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Milton Erickson

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:39:00 +0000

Milton H. Erickson, M.D. was one of the most influential post-war hypnotherapists. He wrote several books and journal articles on the subject. During the 1960s, Erickson was responsible for popularizing a new branch of hypnotherapy, which became known as Ericksonian hypnotherapy, eventually characterised by, amongst other things, the absence of a formal hypnotic inductions, and the use of indirect suggestion, “metaphor” (actually they were analogies, rather than “metaphors”), confusion techniques, and double binds. However, the lack of resemblance between Erickson’s methods and those of traditional hypnotism led some of his contemporaries, such as André Weitzenhoffer, to seriously question whether he was actually practicing “hypnosis” at all, and the status of his approach in relation to traditional hypnotism has remained in question.

Erickson had no hesitation in presenting any suggested effect as being “hypnosis”, whether or not the subject was in a hypnotic state. In fact, he was not hesitant in passing off behaviour that was dubiously hypnotic as being hypnotic.

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Émile Coué

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:36:06 +0000

Émile Coué (1857-1926) served for around two years as an assistant to Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault in his group hypnotic at Nancy. However, after practicing for several years as a hypnotherapist employing the methods of Liébeault and Bernheim’s Nancy School, Coué gradually began to develop a new orientation called “conscious autosuggestion.” Several years after Liébeault’s death in 1904, Coué founded what became known as the New Nancy School, a loose collaboration of practitioners who taught and promoted his views. Coué’s method did not emphasise “sleep” or deep relaxation and instead focused upon teaching groups of clients how to use autosuggestion by trial and error learning involving a specific series of suggestion tests. Although Coué argued that he was no longer using hypnosis, some of his followers, such as Charles Baudouin, viewed his approach as a form of light self-hypnosis. Coué’s method became an internationally renowned self-help and psychotherapy technique, which contrasted with the methods of Freud’s method of psychoanalysis and prefigured subsequent self-hypnosis techniques and, in some regards, the development of cognitive therapy.

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Sigmund Freud & Hypnotism

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:32:07 +0000

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, subsequently studied hypnotism at Charcot’s Paris school and briefly visited Bernheim’s Nancy school.

Initially, Freud was an enthusiastic proponent of hypnotherapy, and soon began to emphasise and popularise the use of hypnotic regression and ab reaction (catharsis) as therapeutic methods. He wrote a favorable encyclopedia article on hypnotism, translated one of Bernheim’s works into German, and published an influential series of case studies with his colleague Joseph Breuer entitled Studies on Hysteria (1895). This became the founding text of the subsequent tradition known as “hypno-analysis” or “regression hypnotherapy.”

However, Freud gradually abandoned the use of hypnotism in favour of his developing methods of psychoanalysis, through free association and interpretation of the unconscious. Struggling with the great expense of time required for psychoanalysis to be successful, Freud later suggested that it might be combined with hypnotic suggestion once more in an attempt to hasten the outcome of treatment,

It is very probable, too, that the application of our therapy to numbers will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis plentifully with the copper of direct [hypnotic] suggestion.

However, only a handful of Freud’s followers were sufficiently qualified in hypnosis to attempt the synthesis. Their work had a limited influence on the gradual emergence of the hypno-therapeutic approaches now known variously as “hypnotic regression”, “hypnotic progression”, and “hypnoanalysis”.

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Pierre Janet

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:30:09 +0000

Pierre Janet (1859-1947) reported some initial studies on a hypnotic subject in 1882 which came to the attention of Charcot who subsequently appointed him director of the psychological laboratory at the Salpêtrière in 1889, after Janet completed his PhD in philosophy which dealt with the subject of psychological automatism. In 1898 Janet was appointed lecturer in psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1902 he became chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France. Janet reconciled elements of his views with those of Bernheim and his followers, developing his own sophisticated hypnotic psychotherapy based upon the concept of psychological dissociation which, at the turn of the century, rivalled Freud’s attempt to provide a more comprehensive psychological theory of psychotherapy.

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Hysteria vs. suggestion

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:23:33 +0000

For several decades, Braid’s work became more influential abroad than in his own country, except for a handful of followers, most notably Dr. John Milne Bramwell. The eminent neurologist Dr. George Miller Beard took Braid’s theories to America. Meanwhile his works were translated into German by Wilhelm T. Preyer, Professor of Physiology at Jena University. The psychiatrist Albert Moll subsequently continued German research, publishing his Hypnotism in 1889. However, the study of hypnotism mainly became focused in France, after Braid’s research was presented before the French Academy of Sciences by the eminent neurologist Dr. Étienne Eugène Azam who also translated Braid’s last manuscript (On Hypnotism, 1860) into French. The French Academy of Science, who had previously examined Mesmerism in 1784, therefore subsequently examined the writings of Braid, shortly after his demise, at the request of Azam, Paul Broca, and others.

Azam’s enthusiasm for hypnotism influenced Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, a country doctor whose enormously popular group hypnotherapy clinic was discovered by Hippolyte Bernheim who subsequently became himself an influential hypnotist. The study of hypnotism subsequently became centred upon a fierce rivalry and debate between Jean-Martin Charcot and Hippolyte Bernheim, the two most influential figures in late 19th century hypnotism.

An important argument developed between Charcot’s “Hysteria School”, centered on Charcot’s clinic at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (thus, also known as the “Paris School” or the “Salpêtrière School”) and Bernheim’s “Suggestion School”, centred on Bernheim’s Nancy clinic (thus, also known as the “Nancy School” over the true nature of hypnosis. Charcot, influenced more by the Mesmerists, argued that hypnotism was an abnormal state of nervous functioning found only in certain hysterical women. He claimed that it was manifested in the form of a series of physical reactions which could be divided into distinct stages. Bernheim argued against Charcot that anyone could be hypnotised, that it was an extension of normal psychological functioning, and that its effects were variable being primarily due to suggestion. After several decades of debate, Bernheim’s view eventually came to dominate and Charcot’s theory of hypnosis is now seen as little more than a historical curiosity.

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James Braid

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:17:52 +0000

Following the French committee’s findings, in his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1827), Dugald Stewart, an influential academic philosopher of the “Scottish School of Common Sense”, encouraged physicians to salvage elements of Mesmerism by replacing the supernatural theory of “animal magnetism” with a new interpretation based upon “common sense” laws of physiology and psychology. Braid explicitly quotes the following passage from Stewart:

It appears to me, that the general conclusions established by Mesmer’s practice, with respect to the physical effects of the principle of imagination [...] are incomparably more curious than if he had actually demonstrated the existence of his boasted science [of "animal magnetism"]: nor can I see any good reason why a physician, who admits the efficacy of the moral [i.e., psychological] agents employed by Mesmer, should, in the exercise of his profession, scruple to copy whatever processes are necessary for subjecting them to his command, any more than that he should hesitate about employing a new physical agent, such as electricity or galvanism.

In Braid’s day, the Scottish School of Common Sense provided the dominant theories of academic psychology and Braid frequently refers to other philosophers within this tradition throughout his writings. Braid therefore revised the theory and practice of Mesmerism and developed his own method of “hypnotism” as a more rational and “common sense” alternative.

It may here be requisite for me to explain, that by the term Hypnotism, or Nervous Sleep, which frequently occurs in the following pages, I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it may be thrown by artificial contrivance, and which differs, in several respects, from common sleep or the waking condition. I do not allege that this condition is induced through the transmission of a magnetic or occult influence from my body into that of my patients; nor do I profess, by my processes, to produce the higher [i.e., supernatural] phenomena of the Mesmerists. My pretensions are of a much more humble character, and are all consistent with generally admitted principles in physiological and psychological science. Hypnotism might therefore not inaptly be designated, Rational Mesmerism, in contra-distinction to the Transcendental Mesmerism of the Mesmerists.[17]

Despite briefly toying with the name “rational Mesmerism”, Braid ultimately distanced his approach from Mesmer’s and emphasised its uniqueness, carrying out many informal experiments throughout his career to refute the theories of Mesmerists and other supernatural practices, and demonstrate instead the role of ordinary physiological and psychological processes such as suggestion and focused attention in producing the effects observed.

Braid worked very closely with his friend and ally the eminent physiologist Professor William Benjamin Carpenter an early neuro-psychologist, who introduced the “ideo-motor reflex” theory of suggestion. Carpenter had observed many everyday examples of expectation and imagination apparently influencing the movement of muscles involuntarily.[18]

Braid soon assimilated Carpenter’s observations into his own theory of hypnotism, realising that the effect of focusing attention was to enhance the ideo-motor reflex response. Braid extended Carpenter’s theory to encompass the influence of the mind upon the body more generally, beyond the muscular system, and therefore referred to the “ideo-dynamic” response and coined the term “psycho-physiology” to refer to the study of interaction between the mind and body in general.

In his later works, Braid reserved the term “hypnotism” for the small minority of cases in which subjects entered a state of amnesia resembling sleep. For the rest, he spoke of “mono-ideodynamic” principle of action to emphasise that the eye-fixation induction technique worked by narrowing the focus of their attention to a single idea or train of thought (”monoideism”) which thereby amplified the effect of the consequent “dominant idea” upon the subject’s body by means of the ideo-dynamic principle.

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Mesmerism

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:15:03 +0000

Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) believed that there was a magnetic force or “fluid” within the universe which influenced the health of the human body. He experimented with magnets to influence this field and so cause healing. By around 1774 he had concluded that the same effects could be created by passing the hands, at a distance, in front of the subject’s body, referred to as making “Mesmeric passes.” The word mesmerise originates from the name of Franz Mesmer; and was intentionally used to separate its users from the various “fluid” and “magnetic” theories embedded within the label “magnetist”.

In 1784, at the request of King Louis XVI, Mesmer’s theories were scrutinised by a series of French scientific committees, one of which included the American ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin. They also investigated the practices of a disaffected student of Mesmer, one Charles d’Eslon (1750-1786), and on the basis of their examination of d’Eslon’s manner of working (not Mesmer’s), and despite the fact that they accepted that the results that were claimed by Mesmer were in fact veridical, their placebo controlled experiments of d’Eslon’s practices clearly demonstrate that the effects of Mesmerism were most likely due to belief and imagination rather than to any sort of invisible energy (”animal magnetism”) being transmitted from the body of the Mesmerist.

In other words, despite accepting that Mesmer’s practice seemed to have a certain efficacy, both committees totally rejected all of Mesmer’s theories.

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History of hypnosis

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:09:09 +0000

According to his writings, Braid began to hear reports concerning the practices of various Oriental meditation techniques immediately after the publication of his major book on hypnotism, Neurypnology (1843). Braid first discusses hypnotism’s historical precursors in a series of articles entitled Magic, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, etc., Historically & Physiologically Considered. He draws analogies between his own practice of hypnotism and various forms of Hindu yoga meditation and other ancient spiritual practices. Braid’s interest in meditation really developed when he was introduced to the Dabistan-i Mazahib, the “School of Religions”, an ancient Persian text describing a wide variety of Oriental religious practices.

Last May [1843], a gentleman residing in Edinburgh, personally unknown to me, who had long resided in India, favored me with a letter expressing his approbation of the views which I had published on the nature and causes of hypnotic and mesmeric phenomena. In corroboration of my views, he referred to what he had previously witnessed in oriental regions, and recommended me to look into the “Dabistan,” a book lately published, for additional proof to the same effect. On much recommendation I immediately sent for a copy of the “Dabistan”, in which I found many statements corroborative of the fact, that the eastern saints are all self-hypnotisers, adopting means essentially the same as those which I had recommended for similar purposes.

Although he disputed the religious interpretation given to these phenomena throughout this article and elsewhere in his writings, Braid seized upon these accounts of Oriental meditation as proof that the effects of hypnotism could be produced in solitude, without the presence of a magnetiser, and therefore saw this as evidence that the real precursor of hypnotism was to be sought in the ancient practices of meditation rather than in the more recent theory and practice of Mesmerism. As he later wrote:

In as much as patients can throw themselves into the nervous sleep, and manifest all the usual phenomena of Mesmerism, through their own unaided efforts, as I have so repeatedly proved by causing them to maintain a steady fixed gaze at any point, concentrating their whole mental energies on the idea of the object looked at; or that the same may arise by the patient looking at the point of his own finger, or as the Magi of Persia and Yogi of India have practised for the last 2,400 years, for religious purposes, throwing themselves into their ecstatic trances by each maintaining a steady fixed gaze at the tip of his own nose; it is obvious that there is no need for an exoteric influence to produce the phenomena of Mesmerism. The great object in all these processes is to induce a habit of abstraction or concentration of attention, in which the subject is entirely absorbed with one idea, or train of ideas, whilst he is unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, every other object, purpose, or action.

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Hypnotic susceptibility

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:05:26 +0000

Braid made a rough distinction between different stages of hypnosis which he termed the first and second conscious stage of hypnotism, he later replaced this with a distinction between “sub-hypnotic”, “full hypnotic”, and “hypnotic coma” stages. Jean-Martin Charcot made a similar distinction between stages named somnambulism, lethargy, and catalepsy. However, Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and Bernheim introduced more complex hypnotic “depth” scales, based on a combination of behavioural, physiological and subjective responses, some of which were due to direct suggestion and some of which were not. In the first few decades of the 20th century, these early clinical “depth” scales were superseded by more sophisticated “hypnotic susceptibility” scales based on experimental research. The most influential were the Davis-Husband and Friedlander-Sarbin scales developed in the 1930s. Andre Weitzenhoffer and Ernest R. Hilgard developed the Stanford Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility in 1959, consisting of 12 suggestion test items following a standardised hypnotic eye-fixation induction script, and this has become one of the most widely-referenced research tools in the field of hypnosis. Soon after, in 1962, Ronald Shor and Emily Carota Orne developed a similar group scale called the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS).

Whereas the older “depth scales” tried to infer the level of “hypnotic trance” based upon supposed observable signs, such as spontaneous amnesia, most subsequent scales measure the degree of observed or self-evaluated responsiveness to specific suggestion tests, such as direct suggestions of arm rigidity (catalepsy).

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Post-hypnotic suggestion

admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:04:08 +0000

Post-hypnotic suggestion can be used to change people’s behaviour after emerging from hypnosis. One author wrote that “a person can act, some time later, on a suggestion seeded during the hypnotic session… A hypnotherapist told one of his patients, who was also a friend: ‘When I touch you on the finger you will immediately be hypnotised.’ Fourteen years later, at a dinner party, he touched him deliberately on the finger and his head fell back against the chair.”

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Consciousness vs. unconscious mind

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:58:01 +0000

Some hypnotists conceive of suggestions as being a form of communication directed primarily to the subject’s conscious mind, whereas others view suggestion as a means of communicating with the “unconscious” or “subconscious” mind. These concepts were introduced into hypnotism at the end of 19th century by Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet. The original Victorian pioneers of hypnotism, including Braid and Bernheim, did not employ these concepts but considered hypnotic Milton Erickson, made more use of indirect suggestions, such as metaphors or stories, whose intended meaning may be concealed from the subject’s conscious mind. The concept of subliminal suggestion also depends upon this view of the mind. By contrast, hypnotists who believed that responses to suggestion are primarily mediated by the conscious mind, such as Theodore Barber and Nicholas Spanos tended to make more use of direct verbal suggestions and instructions.

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Suggestion

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:57:18 +0000

When Braid first introduced hypnotism, he did not use the term “suggestion” but referred instead to the act of focusing the conscious mind of the subject upon a single dominant idea. Braid’s main therapeutic strategy involved stimulating or reducing physiological functioning in different regions of the body. In his later works, however, Braid placed increasing emphasis upon the use of a variety of different verbal and non-verbal forms of suggestion, including the use of “waking suggestion” and self-hypnosis. Subsequently, Hippolyte Bernheim shifted the emphasis from the physical state of hypnosis on to the psychological process of verbal suggestion.

Hypnotism can be defined as the induction of a peculiar psychical [i.e., mental] condition which increases the susceptibility to suggestion. Often, it is true, the [hypnotic] sleep that may be induced facilitates suggestion, but it is not the necessary preliminary. It is suggestion that rules hypnotism.

Bernheim’s conception of the primacy of verbal suggestion in hypnotism dominated the subject throughout the twentieth century, leading some authorities to declare him the father of modern hypnotism. Contemporary hypnotism makes use of a wide variety of different forms of suggestion including: direct verbal suggestions, “indirect” verbal suggestions such as requests or insinuations, metaphors and other rhetorical figures of speech, and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation. A distinction is commonly made between suggestions delivered “permissively” or in a more “authoritarian” manner. Some hypnotic suggestions are intended to bring about immediate responses, whereas others (post-hypnotic suggestions) are intended to trigger responses after a delay ranging from a few minutes to many years in some reported cases.

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Hypnotic Induction

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:56:40 +0000

Hypnosis is normally preceded by a “hypnotic induction” technique. Traditionally this was interpreted as a method of putting the subject into a “hypnotic trance”; however subsequent theorists have viewed it differently, as a means of heightening client expectation, defining their role, focusing attention, etc. There are an enormous variety of different induction techniques used in hypnotism. However, by far the most influential method was the original “eye-fixation” technique. Many variations of the eye-fixation approach exist, including the induction used in the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS), the most widely-used research tool in the field of hypnotism. Braid’s original description of his induction is as follows:

James Braid’s Original Eye-Fixation Hypnotic Induction Method
Take any bright object between the thumb and fore and middle fingers of the left hand; hold it from about eight to fifteen inches from the eyes, at such position above the forehead as may be necessary to produce the greatest possible strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and enable the patient to maintain a steady fixed stare at the object.

The patient must be made to understand that he is to keep the eyes steadily fixed on the object, and the mind riveted on the idea of that one object. It will be observed, that owing to the consensual adjustment of the eyes, the pupils will be at first contracted: they will shortly begin to dilate, and after they have done so to a considerable extent, and have assumed a wavy motion, if the fore and middle fingers of the right hand, extended and a little separated, are carried from the object towards the eyes, most probably the eyelids will close involuntarily, with a vibratory motion. If this is not the case, or the patient allows the eyeballs to move, desire him to begin anew, giving him to understand that he is to allow the eyelids to close when the fingers are again carried towards the eyes, but that the eyeballs must be kept fixed, in the same position, and the mind riveted to the one idea of the object held above the eyes. It will generally be found, that the eyelids close with a vibratory motion, or become spasmodically closed.

Braid himself later acknowledged that the hypnotic induction technique was not necessary in every case and subsequent researchers have generally found that on average it contributes less than previously expected to the effect of hypnotic suggestions. Many variations and alternatives to the original hypnotic induction techniques were subsequently developed. However, exactly 100 years after Braid introduced the method, another expert could still state: “It can be safely stated that nine out of ten hypnotic techniques call for reclining posture, muscular relaxation, and optical fixation followed by eye closure.”

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Definitions of Hypnosis

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:56:13 +0000

The earliest definition of hypnosis was given by Braid, who coined the term “hypnotism”, an abbreviation for “neuro-hypnotism”, or nervous sleep, which he opposed to normal sleep, and defined as:

“a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature.”

Braid elaborated upon this brief definition in a later work:

“the real origin and essence of the hypnotic condition, is the induction of a habit of abstraction or mental concentration, in which, as in reverie or spontaneous abstraction, the powers of the mind are so much engrossed with a single idea or train of thought, as, for the nonce, to render the individual unconscious of, or indifferently conscious to, all other ideas, impressions, or trains of thought. The hypnotic sleep, therefore, is the very antithesis or opposite mental and physical condition to that which precedes and accompanies common sleep”

Braid therefore defined hypnotism as a state of mental concentration which often led to a form of progressive relaxation termed “nervous sleep”.

A contemporary account of hypnosis, derived from academic psychology, was provided in 2005, when the Society for Psychological Hypnosis, Division 30 of the American Psychological Association (APA), published the following formal definition:

The American Psychological Association’s Definition of Hypnosis
“Hypnosis typically involves an introduction to the procedure during which the subject is told that suggestions for imaginative experiences will be presented. The hypnotic induction is an extended initial suggestion for using one’s imagination, and may contain further elaborations of the introduction. A hypnotic procedure is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, one person (the subject) is guided by another (the hypnotist) to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behaviour. Persons can also learn self-hypnosis, which is the act of administering hypnotic procedures on one’s own. If the subject responds to hypnotic suggestions, it is generally inferred that hypnosis has been induced. Many believe that hypnotic responses and experiences are characteristic of a hypnotic state. While some think that it is not necessary to use the word “hypnosis” as part of the hypnotic induction, others view it as essential.”

Details of hypnotic procedures and suggestions will differ depending on the goals of the practitioner and the purposes of the clinical or research endeavor. Procedures traditionally involve suggestions to relax, though relaxation is not necessary for hypnosis and a wide variety of suggestions can be used including those to become more alert. Suggestions that permit the extent of hypnosis to be assessed by comparing responses to standardised scales can be used in both clinical and research settings. While the majority of individuals are responsive to at least some suggestions, scores on standardised scales range from high to negligible.

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The Definition of Hypnosis

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:55:45 +0000

Hypnosis is a mental state or set of attitudes induced by hypnotic induction, which usually consists of a series of instructions and suggestions, which can either be delivered by a hypnotist, or be self-administered. The use of hypnotism for therapeutic purposes is referred to as “hypnotherapy”.

‘Hypnosis’ and ‘hypnotism’ both derive from the term “neuro-hypnotism” coined by the Scottish physician and surgeon James Braid around 1841 to distinguish his theory and practice from “Mesmerism” or “animal magnetism”.

Although a popular misconception is that hypnosis is a form of unconsciousness resembling sleep, contemporary research suggests that it is actually a wakeful state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility, with diminished peripheral awareness. In the first book on the subject, Neurypnology (1843), Braid described “hypnotism” as a state of physical relaxation (”nervous sleep”) accompanied and induced by mental concentration (”abstraction”).

Characteristics
Skeptics point out the difficulty distinguishing between hypnosis and the placebo effect, proposing that the state called hypnosis is so heavily reliant upon the effects of suggestion and belief that it would be hard to imagine how a credible placebo control could ever be devised for a hypnotism study.

However, hypnotism itself originated out of very early placebo controlled experiments, conducted by Braid and others. Many researchers and clinicians would therefore object that hypnotic suggestion is explicitly intended to make use of the placebo effect, e.g., Irving Kirsch has proposed a definition of hypnosis as a “non-deceptive mega-placebo”, i.e., a method which openly makes use of suggestion and employs methods to amplify its effects. It is therefore surprisingly difficult to distinguish between the views of skeptics and proponents regarding hypnotism.

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The Simple Truth About Hypnosis?

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:29:11 +0000

Thanks to stage shows & television, many people have a bad impression of hypnosis, which is a shame because hypnotherapy is a techniquee that can help many people to make difficult changes to improve their quality of life. Therefore I felt it would be useful to start with the simple truths are about hypnosis.

Self Hypnosis:
Hypnotism is a state of hyper-suggestibility where the conscious mind and the subconscious dissociate. It is a state of consciousness where the hypnotized person can more easily adhere to the Hypnotist’s suggestions.

What many people won’t have realised is that they will have entered a hypnotic state many times in their lives to date. If you’ve ever been moved to tears by a sad tv show or movie, you have entered a state of increased suggestibility where the suggestion of sadness presented on the TV has triggered an emotional &/or physical response. Your ability to reason, which is controlled by your conscious mind, has been bypassed, so you do not rationalise that the events being presented to you are not real, and you respond emotionally as though they are.

Who Can Be Placed Under Hypnosis?
Research has learned that the vast majority of people are susceptible to hypnosis. The exceptions generally are subjects with an I.Q. of less than 70, psychotic personalities and those suffering from senility. Age however is no barrier, and most people can benefit from self hypnosis techniques, so long as they are motivated to do so.

How involved does a subject need to be to benefit?
In most cases, you can be the lightest possible subject and still obtain all of the benefits from self hypnosis. For many years, a great deal of importance has been placed on how deep a subject is, but research has shown that this may not necessarily be the case. With the latest state of the art “NLP” and hypnotic methods, hypnotic depth is one of the least imperative aspects, which contributes to the treatment success.

Are There Any Dangers Associated With Self Hypnosis?
There are on the whole no dangers to practicing self hypnosis. The most “negative” possibility is that the subject may fall in to a relaxed sleep for up to an hour.

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