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Question
How accurate are the depictions of hypnosis?
Your Answer:
Hi Jo
Well that depends on the depictions you've seen. If you mean, can a hypnotist make someone fall in love with a mop and stuff like that, yes, they can.
I enjoyed Toby's reply as it covers quite a few misconceptions about hypnosis. I don't know what Toby's experience is of hypnosis but I'm a clinical hypnotist, I have been doing clinical hypnotism for 16 years and I work as a clinical hypnotist in a National Health Service hospital here in theUK
Toby said
In reality
Although the eyes can be used as place to stare at, they are no more hypnotic than the elbow.
TRUE. And, in fact, staring at any spot is not necessary to induce hypnosis, although it is commonly used.
Well that depends on the depictions you've seen. If you mean, can a hypnotist make someone fall in love with a mop and stuff like that, yes, they can.
I enjoyed Toby's reply as it covers quite a few misconceptions about hypnosis. I don't know what Toby's experience is of hypnosis but I'm a clinical hypnotist, I have been doing clinical hypnotism for 16 years and I work as a clinical hypnotist in a National Health Service hospital here in the
Toby said
In reality
Although the eyes can be used as place to stare at, they are no more hypnotic than the elbow.
TRUE. And, in fact, staring at any spot is not necessary to induce hypnosis, although it is commonly used.
A hypnotized person is fully in control at all times.
FALSE. This is only ever said by people who know nothing about hypnotism. That includes thousands of hypnotherapists who have been taught, and believe that relaxation is hypnosis - which it isn't.
(Stage hypnotists never mention this and act as they do have control, tricking the person being hypnotized.)
FALSE. Not being a stage hypnotist I can't say why they don't mention it. My guess would be they know it isn't true and that's why they don't say it.
Anything significantly against what a person is happy with doing would end the hypnosis.
HARD TO SAY. The only way you'd know that is if you tried to get people to do stuff they really weren't happy with in hypnosis, and what kind of clown would want to do that? You know, they say you couldn't make someone jump off a tall building, and it might be true, but who is ever going to do the research? If you try and it works, you just killed someone. And if it doesn't work it only proves you couldn't do it with this person.
Hypnosis is not like sleep, the person being hypnotized is able to think and is aware of everything around them
TRUE and FALSE. Hypnosis is not like bedtime sleep. Some people do spontaneously go into a gaga state but it isn't necessary and hypnotists would not set out to achieve that unless they had a specific reason for doing so. But plenty of people do trip right out spontaneously and have no conscious awareness of anything that happens in the session. And I have lost count of the number of times people have said things like "I knew I wasn't hypnotised so I decided to open my eyes, pick my hand up and scratch my nose. And I tried. I really tried but nothing moved."
Only a relatively small proportion of the population can have hallucinations in hypnosis and it would take a while to work up to that degree of suggestibility
FALSE. If you are hypnotised you can experience hallucinations, and that can happen in the first session, within seconds of the beginning of an induction.
People rarely spontaneously forget things and even if directly suggested for most people it doesn't last very long.
CONFUSED. if it has been directly suggested then it is not spontaneous. People are often spontaneously un-conscious of what happens in a session. Amnesia is rarely used in therapy, however, and most hypno-amnesia IS spontaneous - but it has more to do with never consciously knowing than consciously forgetting.
Hypnosis isn't magic and can't allow someone to do something outside the capabilities of their body b/ mind. (Though those capabilities are broader than many people realize.)
TRUISH. But it can certainly be used to make people think they are doing the physically impossible, and experience it just as if it were really happening.
And finally although a swinging watch can be used as something for a person to stare at while entering hypnosis, it is very rare these days.
TRUE. And, in fact, I've never used one.
I'm going to put some video clips in the sources so you can see me doing some of what I have said above. It's all real. None of it is acted or rehearsed.
The first clip is a tactile hallucination used as an induction.
Second is a combination of visual hallucination and instant amnesia
Third is experiencing the physically impossible
Best wishes
Barry Thain
Clinical Hypnotist
Mindsci Clinic and
Kingston Hospital (NHS) Trust
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