HYPNOSIS MISCONCEPTIONS

 

 

 

MISCONCEPTION:  HYPNOSIS IS CAUSED BY THE POWER OF THE HYPNOTIST

 

In the clinical context, the hypnotist is able to use his or her skills in communication to make acceptance of suggestions by the client more likely, but there is no control over the client other than whatever degree of control the client gives to the hypnotist.  If you allow someone to guide you through a suggested experience, who is in control?  The hypnotist may direct the client's experience, but only to the degree that the client permits it.  It is clearly a relationship of mutual responsiveness (Gilligan, 1987; Stanton, 1985).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION:  ONLY CERTAIN KINDS OF PEOPLE CAN BE HYPNOTIZED

 

In practice, there are definitely some people more difficult to induce hypnosis in than others.   Such persons are not usually less capable than others, but they are less responsive for any of a wide range of reasons, such as: they fear losing control, they have a hard time distinguishing ambiguous (for them) internal states such as tension or relaxation, they fear impending changes, they're aware of negative situational factors, and so forth.  When the nature of the resistance is identified and resolved, the 'difficult' person can often be transformed from a poor hypnotic subject into a reasonably good one (Araoz, 1985; Barber, 1980).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: ANYONE WHO CAN BE HYPNOTIZED MUST BE WEAK-MINDED

 

Since virtually all people enter spontaneous, informal hypnotic states regularly, the ability to be hypnotized is not reliably correlated with specific personality traits. This particular misconception refers to the Svengali image of the all-powerful hypnotist, and is based on the belief that in order for a hypnotist to control someone, the individual just have little or no will of his or her own (Weitzenhoffer, 1989).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: ONCE ONE HAS BEEN HYPNOTIZED, ONE CAN NO LONGER RESIST

 

This misconception refers to the idea that a hypnotist controls the will of his or her subject, and that once you "succumb to the power" of the hypnotist, you are forever at his or her mercy. Of course, nothing is farther from the truth, since the hypnotic process is a clinical interaction based on mutual power, shared in order to attain some desirable therapeutic outcome. If a client chooses not to go into hypnosis for whatever reason, then he or she will not. The nature of the hypnotic process is always context-determined. Even the most responsive clients can refuse to follow the suggestion of a hypnotist if they choose to. Prior experience with hypnosis, good or bad, is not the sole determining factor of whether hypnosis is accomplished or not. The communication and relationship factors of the particular context where hypnosis is performed are the key variables that will help determine the outcome (Barber, 1991; Diamond, 1987).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: ONE CAN BE HYPNOTIZED TO SAY OR DO SOMETHING AGAINST ONE'S WILL

 

This is one of the most hotly debated issues in the entire field of hypnosis. The capacity to influence people to do things against their will exists. There is little room for doubt that people can be manipulated negatively to do things seemingly inconsistent with the person's prior beliefs and attitudes. To put it simply, brainwashing and other untoward influences exist. However, the conditions necessary to affect such powerful influence do not typically surface in the therapeutic context.  In other words, controlling a person is possible under certain conditions, but those conditions are not in and of themselves hypnosis and they are quite far removed from the ethical and sensitive applications of hypnosis promoted in this book (Weitzenhoffer, 2989).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: BEING HYPNOTIZED CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

 

This misconception is a strong one in raising people's fears. In fact, here is legitimate basis for concern about the use of hypnosis, but the concern should not be about the experience of hypnosis harming anyone. Rather, the concern should be about who practices hypnosis and how it is practiced. Hypnosis itself is not harmful, but an incompetent or unethical practitioner can do some damage through sheer ignorance about the complexity of each person's mind or through a lack of respect for the integrity of each human being (Frauman. Lynn & Brentar, 1993; Kleinhauz & Eli, 1987; MacHovec, 1986).

 

In terms of potential emotional harm, it is not hypnosis itself that may cause damage; difficulties may arise due to either the content of a session or the clinician's inability to effectively guide the client. The same conditions exist, of course, in any helping relationship where one person is in distress, vulnerable, and seeking relief. An inexperienced or uneducated helper may inadvertently (rarely. if ever, is it intentional) offer poor advice, state misinformation as fact, make grandiose promises, misdiagnose a problem or its dynamics, or do nothing at all and simply waste the client's time and money.

 

The flipside of this issue and the reason for developing skills in hypnotic techniques is the considerable emotional good that effective hypnosis can generate. Through its ability to increase people's feelings of self-control and, thus, their self-confidence, hypnosis can be a powerful means for resolving emotional problems and enhancing emotional well-being. It is essential that the clinician have enough knowledge and skill to use it toward that end, for it is evident that anything that has an ability to help has an ability to hurt.

 

MISCONCEPTION: ONE INEVITABLY BECOMES DEPENDENT ON THE HYPNOTIST

 

Hypnosis as a therapeutic tool does not in and of itself foster dependency of any kind any more than other clinical tools such as a behavioral contract, analytical free association, or an intelligence test can. Dependency is a need, a reliance, which everyone has to some degree. To a greater or lesser extent, we all depend on others for things we feel are important to our well-being, in the helping professions, especially, people are seeking help at a time they are hurting and vulnerable. They depend on the clinician to help, to comfort, and to care. The clinician knows that one ultimate goal of treatment must be to help that person establish self-reliance and independence. Rather than foster dependence by indirectly encouraging the client to view the clinician as the source of answers to all of life's woes, hypnosis used properly can help the person in distress turn inwards in order to make use of the many experiences the person has acquired over his or her lifetime that can be used therapeutically. Consistent with the goal of self-reliance and use of personal power to help oneself is the teaching of self-hypnosis to those you work with (Alman & Lambrou, 1992; Fromm & Kahn, 1990; Sanders, 1991; Simpkins & Simpkins, 1991).

There is an old saying, "If you give a man a fish, you have given him a meal. If you teach him how to fish, you have given him a livelihood." Teaching self-hypnosis can allow for the emergence of a self-correcting mechanism that can assure those you work with that they do have greater control over their lives. It gives you an assurance that you have done your work well.

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: ONE CAN BECOME "STUCK" IN HYPNOSIS

 

Hypnosis is a state of focused attention, either inwardly or outwardly directed. It is controlled by the client, who can initiate or terminate the experience any time he or she chooses (Kirsch, Lynn & Kline, 1993; Watkins, 1986)

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: ONE IS ASLEEP OR UNCONSCIOUS WHEN HYPNOSIS

 

Hypnosis is not sleep! The experience of formally induced hypnosis resembles sleep from a physical standpoint (decreased activity, muscular relaxation, slowed breathing, etc.), but from a mental standpoint the client is relaxed yet alert. Ever-present is some level of awareness of current goings-on, even when the individual is in deeper states of hypnosis (Weitzenhoffer, 1989). In the case of informal, spontaneous hypnotic states, awareness is even more marked since physical relaxation need not be present.

 

Since hypnosis is not sleep, and even the client in deep hypnosis is oriented to external reality to some degree, the use of archaic phrases like "sleep deeply" are not relevant to the client's experience, and so should not be used.

 

 

MISCONCEPTION: HYPNOSIS ALWAYS INVOLVES A MONOTONOUS RITUAL OF INDUCTION

 

When you consider the communication aspects of hypnosis, you can appreciate that hypnosis occurs to some degree whenever someone turns his or her attention to and focuses on the ideas and feelings triggered by the communications of the guide. For as long as your attention is directed in an absorbing way, either inwardly on some subjective experience or outwardly on some external stimulus (which, in turn, creates an internal experience), you are in hypnosis to some degree.

 

Hypnosis does not have to be formally induced to occur. Likewise, the various classical hypnotic phenomena can (and do) occur routinely outside of formal hypnotic experience (Kirsch & Council, 1992).  Communication has conditioning properties, and whether used in the form of a monotonous ritual induction or in the form of an off hand remark, it has the capacity to influence others' experience, and thus be hypnotic in effect.

 

MISCONCEPTION:  ONE MUST BE RELAXED IN ORDER TO BE IN HYPNOSIS

 

Hypnosis has been described as a state of concentrated attention, one that varies in intensity according to individual and contextual characteristics.  Also mentioned earlier was the idea that hypnosis can spontaneously develop while you are conversing, reading, and in countless other instances where your attention becomes fixed.  You can be anxious, even in deep suspense, and still be focused, as in "glued to a mystery."  Thus, physical relaxation is not a necessary prerequisite for hypnosis to occur (Banyai, Zseni & Tury, 1993; Malott, 1984).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION:  HYPNOSIS IS A THERAPY

 

Hypnosis is not a therapy.  Rather, it is a therapeutic tool that can be used in an infinite variety of ways.  Hypnosis is not aligned with any one theoretical or practical orientation.  In a larger sense, hypnosis is a part of every psychotherapy, and for that matter, a part of every interaction in which one person engages and influences another (Kirsch, Lynn & Rhue, 1993; Lankton, 1982).

 

 

MISCONCEPTION:  HYPNOSIS MAY BE USED TO ACCURATELY RECALL EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU

 

There is a great need for clinicians to understand how memory works in order to best address this most important aspect of the individual.  Some have compared the mind to a computer in which every memory is accurately stored and available for eventual retrieval.  The computer metaphor is an inaccurate one, however.  The mind does not simply take in experience and store it in exact form for accurate recall later.  In fact, many of the same distortions are perceptions.  People can "remember" things that did not actually happen, they can remember selected fragments of an experience, and they can take bits and pieces of multiple memories and combine them into one false memory (McConkey, 1992; Orne, 1984; Yapko, 1994).  This topic is at the heart of a raging debate now bitterly dividing the mental health profession.

 

 

 

CLOSURE ON MISCONCEPTIONS

 

How you conceptualize hypnosis and the mind will determine almost entirely what limits you place on your use of hypnosis, as well as what limits you will place on your clients.  You are urged to give careful thought to the ways in which you think about hypnosis as a tool in treatment, and to review the literature available to help you clarify your beliefs.

 

 

   

REFERENCES

 

Alman, B. & Lambrou, P. (1992).  Self-hypnosis:  The complete manual for health and self-change (2nd ed.).              New York:  Brunner/Mazel.

Araoz, D. (1985).  The new hypnosis.  New York:  Brunner/Mazel.

Banyai, E., Zseni, A. & Tury, F. (1993).  Active-alert hypnosis in psychotherapy.  In J. Rhue, S. Lynn & I.        Kirsch (Eds.), Handbook of clinical hypnosis (pp. 271-290).  Washington, DC:  American    Psychological Association.

Barber, J. (1980).  Hypnosis and the unhypnotizable.  American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 23, 4-9.

 Exert from Essentials of Hypnosis, Michael D. Yapko, Ph.D.

 

Please Call (901)685-5491 for Questions, Concerns or Appointments. 

Most Insurance Accepted.