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Emotional Freedom Starts Here |
Dr. John J. Murphy Psychologist and Hypnotherapist | Beverly Hills, CA |
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One of the perks of being a hypnotist is that it's always a good conversation starter. It's one of those occupations like a medical doctor, flight attendant, or car salesman that everyone takes an interest in. Invariably, the conversation either ventures towards "I can't be hypnotized" or "you're not going to hypnotize me, are you?" Maybe it's Hollywood, or all the stage hypnosis performances, or maybe it's just our human nature that we all have the concept of a mystic with special powers when we think of a hypnotist.
Sorry to disappoint, but the hypnotist or hypnotherapist has no special powers. Believe me, no one was more disappointed to learn this then I was! When you think about the position of a hypnotist in our society, it's pretty clear that there's nothing incredibly mystic or powerful about what we do. After all, if I could make a person do what I wanted exactly when I wanted it, against that person's will, would I be here typing this now? I'd probably be relaxing in a mansion on my own private island or working through the government bureaucracy to figure out if we really did make contact with aliens, or at least figure out just what the hell that black smoke is on "Lost." As it stands, I'm like every other red-blooded blue state American out there, who happens to help people quit smoking (among other things). I could never get a person to reveal their innermost secrets or do anything else against their will, which is why it’s so important a person who comes in to quit smoking actually wants to quit smoking, as mentioned in the first chapter.
In short, there is nothing mystical or exceptionally powerful about hypnosis or hypnotherapy. With that being said, let's explore what hypnosis really is.
What hypnosis is (at least, to me) is a way of communicating for someone to do what is in their nature to do, or what they really want to do. Think of two people having a discussion. A big part of the conversation is the gesturing: placing a hand on the other person's arm, moving your hands to indicate size, raising your eyebrows to show interest. It doesn't really change the content of message but it helps the message go through. Hypnosis works the same way. The hypnotherapist has a message structured in a way that, by human nature, the person hearing it will more likely listen to and accept. In the same way that using a gesture helps communicate a given message, giving a particular message while the recipient is relaxed in a particular manner helps communicate that message, especially if that message is designed for the sub-conscious.
Remember, though, that like a person gesturing, the hypnotist's message will be accepted based primarily on the content of the message. A car salesman who is able to gesture will sell more cars than a salesman who cannot, but neither will be able to sell a tricycle for a million dollars. If a person could, you'd probably know about it already. We would all have tricycles and there would be a few extremely wealthy car/tricycle salesmen.
Like gesturing, everyone can be affected by hypnosis, whether they believe it or not. In fact, to say that a person can't be hypnotized is as ridiculous as saying a person can't be affected by a person's gestures. As humans, we're simply geared to respond to a given stimulus in a given fashion. For example, try not to yawn. Scientists have been exploring why people yawn and they think that yawning may be due to the bodies need for oxygen.
Now, what happened there? If you were like virtually everyone else, you yawned. I did. In essence, that's analogous to hypnosis. The message to yawn was not a direct, conscious message, yet it was accepted. It's similar to the statement "don't think about a purple elephant." Nothing eerie or mystical, just human nature. If it makes you feel better, those who don't yawn when they think of yawning or picture an object when someone tells them not to are generally either psychotic, inebriated, or have an IQ below 70. Apart from that group, virtually everyone responds to the visual or yawning cue and virtually everyone can experience hypnosis in some form or another.
Unlike the little demonstration (which scientists are still trying to figure out—just why we are so prone to yawn), by and large a message given to the sub-conscious will only be accepted by the sub-conscious if both the conscious and sub-conscious agree to it. In other words, a message will only be accepted by the sub-conscious (the part in charge) if and only if the sub-conscious wants to accept that message.
I'm sure a big part of the publics misconceptions about hypnosis stem from stage hypnosis. In a stage hypnosis show, we see a man telling people to do crazy things, such as forget about the number 6, or talk like a space alien. Oddly enough, they oblige.
So, how does this all work? How does a hypnotist get a normal person to invent a language or forget about the number between five and seven - all in front of a large, bewildered audience? Well, just consider that large audience. Whenever a stage hypnotist begins, he always begins by asking for volunteers. Always, always, always. Why? Because the more willing a person's subconscious is to accept a particular message, the better the chances of that message becoming reality for that person. So if the stage hypnotist has an audience of a hundred, he's going to ask for volunteers, the ones most willing to go up there. To do what? Perform. Everyone knows going into a stage hypnosis show what is likely to occur. Those who've never seen a stage hypnosis show will be around friends who have. Everyone who volunteers knows what will happen to them so the only ones who do volunteer are the ones who want to perform, who want to follow the hypnotist's suggestions. Even better, the ones who most want to perform will raise their hands the highest, will make the biggest commotion all in an effort to volunteer. All the hypnotist has to do is sit back and pick the most enthusiastic of the crowd.
But he doesn't stop there. Let's say, out of a hundred people, he picks 15 volunteers. Even before he hypnotizes them, he asks them to perform a simple task. Maybe "pretend your arm is light as a feather, let it just float up" or "pretend your hand is as heavy as a rock: you couldn't lift it if you tried!" The people who are the most receptive, most willing to perform, will respond best to his suggestion. The others are called back into the audience. After this second step, he now has the six to ten people he needs, the group most willing to put on an entertaining show. Six to ten out of a hundred. The hypnotist does this because only if a person really wants to perform will that person really perform in hypnosis. So here we see that the suggestions given by the hypnotist, however unusual they are, will be received and accepted. But I guarantee you that that hypnotist doesn't have the power to make a person reveal secrets the person doesn't want to reveal or do things the person doesn't want to do. Otherwise, the hypnotist would be a wealthy man living in the lap of luxury, not traveling campus-to-campus putting on a show for college kids.
In terms of hypnotherapy, hypnosis serves as a bridge between our conscious self and the sub-conscious self. As we’ve seen in the last chapter, the sub-conscious contains the basic, day-to-day programs such as the program to regulate blood pressure, use the restroom, and remember that the adjective precedes the noun. There are also a few programs for creativity and memory. Smokers have a few extra programs that keep them smoking.
Hypnotherapy is, in my humble opinion, one of the best ways to go about changing these programs. By keeping our body in the relaxed state of the sub-conscious while keeping our mind in the more conscious, reasoning state, we can access the sub-conscious and not fall asleep in the process.
Once there, we can either imagine the change that we'd like for the unwanted smoking programs, or point out the dangers of such programs. Remember, the security department in our sub-conscious is interested only in survival, so making it known that eliminating the smoking cravings will help keep us healthy and alive is exactly the type of message that should be sent.
The job of the hypnotherapist is, then, to guide communication with this security department. To help determine what motivates the department to keep the addiction going and to show it what it needs to know in order to accept a non-smoking lifestyle. While the conscious mind may understand the importance of quitting smoking, the security department may believe that smoking is the key towards survival, not just through breathing deeply but other issues, of which we’ll explore in the subsequent chapter. Once a more realistic message is given, the security department can let go of the “benefits” of smoking and the cravings naturally dissipate.
The message, known as a hypnosis program, has three key variations when it comes to smoking cessation: breathing programs, social pressure programs, and detachment programs.