Read Online Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis by Robin Waterfield - Free Book Online

authoritarian approaches will work better in cases where the patient has chosen to come to the therapist, for treatment for addiction, perhaps, while indirect, permissive, reframing techniques will work better for more deep-rooted psychological problems. The former approach is for the hypnotist to implant the direct suggestion: ‘You will find that your craving for cigarettes has gone.’ On the latter approach, the hypnotist might seed in the subject's mind ideas and pictures which represent how much healthier and wealthier he will be if he quits smoking.
    Once the subject is hypnotized, suggestions will be seeded. Suggestions can be of various kinds, especially either direct or indirect. Let's say that you have gone to the therapist because you want to quit smoking. Then, as an example of direct suggestion, the hypnotist may say: ‘When you wake up you will find that you no longer want to smoke.’ Indirect suggestions are more subtle. Thetherapist might say something like: ‘I wonder how good you're going to feel about not smoking tomorrow?’ On the face of it, this is an innocuous question, but by lightly emphasizing the words ‘
how good you're going to feel
’ the suggestion is implanted in you that you will feel good if you quit smoking.
    Like all therapists, a hypnotherapist needs to get feedback from his patients. Like all therapists who are dealing to any extent with the mind, they find it hard to get reliable information from their patients. In the very nature of the unconscious, the material is not readily available to the patient, so how can she communicate it to the therapist? In the 1930s the famous hypnotist Leslie LeCron developed a technique called ‘ideomotor signalling’ that has come to be very widely used. The patient rests his hands on his thighs. He is asked to designate specific uses for the four fingers of his dominant hand. The reason he is asked to make the choice is that it is vital to have his agreement. So, one finger is for saying ‘yes’, another for saying ‘no’, a third for saying ‘I don't know’, and a fourth for saying ‘That's none of your business’ – or at any rate: ‘I don't want to answer that right now.’
    Now LeCron found – and his findings have been confirmed by countless hypnotists since – that these fingers could act independently of the conscious mind. Consciously, a subject might answer ‘yes’ to a question, while his ‘no’ finger rises of its own accord into the air. And so this is a way for hypnotherapists to tap into the unconscious of their patients. It has even been used to evoke responses from patients in a coma. If this sounds freaky, and reminiscent of automatic writing, that is quite right. Hypnotists – sober academics in prestigious universities – regularly use automatic writing in their experiments. This doesn't mean they claim to contact the dear departed and transcribe spirit messages, but they make use of a kind of extension of ideomotor signalling. They get their subjects to express in writing what's going on below the threshold of consciousness.
The Hypnotic Trance and What it Feels Like
    Over the last couple of centuries, various theorists have been quite sure that there are seven – or nine, or four, or whatever – phases of trance. In actual fact, things are rather more fluid, and it is hard to discern the border between one phase and another, but there are tests that can be applied to determine depth of trance. The depth to which the client is hypnotized depends partly on his or her susceptibility, and partly on the skill of the hypnotist, but more on the particular therapy involved. For treating nicotine addiction, for instance, no more than a light or medium trance is necessary; for performing surgery, hopefully something deeper will be achieved!
    For practical purposes, hypnotists may outline five stages of increasing depth of