Myths and Misunderstandings

From the Archives

I’m not sure what is abstract and ambiguous about “trance is natural; hypnosis is unnatural; therefore they are different,” but let me see if I can clarify the point.

Hartland’s Medical and Dental Hypnosis (3rd Edition), in discussing the nature of the unconscious mind, asserts that “ … it can also undertake most of the functions of the conscious mind, with one important exception – the power of criticism”. It goes on to say

“The important conclusions to be drawn … can be summarized in the following way.

1. The power of criticism is restricted largely to the conscious mind.

2. It is by virtue of this alone that the conscious mind possesses the ability to reject any suggestions that may be made.

3. When suggestions bypass the conscious mind, as they do under hypnosis, they penetrate directly into the unconscious mind which, being able to exercise little or no power of criticism, is quite unable to reject them, and the individual is bound to act upon them.”

You see? “… under hypnosis … quite unable to reject … bound to act …” What could be clearer than that?

This all happens over pages 22 and 23 in the paperback volume. On page 45, however, (and not for the first or last time) we find

5. “Assure the patient … that he can never be compelled to do or say anything to which he strongly objects.”

These two positions seem to me to be mutually exclusive.

Elman comes a similar cropper. He states that once the critical faculty has been bypassed and selective thinking has been established the suggestions are bound to be accepted … so long as they are ‘pleasing’.

In both cases we have very strong statements to the effect that `you can’t resist in hypnosis … unless you can’. What is going on here?

It’s called commercial expediency.

We are taught to trot out the ‘you can’t be made to …’ mantra, as to say the opposite (i.e., tell the truth: that ‘once I have you hypnotized you will do anything I suggest’) would be terminally rapport-inhibiting (other than with, perhaps, the most committed submissive fantasists) and not good for trade. It would probably also invite charges of voodoo, bad press and, eventually, legislation.

One could divide the world of hypnotherapists into two camps according to the contradictory statements of Waxman (in ‘Hartland’s’) and Elman above. In Camp A you would have those, the vast majority, who are signed up to the commercial expedient of ‘the patient is always in control’. In Camp B you would find the tiny minority of people who know that once the critical faculty is bypassed ‘under hypnosis,’ ‘the patient has no control’.

Camp A holds those people who have never done hypnosis (but almost certainly believe they have). If they ever do, they will pass into Camp B instantly. Camp A has no experience of hypnosis, has been told it can’t be done and doesn’t ever try to do it. In Camp B are those who, by accident or design, discovered the fact that someone who has been properly hypnotized is “ … quite unable to reject … bound to act …”

Camp A can do trance. Camp B do hypnosis. I acknowledge that these are not the commonly accepted usages of the terms ‘trance’ and ‘hypnosis’. What I’m saying is that to give both phenomena the same two, apparently synonymous, labels is misleading and unhelpful. I think it’s important to distinguish between the two states because they are different. They are not degrees of each other.

Trance does not necessarily lead to hypnosis. Hypnosis does not require trance. One (trance) is a state of altered consciousness. The other (hypnosis) has nothing to do with altering consciousness. That’s why I prefer, in my practice, to give one phenomenon one name and apply the other name to the other phenomenon. But I haven’t invented the usage. It isn’t my idiosyncratic eccentricity. Waxman uses the word hypnosis in exactly the same way in 3 above. I’m just agreeing with him.