Hipnotis
Chapter 1. Simple Connections.
Summary: We explore some basic facts about the way
in which the brain and body work. Specifically the reader is
encouraged to discover by actual experience how words and images
can activate other systems in the brain which relate to
feelings, muscles, senses, sense of balance, etc.. These are
compared with "tests of hypnotisability" and "hypnotic
inductions". They are also linked to our common experience
of learning a variety of other things.
ENTERTAINMENT hypnotists love to make hypnosis look dark and
mysterious and complicated. They love to pretend that they have
special powers that no-one else possesses.
I love to make things bright and clear and open, and I do not
claim any special powers.
Throughout the book, starting a few paragraphs ahead, I am going
to ask you to try out various things and to think about them.
These things are simple and everyday, and will turn out to be
not at all mysterious, and yet they are a
foundation on
which much of hypnosis is built. We understand new
things best by relating them to familiar things. We understand
complicated things by relating them to simpler things. This
chapter contains simple and relatively familiar things. In later
chapters the understanding of this chapter will lead on to a
deeper understanding of hypnosis.
We also learn best by
doing. So this book is full of
things to
do. If some of them seem to you to be rather
elementary things, it is worth remembering that on most courses
that teach worthwhile things you have to start with some very
elementary things.A mathematics course may start with simple
addition. A dressmaking class may start with just a series of
simple stitches. A football course may start with some simple
fitness exercises and so on. But if you master these elementary
skills then you are in a position to do very much more complex
and worthwhile things.
Words can trigger pictures in your mind.
This must seem a pretty obvious fact. You need only think of
reading a novel, and remember the pictures that come to mind as
you do so, to confirm it to yourself. But it is still worth
doing a little exercise on it, as follows.
First just think to yourself, "I am on holiday." STOP
NOW. Did you see a picture of it in your mind? People vary, but
it is unlikely, in the very short time I allowed you, that you
saw anything very clearly.
Now allow yourself more TIME. Think, "I am on holiday."
Pause for quite a few seconds to give the thought time to
flower. "It is my favourite kind of place." (Pause.)
"The weather is just how I like it." (Pause.) "I
am wearing my favourite clothes." (Pause.) "I am doing
my very favourite thing." (Pause.) "I am on holiday!"
In each case, and throughout the book, the word "Pause"
is used to indicate a period of some two to five seconds.
In all probability that extra time was repaid by a very much
more vivid picture or pictures in the mind. But it is best,
especially if you are a student of hypnosis, to get someone else
to do the same thing, perhaps with you saying the words:
"Picture yourself on holiday." (Pause.) "It is
your favourite kind of weather." (Pause.) etc.. Afterwards
ask them about what they saw.
In this way you will discover for yourself the fact that people
can have quite different degrees of clarity of picture, and the
pictures themselves can be quite different. I, for example,
usually manage only very washed out images, at best, but you
will probably find that I am the exception rather than the rule.
The conclusions I would expect you to be able to agree with,
after some experience, are the following simple ones.
1) Words can lead to pictures in the mind.
2) It takes a
little time for them to arise.
3) The time taken and their
nature varies from person to person.
The next exercise explores the extent to which words can
directly affect muscles without going via the usual volitional
process of willing an action.
Hold your arms straight ahead of you with the palms facing each
other and a couple of centimeters apart. Look at the gap and say
"Close... Close... Close..." repeatedly at a
comfortable speed.
A typical result is that over a period of a minute or so the
hands
do move together until they touch. They will do
this without any sense in you that you have willed it. There is
no effort at all. To check this, try it on other people (for
students it is essential that you do). In that case you can
speak the words as you both watch the hands.
In this way you will discover that there is again a range of
responses. An average closure time is a couple of minutes. In
some people it will happen in seconds. In others nothing seems
to happen before you run out of patience, or their arms get
exhausted. Occasionally someone will resist and there will
develop a trembling in the arms as one set of muscles acts to
pull the hands together and another acts to separate them.
Another, much rarer, response is for the hands to move apart!
(Which I usually interpret as a deep-seated compulsion to resist
any external influence.) But in each case you or your friends
should find a strange feeling of things happening which are not
willed.
The conclusions I would expect you to be able to agree with are
the following simple ones.
1) Words can lead directly to
muscular action.
2) It takes a little time for this to
happen.
3) The time taken and the nature of the response
varies from person to person and somewhat on who is talking.
As a third example you might see how words can lead to
activation of the sense of touch. In particular they can make an
itch arise.
All you do is to repeat to yourself, "There is something
itchy on my nose." (Pause.) "There is something itchy
on my nose." (Pause.) Repeat this for up to a couple of
minutes. It is valuable to try the same thing with other people,
with either the other person or you saying the words.
The most likely result is for an itch to be reported and perhaps
scratched within that time, but again you should find
considerable variation. The time taken will vary from seconds to
longer than the time allowed. Some people will find an
irresistible urge to scratch because the feeling is so intense.
For others it will be quite mild. Oddly enough in some people
the itch may arise somewhere other than the nose. But as a
result of these experiences I expect that you will be able to
agree with the simple observations:
1) Words can lead directly to a sensory impression.
2) It
takes a little time for this to happen.
3) The time taken and
their nature varies from person to person and there is some
variation depending on who is saying the words.
In the above three examples we have started with words. Now we
move on to see the effect of mental pictures. Here is a way of
seeing if a picture can lead directly to a muscular action. Let
your hand rest freely and comfortably on a surface such as
table, chair-arm or your leg. Imagine a ribbon tied to the end
of your index finger. Picture the other end of the ribbon being
held by someone you like, whose hand is about a metre above
yours. They are trying gently to lift your finger without you
feeling the ribbon at all. Keep the picture in your mind for a
few minutes, closing your eyes if it helps you to picture
things.
A typical response is for nothing to happen for a while, and
then the finger starts to twitch slightly and then slowly to
lift up into the air. (This type of response is sometimes called
"finger levitation" in books on hypnosis.)
Students especially should try this out on other people in
various ways. You can ask them to go through the exercise as I
have suggested that you have done. Or you can be the "friend"
lifting the finger by means of an imaginary ribbon which you are
holding. In that case they place less of a strain on their
imagination. They will be able to see you, and your hand lifted
as if you are holding the ribbon. It is only the ribbon that
they will need to imagine. You can expect to find that the time
taken varies, and the nature of the movement can also vary from
very jerky to very smooth. In some cases there may be a sideways
movement rather than a vertical one. At the end of a series of
such trials you can decide if you agree that:
1) Mental pictures can lead directly to muscular activity.
2)
It takes a little time for this to happen.
3) The time taken
and the nature varies from person to person.
Now how about seeing if pictures can give rise to feelings? When
you consider the billions of dollars made by a film industry
whose main purpose is to create images that will arouse emotions
of a variety of kinds, it should not be very surprising to you
that this can happen. But it is as well to try something on the
following lines to explore the ways in which
internally
generated mental images can do the same thing.
The simple approach is to picture a person or situation that
normally arouse strong feelings in you. The person could perhaps
be someone that you hate or love or fear. The situation could
perhaps be one that you find erotic or embarrassing or exciting
or frightening. In any case after you have decided on ONE (do
not jump about) keep the picture or pictures of your chosen
topic in front of your mind for a minute or two. As usual,
students should also get a number of other people to do the same
exercise.
The normal reaction is for a quickening of the breath and an
increase in heart rate and adrenaline production. These are part
of the body's normal response to any moderate to strong emotion.
In addition there will be the particular sensations associated
with the particular emotion that you have chosen. These are
harder to describe but are usually unmistakable. For example
fear and excitement produce pretty much the same physical
responses - heart, breathing, adrenaline - but one is
accompanied by a strong feeling of unpleasantness while the
other is very pleasant.
You are likely to find that different people respond in a range
of different ways. In some there is only a very slight effect.
In others it can be quite dramatic and rapid. The scenes chosen
will of course also be very different.
At the end of this you should have been able to confirm for
yourself what I will call the Standard Finding in future since
the pattern should by now be clear:
1) The effect
does happen.
2) It takes a little
time for this to happen. (From a second or two up to many
minutes in this as in most cases.).
3) The time taken and
the detailed nature of the effect varies from person to person.
Now we might try the effect of a picture on a sense: perhaps
asking if a mental image can affect the sense of balance. The
following is one possible way. Think of a situation in which you
are rocking or swinging, such as in a small boat, a hammock, a
swing, a rocking chair, a rocking horse or so on. Sit
comfortably upright with closed eyes and picture the chosen
situation for a few minutes. Notice any sensations of movement.
You can try a similar thing on others. You should not be
surprised by now to find people responding differently. Some
will not only feel themselves moving but you will also see their
bodies move. At the other extreme some will report nothing.
Again check to see if your experiences confirm the pattern of
the Standard Finding:
1) Mental pictures can stimulate activity in the sense of
balance.
2) It takes a little time for this to happen.
3)
The time taken and the nature of the response varies from person
to person.
At this stage the pattern revealed by all these experiments
should be quite clear. It amounts simply to this.
Activity
in one part of the brain (verbal or visual in the
examples we have done)
can lead to activity in other
parts (in the above examples: visual, emotional, nerves
connected to muscles, nerves connected to the senses).
The
speed and nature of the connection varies from person to person.
As a final explicit example here I would like you to explore the
following connection. It leads from the kinaesthetic sense (a
sense of position and movement - of arm in this case) to the
involuntary activation of some arm muscles.
Simply get your friend to close his or her eyes. (So that they
cannot see what is happening, and so vision is not directly
involved.) Then without saying anything (so that words are not
involved), simply lift up one arm slowly and lightly by the
wrist until it is being held in one position in space. You then
gently move it up and down very slightly and lightly around that
position, so that the arm is given quite strong sense that it
somehow "should" be in that position.
You should find that over a minute or so the arm starts to feel
lighter and lighter as its own muscles take over the job of
keeping it floating in the air. Eventually you should be able to
leave it there and it should remain there with no effort or
complaint from your friend for some considerable time.
Check for yourself, as always, the usual Standard Finding: that
the effect happens, takes time and varies from person to person.
I hope that you
do try these things out with other
people. We nearly all make the unquestioned assumption that
since we are all human beings our inner, invisible workings are
basically identical. You should find, as I have, that there is
in fact a great deal of variety, more of which should be
revealed as you progress through the book.
If you would like to experiment with other connections then you
will find other suggestions at the end of the chapter.
What has all this to do with hypnosis?
My first reason for looking at such things is that these
phenomena, and many other like them, are presented in many other
books on hypnosis as examples of fundamental "hypnotic
phenomena".
Take for example the involuntary rising of a finger. This is
often presented as something that is happening as a result of a
"hypnotised subject" obeying the suggestions of the
"hypnotist". The other examples I have given can also
be presented in that light.
This chapter should show that these simple phenomena do not, in
fact, require anything very much out of the ordinary. They can
be achieved in many people with no special powers or skills, no
"hypnotic induction", no special techniques. The main
requirement is patience!
My reason for looking at the phenomena in the simple way above,
with no "inductions" or any of the other trappings of
hypnosis, is to be able to base the whole science on simple and
observable phenomena. I believe that this makes for clarity of
thought. (My initial training was in the physical and not the
psychological sciences.)
I have said that these phenomena and things like them appear in
older books on hypnosis. They do so in one of two main guises.
These are as parts of an "Induction Procedure" or as
"Tests of Hypnotisability".
I will discuss these different ways of looking at them and then
compare them with the way I tend to look at them. You may then
come to your own conclusions.
It can be helpful to know that in the past there were two
schools of thought about hypnotic phenomena which were labeled
"State Theory" and "Trait Theory". Those who
belonged to the State school maintained that hypnosis was a
"state" that people could be "put into". I
suppose that they thought of it as being like a "state of
sleep" or a "state of fear" or a "state of
being in love" or a "state of subservience". This
approach naturally encourages you to think of what the hypnotist
has to do in order to put someone into that state. And each
hypnotist or hypnotherapist had his (or, very rarely, her) own
procedure, which consisted of stringing together a number of
steps, each of which was an item of the kind mentioned above, or
of a slightly different class that we will meet in the next
chapter.
A hypnotist might start by using words to act directly on the
muscles of clasped hands to make them lock together. He might
follow this up by getting someone to stand vertically and then
act on the sense of balance to make them feel that they were
falling, while simultaneously using words to activate all the
muscles of the body to make it rigid. He would then catch them
and lower them, rigid, to the floor. Further steps were taken of
a similar kind. The cumulative effect would be to create and
enhance the idea in the mind of the "subject" that
they would do whatever he said. This then made it possible for
the hypnotist to suggest increasingly amusing responses. (It is
perhaps worth noticing that he would never, however, have the
power that the army Sergeant achieves with months of training:
HE can use one word to get a man to walk forward into a hail of
death-dealing bullets!)
You will find more on Induction Procedures later in the book,
especially in Chapter 5.
Opposed to the State theorists were the Trait theorists who said
that far from it being the case that power lay in the hypnotist,
all that was happening was that a natural capacity or
trait
in the subject was involved. On this view, hypnotisability is
something like introversion, or IQ, or musical ability: it is
something innate in the individual, and can be measured by
various tests.
As far as I know the first of these tests were developed at
Stanford University from around 1960. What did they consist of?
Well, very much the same sort of thing that we have seen above,
together with items that will appear in later chapters. A
typical Test would consist of a short sequence of items of this
kind, and a scoring method such as: "Score +1 if the hands
move significantly together within 2 minutes. Score +1 if the
subject scratches face within 1 minute. Score +1 if there is
significant arm catalepsy (rigidity) as assessed by the
difficulty experimenter has in bending it."
People who collected a high score on such a test were regarded
as being very hypnotisable. Those with a low score were regarded
as being poorly hypnotisable. If you are interested in more
detail you can find an example of such a test given in some of
the more academic books such as Hilgard & Hilgard
Hypnosis
in the Relief of Pain, Kaufmann, (1975)
However, those tests were made to look more like hypnosis
because there was a standard introductory "induction"
before they were made. When, later in the book, I have discussed
inductions, I will be encouraging you to compare the results of
suggestions before and after an induction. If you come to the
conclusion that nothing that you say to or do with your
"subject" in the preliminary stages makes any
difference to their response to the little experiments then you
will probably tend to agree with the Trait Theorists: you are
dealing with an innate property of their minds and bodies. If,
on the other hand, you find that your initial induction or
preparation of the subject makes quite dramatic differences to
their later responses then you will be more inclined to side
with the State Theorists.
Entertainment hypnotists, a band not renowned for their interest
in theory, act as if they came from both camps. In the earlier
steps of their acts they typically use one item - usually one of
forcing hands to stay clasped - to select from the audience
those with whom they could expect the best results. Implicitly
this is saying, "I can do little without a good subject."
(Which is essentially true, but not something they would want to
broadcast.)
Then, in the latter part of the performance, they proceed as if,
"This is all my doing. I am putting you into a state of
hypnosis through my power." (And it is true that they are
using certain skills to get the subject to do things that would
not normally be in their repertoire.)
What this shows, it seems to me, is simply the Standard Finding
as applied to the suggestions of the Stage Hypnotist: He
does achieve the effects, but it takes him time to build up
to the more dramatic ones, and they can only be achieved easily
in some people. If you watch carefully, you will also see that
some of his subjects will do well on one of the tricks but not
on another.
In recent decades the State vs. Trait argument seems to have
died down, with neither side having won a victory. Most
practising hypnotherapists would accept that there is some truth
on both sides and get on with their main job of helping people.
The way I look at things is as follows. I start with the
scientific fact that human brain, like human society, is very
complex. (There are some twenty times as many neurons in the
human brain as there are people on earth.) Furthermore it is
divided into a variety of subsystems. Some cells in the brain
are organised into a system that deals with vision, for example.
Other cells are organised into a system that handles speech.
Others, again, handle movements.
Now these subsystems are not totally independent of each other.
They are interconnected. They can affect each other.
I then view the above experiments as simple examples of
the general and non-controversial truth that one subsystem of
the brain can affect others. For example activity in
the verbal part can lead to activity in the visual part - words
can activate pictures.
They also show that people have
their mental systems somewhat differently connected. And they
show that the speed and the nature of the connections varies
from person to person.
You do not
have to see things in that way, but while
reading this book you should know that this is how I view
things.
I find that all of the steps of Induction Procedures create or
use such connections between systems of the brain. I find that
all of the Tests of Hypnotisability involve exploring how easily
the connections between various systems can be created or
utilised in a given person.
If you want to say that that it is a trait of a given person
that a particular pair of subsystems interact in a particular
way, then I would largely agree. I would, however, argue that
since it is possible to learn to alter the nature of the
connections, the trait cannot be regarded as fixed.
If, on the other hand, you want to call what happens when a
particular collection of subsystems is active and interacting,
with others inactive, "an hypnotic state" then I would
not object. However, I would simply note that it has proved
impossible to find ONE such collection, so that you have simply
found one of many possible "hypnotic states". (For
example, there are hypnotic "states" which involve a
great deal of visual content, even to hallucinations; others
that centre only on muscular responses in which there can be no
pictures in the mind at all; and there are countless other
possibilities.)
In practice I avoid the use of the word "state" myself
because of this vagueness, preferring to be more precise and
instead to describe what is happening in a particular person at
a particular time by giving as detailed a list as possible of
what systems are active and inactive, and how they are
interconnected.
There IS, nevertheless, a family resemblance in what is going on
in the minds of people who are regarded as being "hypnotised",
characterised by the following facts. Most of the mental systems
that deal with the outside world, other than listening to the
hypnotist, are inactive. There is a greatly increased focus and
attention to the words of the hypnotist. It commonly involves an
increased activity in certain internal systems such as the
visual imagination. There is a great reduction in mental
resistance to suggestions made by the hypnotist. There
is an increased
rapport - an inclination or desire to
cooperate with the hypnotist. All of these aspects will be dealt
with in more detail in later chapters. If you do not quite
understand them at this point, do not worry.
However, I regard that as a broad generalisation, not a precise
definition. Within this broad generalisation you can have people
with very different kinds of mental activity. Some may be aware
of intense internal pictures, perhaps of the past, or of a part
of their body (one client of mine saw himself walking through
his soot-caked lungs), or of certain sensations, or of feelings,
or of the absence of sensations, or of floating, or of nothing
except my voice, or of scents, or of a dead relative, and so on.
The brain waves of such people will be significantly different;
their experiences will be quite different; their internal
chemistry will be quite different. There is too little that they
have in common to make it very useful to use just the one word
"hypnotised" to describe them.
Nevertheless, the generalisation that they all tend to have a
very focussed or limited awareness or attention compared with
normal, outward oriented functioning makes a useful step towards
the matter of the next chapter. You may have already noticed, if
you have performed the above experiments, something that a later
chapter will deal with in more detail: that the phenomena arise
most effectively if the mind is focussed; if there are no
distracting thoughts; if there is nothing else distracting
happening. In other words it is best if there is no other mental
activity: if
other mental and physical activity
is switched down or off.
In the next chapter we will be exploring, in the same practical
way, examples of this "switching down" to complete our
survey of the elementary building blocks of the practice of
hypnosis: the fact that changes in the activity in one subsystem
can lead not only to an increase in the activity of another, but
also to a decrease.
I also find that this way of thinking in terms of the
connections between systems is invaluable when it comes to
analysing and solving the human problems that fall in the domain
of hypnotherapy.
A phobia, for example, can be understood as the existence, in a
particular person, of a connection between the picture or idea
of something feared and the emotional system of fear. If the
idea becomes active in the mind then it activates the fear.
Notice that, as in the above examples, we would not expect the
link to be the same for everyone: people vary tremendously.
If we want to change this state of affairs it is best to start
with a clear idea of what two parts of the mind are involved.
Hypnotic techniques will then be used not, as we have been doing
so far, to forge a link between those two systems, but to weaken
or remove it.
At other times the hypnotherapist
does forge new links
between systems. For example, think of the way in which
in
some people it is possible using hypnotic techniques to
help them to overcome an unwanted habit of smoking by connecting
the thought or smell or taste of tobacco smoke with the
activation of the nausea response. "The very sight or smell
of a cigarette will make you sick." This can be made so
clear and strong in some people that it is more than enough to
ensure that they do stop smoking. It should be clear that the
creation of such a connection is very similar in principle to
the sort of thing that you have already explored in this
chapter.
In line with the experiments described earlier you might perhaps
say to a friend who smokes something like the following.
"Experience as clearly as possible the most significant
aspect of smoking to you." (For some it would be a picture,
for others a taste or a smell, or the sense of holding one in
fingers or mouth, or of the feeling in the throat, or lungs or
body.) "Then just notice if this leads to a sensation of
nausea." You then need only say enough to keep their minds
on the possible association
for a minute or two, rather
like the itch.
Then, as in the other little things we have done, you will find
some smokers experiencing a strong feeling of nausea, others a
mild one and others none at all in the time. With the first
class of people the experience can be strong enough to
significantly reduce their desire to smoke even if they do not
stop. Although we will later find ways of intensifying this sort
of thing, you should by now see something of the value of
starting with the simple approach of this chapter.
Of course in real life you would not even need to suggest an
imaginary cigarette. You could just talk quietly to your friend
as he or she is actually smoking. "What is it doing to
you?" "You once said that the first one you ever
smoked made you feel sick." (Pause.) "Do you
remember?" (Pause and wait for some assent.) "Does
this one make you feel like that at all?" (Pause.) "After
all it is healthy to feel sick if you have swallowed poison."
(Pause.) And so on...
I would predict that if you tried this
without the
assent of the friends they would get rather angry with you and
shut you up! People naturally tend to defend their minds against
changes - a matter we will be dealing more with in Chapter 8.
With their assent, however, you should discover again the
Standard Finding: given enough time, quite a good percentage of
people would find some degree of nausea developing in response
to smoking.
This matter of using hypnotic techniques to make healthy or
therapeutic changes in people will not be covered in much detail
in this book . That is covered in
The Principles of
Hypnotherapy.
Speed of response and learning.
There is a very natural question that may well have arisen in
your mind as a result of the experiments at the start of the
chapter. Why is there usually such a
slow response
compared with the almost instantaneous reaction of my hand to
the idea of moving it in the normal, conscious way?
The answer to this might help to throw light on the whole
business of the interaction between different subsystems of the
mind.
The answer, I believe, is quite simple. Nearly every
new
piece of learning is slow. When I was first learning, as a baby,
to direct my hand, I do not suppose that hand action followed my
intention at all quickly. It was certainly with less accuracy.
I doubt if anyone can remember that piece of learning, but
perhaps you can remember learning to type. The thought of the
letter 't' would not then produce an almost instantaneous
movement of the index finger of the left hand to the middle of
the top line of the letters on the qwertyboard. There would
first be a message from the verbal part of the mind to the
visual part, directing it to look for the letter 't'. That in
turn would activate the eye muscles to track along the keyboard.
When the eye had found the letter 't' the eye would stop and the
next stage was started. A connection was activated in the brain
from the visual system to what is called the motor strip - a
collection of cells on the right hand side of the brain - which
controls the left side of the body. These would start the left
hand moving towards the letter. When the finger tip touched the
key a message would be sent to another part of the brain, next
to the motor strip, that responds to sensations of touch. This
would then activate the motor strip in a new way. The linkage
between the muscles of the index finger and the nerves that
register pressure would cooperate to press it with a suitable
sort of force. When resistance was felt, so that they key was
known to be fully depressed, then the finger would be lifted.
The first time anyone does that, it that takes quite a long
time. I have seen people hunting for a key for up to a minute!
The pressure on the key may easily be far too hard or soft. I do
not suppose that anyone is surprised by this initial slowness of
inaccuracy.
Neither are we surprised at the remarkable power of the brain to
simplify, with practice, this long chain of cause and effect in
the nervous system. It happens in the acquisition of all skills.
With time we get faster as the brain builds in more and more
direct and rapid connections between an original stimulus and
the required response.
An expert typist need only hear a word and his or her fingers
will type the word out without any need to look at the keys at
all. Pianists, snooker players, racing drivers, chess players -
in fact I think any person with a skill in ANY department, will
have spent many, many hours, slowly improving the connections
between different subsystems of the brain in order to produce
the most direct, accurate and rapid reactions.
What do we call this process?
Learning!
If I ask someone to learn something
new,
whether it is the Russian vocabulary, or how to tie a particular
knot, or how to dance a particular step, or how to recognise a
certain scent, or cook a particular meal I would expect the
following to be true:
1) They can learn to do it.
2) It takes some time for them
to learn it.
3) The time and approach taken and the accuracy
varies from person to person.
Do these three principles seem familiar? I think so. But then I
would expect it. Hypnotic phenomena have to do with our nervous
systems. They must therefore happen in accord with the
principles which regulate the nervous system. And the above
three rules seem pretty fundamental, whether we are aiming to
produce the kind of learning that is taught in schools or by
sports coaches or the kind of learning beloved of Stage
Hypnotists and Sergeant Majors which is, "Your body must
act on my words without question," or the kind of learning
which is the province of hypnotherapy, which is learning to stop
fearing something, or to change a habit, or to sleep again at
night, or to stop blushing or to control bladder function and so
on.
If you would like to test my answer by experiment, it is in
principle quite simple. Take any of the exercises from the
earlier part of this chapter. Repeat them every day or so for a
few weeks - just as if you were teaching someone any other
skill. If I am right then you should find that the responses in
a willing "pupil" will get faster and more precise
with repetition. (You will have as much problem with a
reluctant
"pupil" as any teacher.)
Take the hand closure experiment we started with. The connection
in that case is between a response of the auditory system to a
sound (your voice) and the muscular reaction. You should have
found that the first time you try it, it will take an average of
a minute of two for the closure to happen. But if you were to
repeat it over and over again with a willing friend, then I
expect you to find that the response will become faster and
faster. In time you may both find that when you say "close"
your friend's hands will close automatically, and quickly and
without his or her conscious involvement.
Stage hypnotists like to get their "subjects" into a
totally relaxed condition that looks rather like sleep in
response to them saying, "sleep". If you watch
carefully, you will find that they run the prospective subject
through the process of being told "sleep" (often with
a finger click as well) followed by an eye closure and a
muscular limpness
many times. Each time it tends to
become faster and more pronounced.
However, a piano teacher will find the same broad result in
trying to teach a pupil to press a certain key when she sounds a
certain note on a tuning fork. Most pupils are a bit slow and
uncertain to start with. With repetition they all get better and
faster. Some pupils will need only one or two repetitions and
then the connection is permanent. Others may need hundreds of
repetitions, and even then be a bit hit and miss. Piano playing
is trait-like in that some learn more easily than others.
Playing the piano is state-like in that the player is
functioning in a rather special, particular way.
The conclusion I have drawn from my years of work in
hypnotherapy is that it is not a case apart.
It involves the
same principles that arise in other areas of learning. The
reason it has been treated as a thing apart is, I believe,
because the kind of connections between systems hypnosis deals
with are off the beaten path, and so are often unexpected.
In stage hypnosis the unexpected is used to entertain the
audience, and the seemingly "magical" nature of what
is happening is exaggerated to impress. (But this is not a book
about stage hypnosis.) In hypnotherapy the unexpected enables
many problems to be solved which are often thought to be
insoluble. (I have written another book on the application of
hypnosis to such problem
