Can
I Be Hypnotised?
If
you are conscious, have an IQ higher than about 80 (average
is 100), have the ability to concentrate, and also have the
ability to dream - then you can be hypnotised.
You
see, hypnosis is a perfectly normal state of consciousness
that you will enter into maybe several times a day. Hypnosis
is just an altered state of awareness. If you've ever been
lost in a book; engrossed by a film or TV program; realised
you have no recollection of the road you've been driving along
for 20 minutes; or daydreamed; then you have been in an altered
state.
The
only difference between those examples and formal hypnosis
is that with formal hypnosis you are directed into that altered
state by the hypnotherapist, rather than by your environment.
Usually
though, when people ask 'Can I be hypnotised?' what they are
really asking is 'Will this treatment work?'
And
whether or not the treatment will work depends not just on
whether or not an individual can be hypnotised, but on how
suggestible they are. Suggestibility, as the word suggests,
is responsiveness to suggestion. Most people are responsive
to suggestion. If they weren't then there would be no adverts
on TV, radio, or in the press. Let's face it; there isn't
a single thing that is advertised on TV, radio, press, billboard,
or anywhere else, that we couldn't live without; not one thing
that is essential to our well-being and good health.
Yet
most of the things we buy are bought in response to the idea
that our life experience will somehow be enhanced by our new
possession - not because it's true, but because we are suggestible.
The suggestions are so subtle that we will hotly contest any
suggestion that we were influenced by the ad. The ad might
have drawn our attention to it (attention=subliminal suggestion),
and let us know that it was available (available=subliminal
suggestion), and produced by a 'brand-name' (brand-name=subliminal
suggestion); and use key words like 'free', 'extras', 'value',
'less than…', 'health', 'vitality', 'young', 'tests have
proved', 'scientists…', 'modern', '9 out of 10', 'x%
fat free'; along with words and phrases that suggest you will
be left behind in the past if you ignore this opportunity
to possess…
The
ads do all of this and we all think we are making a free choice,
uninfluenced.
Those
who deny their own suggestibility and defend their freedom
of mind to choose independently of outside influences are
simply fooling themselves. From the point of view of the therapist,
a client who is 'resistant' to suggestion i.e. someone who
won't allow another to tell them what to do, is simply treated
by asking them to do the opposite of what is required.
Stage
hypnotists use suggestibility tests (such as the hand-clasp)
on their audience in order to select suitable participants.
Here's
one you can try on a group friends who might like to find
out if they can be hypnotised.
Ask
them:
* to close their eyes and hold both their arms out horizontally
in front of them, palms facing down.
* to rotate their left wrist so that that palm is now facing
upwards.
* to imagine a big heavy book like an encyclopaedia volume
being placed on their upturned palm.
* to imagine they can feel that heavy book pressing down on
their hand.
* to imagine a big brightly coloured helium balloon being
tied by a bright red ribbon to the wrist of their right hand
so that it takes the weight of the arm and lifts it upwards.
* to add more books to the left hand and more balloons to
the right hand until your 'audience' is demonstrating a significant
difference in level between both their arms.
* to open their eyes and look at how their arms have moved.
This
is suggestibility in action. It only doesn't work if it is
actively resisted.
If
there is any response to these suggestions then that individual
can be hypnotised, because they just have been.
Hypnosis
works because the client goes along with the suggestions of
the therapist, i.e. doesn't resist them.
So
if you think you can't be hypnotised, forget it, everyone
is hypnotised, every thought we have is somehow influenced
by the thought that went before it, and if someone else put
that prior thought into your mind by asking you not to think
about chocolate, and sometime later that day you find yourself
eating your favourite chocolate bar…
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