Unfortunately the art of hypnosis was used a great deal by the stage hypnotists and magicians to entertain audiences. Hypnosis became a magical act and the magicians liked to let the audience believe that they possessed supernatural powers. Because of this the medical profession distanced itself from it, and hypnosis was not used for medical purposes for many years. At the time of Freud and Charcot in Vienna, at the end of the nineteenth century, however, intense interest in the subject was developed. Hypnosis was used on patients, and with good results.
Nowadays hypnosis is used more and more by doctors and psychologists. In 1958, hypnosis was formally accepted as a form of medical treatment by the American Medical Association, and three years later by the British Medical Association. Hypnosis is now no longer a magical act, but a well-respected science. Much research is conducted on hypnosis, and some medical journals are devoted entirely to hypnosis. The International Society of Hypnosis has thousands of members from all over the world, all of whom are doctors, dentists, and psychologists. Its headquarters is situated in the Austin Hospital, Melbourne.
Hypnosis is not a magical act, but a special state of awareness, and everyone has the ability to go into this state. We are familiar with the other states of awareness, the conscious state and the unconscious state; how the hypnotic state ties in with these is described below.
Unconscious state
In this state the person is not aware of anything and cannot be aroused easily. We enter the unconscious state during general anaesthesia and perhaps as a result of head injury. The person who has been unconscious cannot remember anything that happened to him or his immediate surroundings during the period of unconsciousness.
Conscious state
This includes the fully awake state, the sleeping state, and the hypnotic state. When we are fully awake our awareness of our surroundings is at a maximum. When we are asleep, our awareness is minimal and sometimes non-existent. In the hypnotic state, our awareness of what goes on around us is limited and is in between the fully awake and sleeping states. Psychologists call this a state of dissociation, as we are dissociated away from our normal awareness of our surroundings. This limited awareness is usually directed towards the contents of the suggestion given by the hypnotist.
It is thought that all of us have the ability to go into a hypnotic state when the circumstances are suitable. A hypnotist provides these suitable circumstances. To go into hypnosis, it is important for the person to focus on some idea and concentrate on it. We all go into a form of mild hypnosis when we watch a good movie. We become totally involved with the personalities of the characters and sometimes we feel as if we are part of the movie. Some of us may have tears in our eyes when there is sadness in the story, and we may become tense when there are dangerous or horrifying scenes. We can be so involved with the movie that sometimes we may not be aware of our surroundings. We are dissociating ourselves from our normal lives and we momentarily identify ourselves with the characters in the movie.
The swinging of a pocket watch by the magician allows the lady to focus all her attention on the watch. Nowadays it is possible for a person to go into hypnosis by just fixing his eyes on an imaginary point in front of him. With the appropriate suggestions from the hypnotist, the person’s scope of awareness will gradually become narrower and narrower. The appropriate suggestion is important to constrict the scope of awareness away from the surroundings. The result is that the person dissociates and detaches from his thoughts, so that his thinking then follows the suggestion of the hypnotist.
Whilst in the hypnotic state, the person’s awareness is narrowed but is heightened and sharpened. So the suggestions of the hypnotist are totally received with minimal rejection. There are some very good hypnotic subjects who can go into a very deep hypnotic state. They can see imagined objects suggested to them or they can abolish the perception of pain if the appropriate suggestion is given. Hence hypnosis has been used in the management of chronic pain. The suggestion can also be made to change certain behaviours, and this has been used successfully to treat people who wish to give up smoking. The suggestion that the person can relax easily at night re-establishes confidence in sleeping and is very useful in some cases of insomnia.
Another most interesting feature of hypnosis is its influence on memory. People under hypnosis can remember things that they cannot remember whilst in the fully awake state. They can be taken back in time, to relive a period when they were much younger; this is called age regression.
This is another unique phenomenon in hypnosis. Whilst under hypnosis, it is possible to suggest to the person that after he wakes up from the present trance he will perform a task such as blowing his nose when the hypnotist gives a pre-arranged signal. The person is then awakened from hypnosis, and may have apparently forgotten what went on whilst under hypnosis. After a while, conversations unrelated to hypnosis take place; then the hypnotist, without warning, claps his hands, which is the pre-arranged signal in this case. The person, seeing the signal, starts to have an irresistable urge to blow his nose. He may make some excuse that his nose is itchy and then blow his nose. Most people feel uncomfortable until the posthypnotic suggestion is carried out.
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