what is hypnosis?
If you look for a definition of hypnosis, you will find a wide range of contradictory comments ranging from everything is hypnosis to nothing is hypnosis. Some claim it is a state, others a lived in imagination, an experience where suggestibiklity is enhanced, a trait ...
Instead of getting bogged down in this confusion, we can look at how we recognise hypnosis as hypnosis. When we say that hypnosis is happening, what do we observe that has us say this.
Here is a working description ...
We say an experience if hypnosis when we observe ...
- an experience
- where there is focused awareness
- and absorption
- that we can mutually agree as being hypnosis.
This description makes hypnosis available to anyone, since anyone can focus and become absorbed in something. It also avoids measuring someone's hypnotisability which is only a way of testing the test that is used.
After this, we can invite anyone interested to experience hypnosis, to simply focus on something of their choice, become as absorbed as they do, and then call this experience hypnosis. There is no intrusion, no imposing, simply an invitation into an experience that is familiar to each particular person.
What's your respinse to this possibility?
Rob
5 comments
How true Rob, there are so many definitions and explanations and many are contradictory. However the remaining factor is your methodology does allow the client to visit a place of their choice and relax so well. there they will find answers to questions they have not yet asked and all this in such a gentle way. You Rob, and the methodology have changed my life and I often feel I too have been visiting a special pace when the client leaves. I too have changed to a more positive being... Thank you J
Thank you Rob and Jack, for your ideas. I still have some questions, I can't put aside easily. A clear definition helps me a lot, but in the case of hypnosis/trance it is so difficult. So a few questions:
1) Why is it so difficult to construct a clear definition? Trance is a very specific state of mind, very recognizable once you are in it and it is also in popular language referred to regularly (in music/artistic creativity: 'the zone', 'flow', etc.). Yet it is very hard to give a definition that is scientifically clear and not-discussed. Why is that, you think? Why is it such a flue word/state of mind?
2) I for myself think of trance as a state of dissociation. But here also I say something and nothing at the same time. Because, just as trance, dissociation is always a part of man's functioning: thinking of one thing, I dissociate from a lot of other sensations, thought processes, etc. In the symptom I see a pathological dissociation (as a helping merchanism, a defense mechanism against pain/anxiety/...), the therapeutic dissociation is a technique to heal the patient from his symptom (pathological dissociation). I have some patients who are completely stuck in their trance and don't seem to want to get out of their trance, being so afraid of experiencing a new failure/desillusion once again, after all they have tried already (often long ago)...
Also in my work with psychiatric patients I see trance and (= (?)) dissociation as a very important (yet under-estimated) aspect of the 'symptom'. For instance: psychosis is for me a state of dissociation: f.i. the repressed aggression is put outside (dissociated from) the person, in form of a voice that aggresses the patient. So I wondered how I can use this kind of trance/dissociation in a therapeutic way, and came to hypnotherapy to see if I can use hypnotherapeutic techniques to meet the pathological trance of the patient... What do you think about this way of thinking?
3) In your definition, Rob, I see some aspects I have questions:
a) why do you make a difference between focussed awareness and absorpsion? In the second I see more focussed awareness, but why the difference?
b) why the last aspect? Why is it necessary that client and therapist both have to agree about the fact that the patient is/was in hypnosis? I think that a lot of patients of Milton Erickson thought after the session, they had just a talk, while ME had brought them into an indirect hypnosis, in which he could reach the unconscious (subconscious) more than normal. Am I wrong?
Thank you for answering!
Stijn
Stijn, It's the dilemma that follows trying to define hypnosis. There are so many variations. That's why I invite a working description - experience + focus + absorption + agreement. As you mentioned, Erickson didn't always define the experience as "hypnosis". If a clint spoecifically asks for hypnosis, it's important that we say "This is hypnosis" or they won't be satisfied, but if there is no specific request for hypnosis, why would we add a complication of using the word.
There is a principle here, and an important one, I notice after learnng with Erickson - rather than attempting to find the "right" answer, he was more likely to explore what woukld be a useful answer - useful for the client rather than confirming our theories. This can be a challenge, but a useful one, I've found.
About what IS hypnosis, trance, dissociation ... if we look at the common everyday trance, we can see the beginnings of what we call hypnosis or trance; if we look at the way we attend to our experience, we see, in our everyday experience, that we focus on something, and everything else becomes background. If we drop a brick on our toe, we become a toe - the rest of our body disappears. Seeing this allows us to explore the way we can begin to explore ways of shifting unhelpful associations, or connections. We can invite someone to listen to our voice or their own thoughts, and not need to notice other background noises. This is simply an extension of wht we all do all the time. Nothing complex or technical - just everyday experience - and all "dissociative experiences" become more accissible to us, and more importantly, to the client.
And "focus"vs "absorption" - it's easy for us to scan our environment, and if we can focus on some particular experience, say how comfortable our left foot is, we can then shift to our right foot, left arm, outside noises, etc ... but if we can allow the focus to remain on our left foot, say, then the sense of comfort can becomew more intense, more of a bodily feel experience. F or me, this is the benefit of absorption. Instead of glancing at a sunset, we can allow our focus to rest in this, and the beauty, or peace can become an experience rather than a concept. And ... when I use the word "absorption", it may be the same as your "focussed attention". Words can be so illuminating, and so confusing.
Abot the difficulty in defining hypnosis, how can we define "comfort". Two people can be stiing in identical chairs in the same room, and one says "It's too hot, and this chair if too soft" while the other says "It's too cold, and the chair is comfortably firm" - defining "comfort" is a variable feast, but asking for an individual description allows us to usefully alter the temperature, or find a different chair. Again - what is useful rather than what is right?
I hope my ramblings are helpful rather than add to the delimma.
Thank you for being so focused and absorbed in this fascinating and at times bewildering approach.
What is and has been truly powerful in the moment for the hypnotic state is the agreement in the room. I so appreciate the absorption factor and others mentioned here as well. Thank you Rob and all.
Thanks Carol. The shared experience can be truly magical.
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