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powerful, entrancing hypnotic verbal tapestries for empowerment, relief, self-control & relaxation |
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Hypnosis Hypnosis: A Brief History and Explanation g. m. johnson, phd ~ clinical psychologist Since the dawn of history and probably since some time before, healers have used what we now refer to as "hypnosis" and "hypnotic" techniques as a tool to heal, comfort, motivate and relax and to focus their patients' conscious attention in a way that accesses and utilizes physical and mental mechanisms that can influence and/or alter sensations, attention, perspective, blood flow, temperature, motivation, memory, urges and thoughts. The first widely accepted "modern" use of these techniques was by Mesmer in the late 1700's, and the term "mesmerism" was coined to describe this process. Mesmer proclaimed that his process worked on the basis of vapors in the body that were redistributed by the mesmerist's animal magnetism. Mesmer's successes immediately spawned a plethora of "Mesmerists" and a great degree of public scrutiny. Mesmer and mesmerists reported successful use of mesmeric techniques in curing almost every type of disorder known at the time. This lead to an investigation by the French government. (America's Benjamin Franklin was one of the commission members.) The commission proclaimed mesmerism a fraud saying it did not function on the basis of Mesmer's theories about animal magnetism. Instead, the commission concluded, the therapeutic benefits of Mesmerism were actually due somehow to imagination. It is not at all likely that mesmerism was able to cure at the rate its publicists claimed. It is likely that mesmerists were very successful in "curing" or aleviating a wide range of conditions. This is the finding of modern scientists and this finding is reflected in anthropological studies of early healers that used these methods before the dawn of modern science and documentation. Though Mesmer and mesmerists and their theories about animal magnetism and magnetic vapors were declared frauds, scientists continued to study the use of techniques to relax, focus attention and then foster patients' abilities to use imagination to access otherwise inaccessible bodily processes and mental abilities. To avoid the stigma of fraud associated with the term "mesmerism," another term was coined to describe these basic techniques: "hypnotism." The term basically means "sleep-like state." Sigmund Freud, around the turn of the century, used hypnotism in his attempts to gain understanding of his patients hidden conflicts and trauma memories but he later declared it too powerful a technique to be safely used -- mostly, it is believed, because he was attempting to utilize hypnotic techniques in a far too heavy-handed manner. There are also indications in his writings that he felt that the overall results of hypnotism seemed too much in the control of the patient and not enough in the control of the doctor. Freud didn't like the way one patient, in particular, thought she had fixed her own problems after he used hypnosis to help her. He thought he should get more credit. Milton Erickson & hypnosis. Modern hypnotic methods in medicine were researched, invented, discovered, developed, publicized and popularized worldwide by Dr. Milton Erickson during the middle third of the 20th century. He was fascinated and impressed by the power and potential of hypnosis. He demonstrated that a variety of simple verbal stratagems and guided imageries could be used to help patients access their own inner abilities with profound results in healing and optimizing functioning in any or all areas of their lives. Erickson promoted and popularized the use of methods that indirectly and permissively accessed subconscious processes to promote healing and functioning. "Indirectly," meant that the hypnotist did not directly suggest or direct the subject's responses. Permissive meant that the hypnotist worded suggestions permissively rather than as directives or orders. (That is, the hypnotizer doesn't say, "you eyelids are getting heavy." Instead, the hypnotizer says, "you might not notice your eyelids are getting heavy." Instead of directly telling the listener to do some specific thing, the listener is told that he or she might consider doing it, if they like. Rather than tell the subject to feel more and more relaxed, the subject is asked if he can imagine how it would feel to be more and more relaxed.) These methods allow subjects to not only feel a greater sense of personal control and free will but they also allow the listener to better understand and memorize the ways that they, themselves, are accomplishing the work of the hypnosis. And because of the listener's greater sense of control, focusing and then accessing and utilizing their own subconscious abilities is both easier and more likely to be experienced as ideally fitting with the listener's own particular needs. Erickson also discovered, pioneered, developed and taught a wide variety of verbal strategies and other powerful techniques that electrified the fields of medicine, psychotherapy and advertising with their potential. His verbal stratagems were based on the various ways that the mind processes verbal input -- interplays between words, strategically placed pauses and clauses, redirection and misdirection, words with multiple meanings, and the special properties of negatives, questions, silences, imagery, surprise, ambiguity and confusion. He demonstrated that these techniques could provide numerous benefits, including increasing the degree of persuasion within the message and reducing the degree of resistance within the subject. He demonstrated that this could lead to fostering positive changes and emotional growth in patients, increased performance in athletes, the reduction and sometimes the elimination of physical and/or emotional pain, alteration of time sense, and teaching conscious control over usually non-conscious physiological functions.
Hypnosis is now widely used now in 21st century medicine, dentistry and psychotherapy. It is used as a part of the treatment of psychiatric/- psychological disorders, the effects of incest, rape and physical abuse, allergies, anxiety and stress management, asthma, bed-wetting, depression, sports and athletic performance, excessive self-consciousness, smoking cessation, obesity and wight control, sleep disorders, Raynaud's disorder, high blood pressure, sexual dysfunctions, concentration, test anxiety, gastrointestinal disorders, surgery and anesthesiology, pain, burns, nausea and vomiting, childbirth, hemophilia. "Consciousness" versus "unconsciousness." The terms consciousness and unconsciousness are often used in discussions of mental processes -- especially with regard to what hypnosis does and can do. Consciousness, of course, is that part of thinking that we usually feel we are directly aware of. Consciously, we can think about our thinking. Unconsciousness does not refer to a state of zero consciousness or zero awareness. In fact, unconscious processes are pretty much always on, aware of all manner of things, and working at processing and making decisions. The unconscious -- the unconsciousness, the unconscious processes -- are mental processes that we cannot directly experience ourselves engaging in. (You may also run across the term "subconscious" in discussions of mental processes. This term was used in the past to mean something slightly different than the term "unconscious" but is now used basically interchangeably with "unconscious.") The office complex brain. Our brains are complicated -- sort of like a tall office building with hundreds, if not thousands, of offices where there are thought processes going on in scores of offices at any given time. In the analogy of the office building, it is as if our consciousness is the penthouse or "head" office. As in any big company, though the guys in the head office might think they're in charge and that they know everything that's going on in the company -- but all the information they get at the head office (sensory info, perceptions, memories, etc.) has to come through a sorting, filtering and decision-making gambit of offices before the head office finds out about anything. Many things never come to the head office's attention. Many things are "massaged" and changed significantly before they come to the head office's attention. This is the way our minds work. All stimuli coming in through the senses is screened by an unconscious set of processes for relevance and only that stuff that seems important is sent into consciousness (the head office). An example of that "unconscious process" would be the way some sounds wake us up in the night while others, equally as loud, do not -- because we unconsciously screen them for importance to us. Another example of the unconscious at work is when we are racking our brain to recall someone's name or where we put our keys and we just can't come up with the information and then we finally we give up (or at least the head office thinks we give up). Later, the answer pops to mind -- proving that somewhere in our mind we had continued looking for the information even though we thought we weren't thinking about it any further. Still another example of our unconscious processing is the trauma survivor who cannot rid him- or herself of thoughts of trauma. This is because offices in the unconscious keep sending memos to the head office about danger -- even though the head office wants to stop thinking about it. Or, still another example would be the alcoholic who is trying to be sober who's getting all sorts of messages from the lower offices about maybe dropping by the bar -- just to visit with friends (along with little suggestions not to worry about it, just do it). Sometimes what happens in the lower offices can really mess up one's functioning. Most times what happens makes our life function smoothly and well.
Unconscious thought processes pretty much filter, interpret, embellish or edit everything in our consciousness and can be both hindering and helpful of practical, productive, adaptive functioning. Unconscious mental mechanisms keep track of the time, decide what we pay attention to and what we ignore. Unconscious mental processes decide whether to think about eating or having a cigarette, whether to be remembering a trauma or not, whether to notice pain or an itch or a sensation or not. Unconscious mental processes are responsible for reactions and reactivity. Freud believed that the "unconscious" was mostly a repository of one's dark secrets, fears and desires. However, Erickson and others expanded greatly on Freud's thinking and demonstrated that the "unconscious" is made up of all the non-conscious thinking that really makes up most of who a person is and that it is basically designed to assure positive, practical healthy functioning -- though sometimes difficulties can actually be caused rather than avoided by the ways in which our unconscious processes function.. Hypnosis, the "unconscious," psychological problems and fixes. Erickson and many others that have worked along side him and/or followed in his footsteps theorized and demonstrated that the "unconscious" -- in spite of being full of thought processes that were basically trying to be adaptive, happiness-promoting and healthy -- could also be responsible for many, if not most, non-biologically-based psychological problems. The woman, for example, whos mind has etched in sensitivities and alerts that are triggered by recognizing a certain pattern of lies in a subsequent boyfriend, is likely to experience warnings before hurts can happen and thus will tend to have less problems because of these mechanisms. On the other hand, a woman who cannot relax around anyone who likes orange juice (because her brain has warnings and sensitivities set up to alert her to danger if she sees someone drinking orange juice like a former abusive lover) has problems that may interfere with her life and do harm to relationships needlessly.. Many, if not most, psychological problems not due to a physical predisposition or disorder or damage, have coping strategies gone wrong at their core. The reason people can't just "pull themselves together" and do things better is often because their problematic ways of thinking and doing things are supported by assumptions, attitudes and agendas that lie hidden in the unconscious -- hidden but still very powerful in their influence. A good example of this is the trauma survivor who feels anxious about relaxing. He or she believes at a conscious and/or unconscious level that relaxing is equivalent to letting down his or her guard and is thus dangerous and likely to result in further traumatization. The individual may consciously think it would be a good idea to relax and consciously try to relax but find that he or she is actually more anxious for the effort, not less. This is an adaptive response gone too far -- gone wrong. Never relaxing is not practical and even dangerous. The person who cannot relax and rejuvenate depletes his or her energy resources and begins to function less well both mentally and physically. Anyone under these circumstances would be, in fact, more vulnerable to having something bad happen because he or she cannot effectively be on guard with depleted energy. Similarly, the alcoholic is an alcoholic because experience and possibly genetics have resulted in the learning of a very simplistic and very powerful idea that resides in an area in their unconscious that is sometimes referred to as a "pleasure center" -- that alcohol is very good for solving problems and making one feel better almost instantly. (Of course it does -- unfortunately only for a brief few minutes.) Chronic pain is still another example of coping mechanisms doing more than they should. Pain is an information process -- like anxiety. It tells us we are in danger of being harmed. We break a leg and pain tells us to stay the heck off it. We lean on the stove and get too close to a hot burner and pain tells us to yank our hand away before major damage is done. But sometimes pain is the result of damages to nerves or other physical complications that do not constitute a danger situation. Once everything that can be done using physiological medicine is done, there sometimes remains significant recurring pain. Erickson demonstrated that hypnosis was a wonderful vehicle for tapping into and fostering these very person-promoting thought processes and soothing away some of the more negative attitudes or ideas that can also be "unconscious." Hypnosis -- entering into a mental state of profound relaxation while focusing the consciousness on certain kinds of ideas -- somehow allows a functional connection and communication to normally unconscious thought processes. No one has discovered why or how hypnosis produces this effect but it is well documented that the hypnotic experience can produce alterations in blood flow, perceptions and a variety of brain functions that are normally considered out of the realm of "conscious" control. Hypnosis does not control the unconscious -- but it does allow a sort of communication with it. Hypnosis does not "over-ride" the individual's personality, ethics or awareness, either. Though it is often the case that the experience of hypnosis includes some degree of memory lapse for parts of the experience -- this is experienced as feeling like you might have been asleep -- not being able to fully remember every moment during the hypnotic experience is related to interference with the memory encoding process. Memory lapses are not due to a loss of attentiveness. At all times there is a part of the hypnotized individual's mental faculties which is unaffected, observing everything going on, and able to break out of the trance state instantly if deemed necessary. This is called "the hidden observer." (There is an interesting report, for example, of a surgery performed on an individual under hypnotic anesthesia. The hypnotist taught the patient how to perform what is referred to as "automatic writing" while in trance and then established a trance with suggestions for feeling no pain. During the operation, the hypnotist asked the patient if there was any pain, to which the patient replied verbally that there was none and that he felt fine. His hand, however, was busy scrawling expletives and complaining about pain.)
Basically, hypnosis is a means to help individuals influence unconscious thought processes that may be inadvertently causing problems while trying to help because of simple "glitches" in the self-preservation work of the mind. This is what the Head-Cleaners tapes and CDs are all about -- communicating to the unconscious thought processes to suggest ideas for cleaning and tidying up some of the garbage in there, while teaching and/or fostering skills and abilities. Head-cleaners recordings are the result of years of study and experience with both hypnosis and with psychotherapy, and the result of years of experience and study of how minds work. More specifically, the head-cleaners tapes and CDs are the result of my delight in creativity and art interacting with discovering in 1982, the potent usefulness of the verbal strategems developed by Milton Erickson. Almost immediately upon beginning using hypnosis with patients, I began receiving requests for tape recordings that could be used between sessions. The content and experience of head-cleaners recordings. The head-cleaners hypnosis recordings are made up of lengthy sentences, separated into clauses and phrases with pauses of different lengths between. Using head-phones, a separate recording is presented to each ear -- the two recordings designed to interweave together and to echo each other some of the time and compliment each other at other times. They present ideas in ways that are sometimes verbally complex. The ideas, or "observations," are worded in a manner intended to stimulate certain very powerful, practical, empowering ideas about
There are no sweet assurances that the listener is a good, deserving person. BUT there are also (in spite of some requests) no demands, orders, directives or edicts delivered to the listener that he or she must "eat right," "get to sleep," "stop having the headaches," "perform right," "stop the crap," "remember what you don't want to," "shape up," "pick yourself up and stop sniveling," "life is pain, get used to it" -- or anything else that would remind one of the kind of counter-productive directives that might be barked at a child at a moment of overload by a very frustrated, angry parent. (Yes, life is pain, get used to it. However, whips and hostility are difficult to make effective use of in the quest to alter behavior, attitude, experience or skills levels. If you want to alter such stuff, here's the facts in a nutshell: life works most effectively when behavior is based on practicality, get used to it.) Indirectly powerfully empowering. The head-cleaners tapes and CDs offer "indirect suggestions" which bring thoughts to mind without any imperative. They thus allow an optimal sense of self-control and control over ideas presented because of the ways human learning and healing is accomplished within one's mind. This permissive approach allows for a great deal of autonomy in the listener but these are powerful approaches, nonetheless. The head-cleaners tapes and CDs interweave many verbal strategies that work by utilizing one or more of the various mental mechanisms that are common to all human minds. One example of one of these mechanisms is demonstrated in the response that one can expect in any discussion of how one's toes feel -- someone can say to you, "Don't even think about how your toes feel," and you will still think of your toes and how they feel even if you wanted not to. Another mechanism is demonstrated in the fact that if you think about something exciting, your body will experience a little excited; if you think about something sad or tiring, your body will respond to the thought by becoming a bit more tired or you will feel a bit of saddness. Another mechanism is demonstrated by the experience that many people have had of trying to remember something -- a name, where keys are, etc. -- and, hours after having given up wracking your brain, the answer pops into mind. This kind of experience demonstrates how the mind can be set to a task that it keeps working on behind the scenes -- even after you think you stopped thinking on the subject. And it demonstrates how even if thinking is going on outside awareness, important information is conveyed to one's consciousness when it is available. Check out excerpts from head-cleaners transcripts. Excerpts of transcripts and a small audio clip from one of the head-cleaners recordings are available on the samples page. The attitudes and beliefs underlying head-cleaners recordings. One of the basic beliefs underlying all of the head-cleaners productions is that the human mind is wired and programmed to learn, heal, protect, and be happy. Anxieties, "hang-ups," fears, pain, obsessions, dissociations, self-sabotage, excessive guilt, and a myriad of other problems one can find one's self facing, can be seen as coping strategies gone overboard or off course on auto-pilot (with the on-off switch lost, forgotten or broken -- or simply where one does not usually have conscious control). OR, what are perceived as problems are actually coping strategies working perfectly but are unappreciated -- which is much less often the case but always a possibility. (An example of this is the experience of some survivors of battering who find themselves anxious when new boyfriend exhibits many of the characteristics of their former abusive boyfriend -- but who see their anxiety as a problem rather than an appropriate warning system warning them about entering into another potentially dangerous relationship.) Another basic belief is that everyone -- regardless of how bright they may be -- has many potentials, capacities or aptitudes that they don't make use of. The human mind has a variety of wired-in abilities and strengths that are seldom, if ever, utilized. Further, it is likely that our multi-media culture is doing its best to access the worst aspects of these strengths while providing highly stimulating but short-sighted immediate-gratification alternatives to the practicing of the best of these strengths. When one learns to access and utilize these otherwise ignored abilities, one gains a set of tools that can give one a serious edge in life. Regardless of whatever other struggles are being dealt with, these tools can optimize one's thinking ability, potential for success and general experience of a rewarding, happy, meaningful life. Practicality. Still another basic belief is that it's best, in all things, to be practical, and that it is best to value long-term happiness over any amount of money or success at "things." Well thought-through practicality is considered more valuable to a successful life than adherence to a rigid, mindless set of rules and "shoulds" that one has picked up over the years without any other rationale for them other than that they seem to have sunk into one's attitudes as "right." An example of this focus on practicality is the focus on recognizing that -- though there are probably appropriate and inappropriate uses of both -- of a choice between using whipped-cream or whips in attempting behavior change and self-improvement, you can positively change more behavior with the former and dampen more potential with the latter. It is a very impractical belief among many people that they should both harshly judge and then harshly punish themselves (and perhaps others) for any perceived transgression -- regardless of whether the application of punishment makes things better or worse in the future. (Not that I don't believe in the value of a good kick in the behind -- directed at self or others -- when it does seem logical and likely that it will make things better.) Excellence in paranoia. Still another basic belief is that anxiety and fear have their value in keeping us safe and sound. One should only "trust" those whom one knows really well, and then one should only "trust" them to be who they have proven to be. Life on planet earth seems to be basically like being in a sort of wondrous swamp -- complete with many varieties of poisonous snakes, quicksands, leeches, muck and mire, but also complete with wondrously beautiful, life-enriching things. One can assume there may be snakes and quicksands everywhere that has not been checked out. One should be thankful for the learning that comes from experiences that one survives (even if it is impossible to be thankful for the experience) -- though it may be important to separate the real learning lessons from the silly. (That is, if you put on your faded jeans and get drunk and have an accident, it's silly to blame the accident on the jeans.) It's silly to complain about what a drag it is to feel compelled to be cautious now and then because of known dangers that one used to be naive about. It is possible to establish rules for one's self that promote safety and caution, and to live life with a basic underlying paranoia and alertness, without experiencing excessive anxiety. And it is possible to do all this while at the same time allowing one's self a lot of fun and relaxation without feeling vulnerable all the time. Forgiving, forgetting. And what about "forgive-and-forget"? Forgiveness is a matter of one's own set of values. Forgetting, is another kind of issue. It is possible to forgive, but often it's flat out stupid to forget -- though it can be very handy to put out of mind what serves only to stress or make anxious for as long as that might be to your best, long-term advantage. Once you pay for information, it makes sense to keep it, though it may not need to be in one's thoughts all the time to have it at the ready if needed. One of the underlying assumptions within the head-cleaners tapes/CDs is that one can learn to "forget" things -- to the extent that they put these things "out of mind," out of consciousness, while allowing one's unconscious processes to bring the information to mind whenever it is to one's best advantage and in one's best interests. This is a natural tendency of everyone's mind and can be both fine-tuned and practiced. Permissiveness. It is assumed that the listener listening to a head-cleaners tape or CD knows more about what he or she needs -- either consciously or unconsciously. Head-cleaners are designed to foster access to unconscious processes and to make suggestions for more effective functioning -- but in a manner that allows the individual both consciously and unconsciously to more effectively decide which aspects of their thinking and behaviors are problematic and what changes might be best. As noted above (see no sweet assurances and indirectly powerfully empowering), head-cleaners tapes and CDs do not "tell" the listener what to do. There are many specific suggestions about doing this or that, but these are presented as things to think about. Several permissive phrases repeat frequently throughout the head-cleaners recordings (i.e., "whenever that is to your best advantage," or "for as long as that is in your best interest."). Each head-cleaners recording is actually three different listening experiences, each complete in itself: one on the left channel, one on the right channel and the experience of the two in stereo.  Dual-voice or "dual-induction" presentations have their roots in observations made by some hypnotists that two may be better than one. That is, that two simultaneous hypnotic presentations, one presented to the left and one to the right of the subject, may provide a quicker and possibly a more profound effect of the messages presented as compared to a single presentation. There is a body of evidence to support what has been termed "the cocktail party" effect. This research has shown that though subjects try to consciously screen out one set of information and listen to the other when they are simultaneously presented different information to the left and right ears, they actually do hear, process and respond to the information presented to both ears, though they tend not to realize it. To date, there is little research evidence to support the claim that the overall effects of a dual-induction relaxation and/or hypnosis inductions are more profound than the simple one-voice, traditional methods. However, anectodal reports from hypnotists that have utilized the dual-induction/dual-voice presentation suggest that the dual presentation does seem to assist many individuals to become more cognitively involved and to enjoy their experience more and thereby benefit more from hypnotic verbal strategies.
Single voice presentations are available on both the left and right channels. Some individuals find the dual-voice, dual-induction presentation unnerving or simply more complex than they prefer. For these individuals, single voice presentations are available on either channel simply by turning off the other channel (this knob or slide is usually labeled "balance") -- making the presentation single-voice, single induction. Though this will eliminate any benefit that might have come from the dual-voice modality, each side of the dual-voice presentation is crafted to stand alone as a powerful presentation. "Listened to the tape again last night.... I ended up falling asleep. Does it still work if I do? I don't see how."
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