Towards the late 1800s, James Braid explained mesmerism in scientific terms. Hadley & Staudacher (1996) state “He believed mesmerism to be a ‘nervous sleep’ and coined the word hypnosis, derived from the Greek word Hypnos meaning sleep”.
Cited in Hadley & Staudacher (1996), Jean Martin Charcot explained hypnosis was an abnormal neurological activity, but Auguste Ambroise Leibeault and Hippolyte Bernheim explained that hypnosis was normal. As hypnosis became more and more accepted, Sigmund Freud became interested in hypnosis and learnt Leibeault and Bernheim’s induction techniques. While studying the patients during their hypnotic state, Freud noticed the existence of the unconscious and that it was a major source of psychopathology. Freud did not carry out further analysis of hypnosis; instead he concentrated on his technique of free association and dream interpretation. This could be why hypnosis was being used less and psychoanalysis was used more often. This continued until the 1950s where the trance state was being recognised as an effective tool for modifying behaviour and for healing.
Ask someone walking down the street what hypnosis is and you will receive a number of pre-conceived ideas from ‘mumbo jumbo’, ‘to look into my eyes’, to a hypnotist swinging their watch in front of the patient. They may mention stage hypnosis, which is a performance; a show designed to entertain the audience. Stage shows could lead to some people developing a fear or distrust of hypnosis. However people do not realise that we have all been in a hypnotic state thousands of times, and the reason we do not realise we are in this state is because it is so natural. For example, whilst driving have you ever wondered how you reached your destination so quickly or when getting into the car you don’t need to be reminded on how to turn on the engine on, or which side of the steering wheel the indicators or wipers are. This is because all this information is stored in your sub-conscious mind. Everything we have learnt and which is routine is stored in our sub-conscious, but when we are required to take an action or make a decision our conscious takes over. If we relied only on our conscious, it would take us all day to complete simple tasks, such as getting out of bed, showering, putting our clothes on etc. “Your mind assimilates over 2 billion pieces of information every second. It stands to reason that without the help of the powerful subconscious mind the conscious mind could not cope. Hypnosis is a natural state that the mind slips into between 4 – 8 times per hour, to allow the mind to deal with the mass of information that is being processed from moment to moment.” ().
Whilst doing something that is routine, you’re most likely to enter into daydreaming, which is the first a state of a trance level. Hadley & Staudacher (1996) state “while you are functioning in this automatic mode, it is quite easy to drift from an alert state into a different level of consciousness”. The consciousness has several levels in a trance state, these are from a state of alertness to a light trance to moderate trance to deep trance to sleep and you do not have to move from one trance to another in that order, behaviour modification will occur when you are in either a light, moderate or deep trance. This is also where you will be most susceptible to posthypnotic suggestions.
For hypnosis to work successfully the client being hypnotised must want to be hypnotised, the client should believe hypnosis will work and be comfortable and they must be relaxed about being hypnotised. If these factors are present, then the hypnotist can begin to hypnotise the client by talking in a gentle tone and describing images that promote relaxation into a trance state. When the client is in this trance state the conscious mind is suppressed and the subconscious mind is revealed. Suggestions or posthypnotic suggestions can take place and help the client overcome change to some behavioural habit or addiction. Several sessions may be required for the desired results, due to the reprogramming of the subconscious so that the deep-seated habit or addiction are erased or are altered. ”Since the subconscious mind is a deeper-seated, more instinctive force than the conscious mind, this is the part which has to change for the patient's behavior and physical state to alter.” Hilary (n.d.).
A client in a trance state receptive to hypnotic suggestion: could experience a number of physical bodily signs, for example: relaxation, sleepiness, a rigidity or limpness in the muscles of their arms and legs, skin warmth or coldness, sensations of tingling or feelings of electricity, narrowness of attention, regular breathing, rapid eye movements (REM’S), eyelids fluttering, lacrimation (watering of the eyes), lower lip protruding, spasms jerks (I.M.R responses), posture slump and absence of swallow reflex.
Studies have been carried out by scientists using electroencephalographs or EEGs to measure the brain activity of those subjects who have been hypnotised and those who have not been. The results showed that the brain produced different waves depending on the mental state of the patient. “Deep sleep waves look different than that of the person who is awake. Waves of the highly alert person differ from the person who is relaxed. EEGs from those under hypnosis show a boost in the lower frequency waves that are associated with dreaming or sleeping and a drop in the higher frequency waves that are seen in those who are fully awake. This would support the theory that the conscious mind goes on vacation during hypnosis and the subconscious mind takes over. The brain has two spheres or hemispheres of the cortex. During hypnosis it has been shown that subjects have a reduced activity level in the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex while increasing activity in the right hemisphere.” ().
There are various psychological characteristics when a patient has been hypnotised, Waterfield (2002) states “The most important psychological change – so important that it is often considered definitional of hypnosis – is hypersuggestibility. In fact, since very few hypnotic phenomena are spontaneous, it only occurs at the suggestion of the hypnotist; you could say that most of them depend on increased suggestibility”. There is the withdrawal into self, direction of attention to imagined activity, event which may be possible or impossible, loss of awareness of surroundings, where you might see you’re surrounding in a new way. Intensified imagery, Heap & Dryden (1991) state “Imagination is very often a feature of the hypnotic experience: the subject is absorbed in imagining some scene, usually under the direction of the hypnotist” narrowing of attention, illusions of senses possible, loss of auditory receptivity and environmental awareness, super-learning, Waterfield (2002) states “experiments behind the Iron Curtain in Soviet Russia suggest that hypnotized subjects can learn between 120 to 150 new words in a foreign language in an hour. The teacher has to speak in a special way, alternating gentle speech with a commanding tone of voice, and a background of soothing music helps create the environment within which such superlearning can happen”.
Living in a stressful world, most people find it hard to relax and let go from everyday problems, such as work, family life, etc. However, if we do not relax properly then it can have devastating effects on our health and quality of life. There are two responses to stress and relaxation; there is the sympathetic nervous response, which is also known as fight or flight response and the parasympathetic nervous response, which is also known as the relaxation response. “When we sense we are in danger, the sympathetic nervous system comes into action and floods our bloodstream with adrenalin so we can either fight or run away from danger. Our heart rates increases and so does blood pressure, blood is taken away from non-essential functions such as digestion and taken to the major muscle groups ready for action
Once this danger has been cleared, our relaxation response is triggered. The relaxation response resets the body by removing the adrenaline from the blood stream, lowering the heart rate and returning blood back to where it was taken from.” Kendall (2011).
If we only had to deal with one or two problems a day, our body can recover and we would be fine, but living in a stressful world this doesn’t happen. We come across hundreds of little stressful situation and even though they are only little problems they still trigger the fight or flight responses and our body never really fully recovers with the relaxation response. That is not until we are asleep, but even then our relaxation response cannot deal with the amount of stress in our body.
Jacobson noticed in 1929 that those patients who were helped in relaxing their muscles, showed improvements in their symptoms and most of the patients didn’t even realise they were so tensed as they were so use to it. “Jacobson then went on to realise that a muscle works on the All or Nothing Principle and if a patient tensed and then relaxed a muscle consciously the muscle would then be able to stay in a relaxed state, thus avoiding the state of chronic tension and thereby improving the physical, mental and emotional state of the patient. The name given to this technique was Progressive Muscle Relaxation or PMR.” Handout
The PMR technique is used to help relax the patient in hypnotherapy. When the patient is physically and mentally relaxed the conscious mind is suppressed and the sub-conscious mind is revealed and then the therapist is able to suggest ideas or lifestyle adaptations to the patient, the seeds which become firmly planted.
Reviewing the literature there still seems to be a debate on what hypnosis is. Karle & Boys (2010) state “We now know rather than believe that hypnosis has real, measureable and valuable effects on both mind and body; we have research evidence. Hypnosis is a tool with which we may influence many functions of the body, especially in terms of accessing and mobilising healing processes”. Waterfield (2002) states “It is a great pity that hypnosis has become surrounded by so much fear, since in a quite a wide range of ailments and problems it is actually a very safe form of therapy – far safer for instance, then the pharmaceutical and interventionist form of medicine most commonly practised in the West today. We need a working definition of hypnosis”.
References
Hadley & Staudacher (1996), Hypnosis for Change, New Harbinger Publications
Heap & Dryden (1991), Hypnotherapy - A Handbook, Open University Press
Karle & Boys (2010), Hypnotherapy A Practical Handbook, Free Association Books
Waterfield (2002), Hidden Depths - The Story of Hypnosis, Pan Books
Fritscher (2009), Hypnotic Suggestion,
(4.11.2011)
Jones What Is Hypnosis and How Does Hypnotherapy Work? (9.11.2001)
Kendall (2008-20011) Total relaxation with hypnotherapy, (14.11.2001).
Clinical Hypnosis & NLP Info Report, (19.07.2011) (Used in the explanation of what hypnosis is part)
What Are the Physical Aspects of Hypnosis? (14.11.2011) (Used in the physical aspects part)
From Past to Present – An Introduction to Basic Techniques, Hand-out given in class (23.10.2011)
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