebo -- like sticking pins in your body or taking extra vitamins.

 

[Ladewig]

I have to say that I suspect he is a woo. He believed he could hypnotize people using some sort of confusion technique.

Honestly, his technique isn't any more valid than other hypnotic techniques. It's woo. Don't think I don't have dozens of expensive woo books in my library. I believe Erickson believed what he did -- I also believe that he had some success. I believe hypnosis works as a placebo -- like sticking pins in your body or taking extra vitamins.

I have no evidence available to prove he is not in the woo category.

 

[Senex]

I have no evidence available to prove he is not in the woo category.

Do you think using my own Jedi mind tricks of double negatives can be used against me?

On a very important level let's look at the fact since Milton Erickson gave us his Ericksonian hypnosis -- hypnosis has not become any more popular or important a therapeutic tool.

He is a footnote in a woo category. Or not? Do you have any success stories?

 

[Ladewig]

Do you think using my own Jedi mind tricks of double negatives can be used against me?

On a very important level let's look at the fact since Milton Erickson gave us his Ericksonian hypnosis -- hypnosis has not become any more popular or important a therapeutic tool.

He is a footnote in a woo category. Or not? Do you have any success stories?

I know of no documented success stories that have allowed a hypnotized person to do something that a self-disciplined could not do (i.e. lose weight, control pain, quit smoking).

 

[Senex]

I know of no documented success stories that have allowed a hypnotized person to do something that a self-disciplined could not do (i.e. lose weight, control pain, quit smoking).

What about pretty women disrobing in front of a crowd?

Pain control shmain control - nudity is the cutting edge of hypnosis. Those Girls Gone Wild videos on the comedy channel demonstrate suggestion gone wild. I think I saw an Ericksonian handshake going down before those three girls decided to entertain the crowd.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

What about pretty women disrobing in front of a crowd?

Pain control shmain control - nudity is the cutting edge of hypnosis. Those Girls Gone Wild videos on the comedy channel demonstrate suggestion gone wild. I think I saw an Ericksonian handshake going down before those three girls decided to entertain the crowd.

Where can I subscribe to the Ericksonian newsletter?

 

[Senex]

Where can I subscribe to the Ericksonian newsletter?

You don't need a newsletter anymore. We live in the age of the amatuer prevailing. No one likes to see a woman disrobed as much as I do but young woman disrobe today at the drop of a hat. It takes the fun out of it.

I like to see a little embarassment with my nudity.

You can use the Ericksonian handshake at your local club in order to have sex -- but be prepared to be slapped.

 

[JohnG]

You don't need a newsletter anymore. We live in the age of the amatuer prevailing. No one likes to see a woman disrobed as much as I do but young woman disrobe today at the drop of a hat. It takes the fun out of it.

I like to see a little embarassment with my nudity.

I know what you mean. Girls Gone Wild and about 99% of pr0n is about as sexy as a cold shower.

 

[Iconoclast08]

...Hypnosis is a valid topic for the JREF. Placebo or something real -- what do you think?.

I think it's a good idea to first define it. I'll define it from a contemporary psychiatry POV (you can look up writing by David Spiegel and Jose Maldonado at Stanford for more details on current thinking about this).

Mind you, these are not necessarily views that I completely buy, but they do not necessarily carry as much woo-ish baggage as people think (most people probably have images of Hollywood hypnosis when they think about this stuff-- anyone seen Fourth Kind yet??). There does seem to be evidence for some of these features if you go to the updated peer-reviewed literature and not just the older books.

Hypnosis can be thought of as a natural psychophysical state of intense, receptive concentration. The experience is thought to consist of 3 states:

1. Absorption:
A strong, central attentional focus with a good degree of suspension of contextual/peripheral orientation (ignoring peripheral environmental features). Pathological levels of absorption have been documented in flashbacks associated with PTSD, that is, patients can get so caught up/absorbed in reliving the experience that they literally act as if they are reliving it (cued by some environmental stimulus usually). Tellegen has done research on this absorption phenomenon in some of the 1970s literature and linked it with differential tendencies to get very "caught up" in, say, watching movies or imagining things such that they become more strongly oblivious to what's going on around them.

2. Dissociation:
In brief, independently operating mental processes. I won't go too much into this since so much can be readily found about it elsewhere. One thing to note is that it can be pathological (dissociative amnesia or fugue states documented in the literature) or non-pathological (knitting while watching TV).

3. Suggestibility:
Influencing behavior or thoughts via therapist verbal cues. This does *NOT* mean that people lose their "will" or cognitive grounding to the point that they will just do whatever, but they do demonstrate an apparent heightened responsiveness in which instructions may be accepted in a less critical fashion. There's also a phenomenon called "hypnotic source amnesia" where people seem to confuse cues coming from others with their own inner cues/thoughts.

Some quick points that I have read about hypnosis:
*Hypnotizability is observed at its peak in childhood and decreases with age.
*Not everyone is hypnotizable.
*Hypnotizability doesn't necessarily say anything about intelligence level.
*There are no consistently observed sex differences in hypnotizability.
*All hypnosis is ultimately self-hypnosis (not something a therapist does TO a person per se)
*Hypnosis is not sleep (EEGs show it looks like restful alertness)
*Hypnosis itself is *NOT* treatment (no consistent evidence showing that it helps people overcome psychopathology).

I've never been hypnotized. Has anyone here?

 

[AlexQuatermain]

Hmm. I was talking about my own experience at the hands of a Hypnotherapist as I know from experience in College that usually, the people that do the silly things, will swear they can't remember a thing.

However, Being a University show it was slightly more Xrated than what a lot of stage hypnotists can get away with and there were girls on stage. One girl was asked to turn her chair around and make like she was *ahem* copulating with it. She was then given a "magic remote" that enabled her to watch it back and she was mortified. Of course she was still "Hypnotized" at that point.

Talking to her afterwards she did seem genuinely mortified, but I think it was just her way of dealing with something she would never normally do. We all had a way of having fun and letting our hair down, without needing to take the responsibility afterwards.

Likewise the part of the show I didn't feel comfortable with was *ahem again* when he told us to all sit down and that we were getting oral stimulation on a subway by a stranger. I thought it was crude and didn't participate. I genuinely think that no matter how caught up in the "Hypnotism" you are you are not going to be made to do things that you would really find embarassing.

Did anyone catch Penn and Tellers show on Hypnotism? It was a while ago but I seem to remember feeling unsatisfied at their conclusion. When they're doing a show on Religion or ESP they seem to be top notch, but with things like hypnotism I get the feeling that they're more open to getting things wrong.

 

[Iconoclast08]

Hmm. I was talking about my own experience at the hands of a Hypnotherapist as I know from experience in College that usually, the people that do the silly things, will swear they can't remember a thing.

However, Being a University show it was slightly more Xrated than what a lot of stage hypnotists can get away with and there were girls on stage. One girl was asked to turn her chair around and make like she was *ahem* copulating with it. She was then given a "magic remote" that enabled her to watch it back and she was mortified. Of course she was still "Hypnotized" at that point.

Talking to her afterwards she did seem genuinely mortified, but I think it was just her way of dealing with something she would never normally do. We all had a way of having fun and letting our hair down, without needing to take the responsibility afterwards.

Likewise the part of the show I didn't feel comfortable with was *ahem again* when he told us to all sit down and that we were getting oral stimulation on a subway by a stranger. I thought it was crude and didn't participate. I genuinely think that no matter how caught up in the "Hypnotism" you are you are not going to be made to do things that you would really find embarassing.

Did anyone catch Penn and Tellers show on Hypnotism? It was a while ago but I seem to remember feeling unsatisfied at their conclusion. When they're doing a show on Religion or ESP they seem to be top notch, but with things like hypnotism I get the feeling that they're more open to getting things wrong.

I agree that those things are crude and unprofessional. The consensus in the research on this stuff is that people can't be hypnotized to do things against their will, so following that reasoning, there must have been some openness to those sorts of suggestions (or they were faking being hypnotized), right?

That's a great observation, by the way, about people needing to just let their hair down, have fun, and not take responsibility afterward (or perhaps pretend to be mortified/half-mortified). It's interesting to think about to what degree stage hypnosis is explained by this versus some degree of a genuine effect. I saw Tom DeLuca at my undergrad institution do some silly things with some volunteer students on stage (not degrading by any means), and it was quite a show. I knew one of the guys who went up, who had a very logical cast of mind, and he had to step down because he couldn't be hypnotized.

 

[JFrankA]

I had dropped out of this thread because all I did was make people upset.

But after reading what Iconoclast08 has posted, I wanted to come back just because I have to say that he said exactly what I was trying to say - only with much more clarity, and much better than I could ever put it.

Thanks, Iconoclast08 and for what it's worth, I completely agree with you.

 

[Limbo]

Anomalous experiences and hypnosis
Etzel Cardeña, Ph.D.
Thorsen Professor of Psychology, Lund University, Sweden

Abstract

Throughout its history, mesmerism and its later development as hypnosis have been related to reputed psi-phenomena and to various alterations of consciousness. Although most of the older literature would not stand up to current methodological strictures, there are some reports that are still baffling and both the consistency of the reports and more recent metaanalytic work suggest that we should investigate the psi-hypnosis relationship more programmatically.

With respect to alterations of consciousness within the hypnotic context, most previous work has had the confound of specific suggestions. In this paper I review the literature on hypnotic phenomenology, point out its limitations, and present recently published data that supports specific alterations associated with experienced depth: mostly relaxation during a resting baseline, mild to moderate changes in sensations and body image during light/medium hypnosis, and radical alterations of body image (e.g., floating, sinking), and dreamlike and transcendental (e. g,, merging with a light) during deep and very deep hypnosis. Many of these phenomena have also been observed during other altered states such as OBEs and NDEs, which have been of great interest to the parapsychology field.

[...]

 

[Iconoclast08]

I had dropped out of this thread because all I did was make people upset.

But after reading what Iconoclast08 has posted, I wanted to come back just because I have to say that he said exactly what I was trying to say - only with much more clarity, and much better than I could ever put it.

Thanks, Iconoclast08 and for what it's worth, I completely agree with you.

Thanks for the nice note, JFrankA, but I think you said it just as clearly in your earlier posts. I, for one, didn't see anything upsetting or controversial in what you wrote, although it's always good to be skeptical about these sorts of issues given their strong correlation with woo topics (the two can bleed together and get confusing or downright ridiculous as the recent post by Limbo shows).

Senex, you prickly chap, you, how have you been?! Interesting thread you've started here. Now you can pick on me, too! All in good fun, you know we're BFF's.

 

[Le Jab]

As a hypnotherapist, I lean towards the placebo/non state argument. Hypnosis is a heightend state of suggestibility - Bernheim (1884) got it right when he said there is no hypnotism, only suggestibility. Hypnosis is artificially induced hyper suggestibilty (White 1941). A persons belief (in hypnosis) and imagination are the main prerequisites for being a good subject. Which kinda rules out most of you guys!
I am a non-state theorist i.e. that hypnosis is the art of delivering suggestion - its not 'trance state' , and it is the conscious mind that is responding. You could call it a 'non deceptive mega-placebo' (Irving Kirsch)
In my practice, if someone comes in and doesnt think hypnotherapy will work, then I usually decline to work with him (its normally male!). I ask them what they expect from the hypnosis session, and deliver that - unless of course its chicken clucking! If someone says "....I think I am going to go into a trance, and then you are going to cure me of my spider phiobia..." I agree wholeheartedly. People pretty much hypnotise themselves, as its expectation, attitude and motivation that decides their reaction(s) to my words.
There are some people - less than 20% of population - who are hyper suggestible. There are many different names for them - hypnotic virtuoso, sonambulist etc. It is these guys the stage hypno goes for. He will do a quick test of suggestibility (normally a hand clench) and bring to the stage those who are most likely to respond. Its not rocket science quite frankly.
And on the whole, pretty harmless if done in a professional manner.

Is it 'woo', depends on your definition. Do I end peoples addiction to smoking - yes (well, long-term in about 30% ) - do I cure people of phobias and minor anxiety - yes (slightly better success rate), and can I induce a state of relaxation, so that a sportsman can visualise positively his game/race/bout/round - sure can. However - and heres the rub - its not me, its just me going through an elaborate charade to facillitate the subjects desire to change a negative thought or action. I like to think I am tad better than the psychic, palmist, rune reader, etc but I accept there is room for debate.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Is it 'woo', depends on your definition. Do I end peoples addiction to smoking - yes (well, long-term in about 30% ) - do I cure people of phobias and minor anxiety - yes (slightly better success rate), and can I induce a state of relaxation, so that a sportsman can visualise positively his game/race/bout/round - sure can. However - and heres the rub - its not me, its just me going through an elaborate charade to facillitate the subjects desire to change a negative thought or action. I like to think I am tad better than the psychic, palmist, rune reader, etc but I accept there is room for debate.

Nice first post; welcome.

 

[JFrankA]

As a hypnotherapist, I lean towards the placebo/non state argument. Hypnosis is a heightend state of suggestibility - Bernheim (1884) got it right when he said there is no hypnotism, only suggestibility. Hypnosis is artificially induced hyper suggestibilty (White 1941). A persons belief (in hypnosis) and imagination are the main prerequisites for being a good subject. Which kinda rules out most of you guys!
I am a non-state theorist i.e. that hypnosis is the art of delivering suggestion - its not 'trance state' , and it is the conscious mind that is responding. You could call it a 'non deceptive mega-placebo' (Irving Kirsch)
In my practice, if someone comes in and doesnt think hypnotherapy will work, then I usually decline to work with him (its normally male!). I ask them what they expect from the hypnosis session, and deliver that - unless of course its chicken clucking! If someone says "....I think I am going to go into a trance, and then you are going to cure me of my spider phiobia..." I agree wholeheartedly. People pretty much hypnotise themselves, as its expectation, attitude and motivation that decides their reaction(s) to my words.
There are some people - less than 20% of population - who are hyper suggestible. There are many different names for them - hypnotic virtuoso, sonambulist etc. It is these guys the stage hypno goes for. He will do a quick test of suggestibility (normally a hand clench) and bring to the stage those who are most likely to respond. Its not rocket science quite frankly.
And on the whole, pretty harmless if done in a professional manner.

Is it 'woo', depends on your definition. Do I end peoples addiction to smoking - yes (well, long-term in about 30% ) - do I cure people of phobias and minor anxiety - yes (slightly better success rate), and can I induce a state of relaxation, so that a sportsman can visualise positively his game/race/bout/round - sure can. However - and heres the rub - its not me, its just me going through an elaborate charade to facillitate the subjects desire to change a negative thought or action. I like to think I am tad better than the psychic, palmist, rune reader, etc but I accept there is room for debate.

I agree with NoZed Avenger, excellent post.

I am one of those stage-hypnotists you mentioned. And again, for what it's worth, I feel that you got it right and I agree with you.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Senex]

Senex, you prickly chap, you, how have you been?! Interesting thread you've started here. Now you can pick on me, too! All in good fun, you know we're BFF's.

Yes, we can be BFF's (I take it you gave up that stuff about making the young boys close their eyes and forgetting )

As a hypnotherapist, I lean towards the placebo/non state argument. Hypnosis is a heightend state of suggestibility - Bernheim (1884) got it right when he said there is no hypnotism, only suggestibility. Hypnosis is artificially induced hyper suggestibilty (White 1941). A persons belief (in hypnosis) and imagination are the main prerequisites for being a good subject. Which kinda rules out most of you guys

Well I have a wonderful imagination but I believe I would be a poor subject of hypnotism. I am truly curious how effective this is.

Can you use pseudonyms and tell us of your success?

 

[Iconoclast08]

...(I take it you gave up that stuff about making the young boys close their eyes and forgetting )?

.... um, what?

 

[Senex]

Originally Posted by Iconoclast08
Senex, you prickly chap, you, how have you been?! Interesting thread you've started here. Now you can pick on me, too! All in good fun, you know we're BFF's

Yes, we can be BFF's (I take it you gave up that stuff about making the young boys close their eyes and forgetting )

.... um, what?

Carte Blanche to pick on you

beware who you give it to.

especially drinkers

you are a fine person