The Psychological Climate of Hypnosis
What psychological elements are involved in hypnosis? First of all, one could say that we have already been partially hypnotized through our preconceptions and expectations before we visit the hypnotist. We anticipate going through a process which the reputation of hypnosis has already preordained. When the hypnotist obliges us, these elements are immediately reinforced. Even more important than these anticipations is the desire to be hypnotized. What motivates this desire to surrender one's critical mind? To understand this motivation, I believe, is to understand how hypnosis works.
A person's desires are not only motivated by healthy drives but also by neurotic processes that result from unmet childhood needs. Barber says that a subject goes into a trance because of his desire to please the hypnotist, to make the hypnotist look good, to be thought special and be complimented, and so on. Barber might as well have described the everyday motivations of the common neurotic. The profound implication of Barber’s viewpoint is that hypnotic success is dependent upon pre-existing neurotic motivations. This is further support for the proposition that hypnosis and neurosis involve the same mechanisms.
To many people, hypnosis appears inexplicable or magical. In reality, what is called dissociation in hypnosis is really the everyday state of the neurotic. All the classic hypnotic phenomena – amnesia, time distortion, age regression, hallucinations, anesthesia, and catalepsy – depend on dissociations in consciousness. What trances of different depths have in common is a certain amount of dissociation, or disconnection within the self, such as when we repress traumatic emotional pain for years, or temporarily stop feeling a sore throat or headache.
I maintain that hypnosis is not an altered state in relation to the common neurotic condition, but it is altered in relation to what is healthy. The isolated consciousness of hypnosis is only a circumscribed demonstration of how neurosis works. The difference is that neurosis is set down during the critical period when the brain is forming and hormones are achieving their set points. It is then a permanent state. Hypnosis is a temporary one by redirecting one’s behavior through the manipulation of conscious/awareness. It is an unconscious input that attempts to stem the primal tide; to block the effects of the imprint. It does not change the imprint, ever. One can stop smoking with hypnosis but the need to do so never changes. The price we pay for lying to ourselves is a premature breakdown of the system sooner or later. Psychotherapy addresses the left frontal brain while the hypnotist bypasses it and seems to input the right frontal brain, the emotional, inwardly focused brain.
Neurosis as a Hypnotic or Post-Hypnotic State
I have maintained that hypnosis can be understood by looking at neurosis. In fact, neurosis is the sine qua non for hypnosis. Now let's see if we can just as easily understand neurosis by looking at hypnosis. Is there any fundamental difference between the two? Hypnosis is an intentional procedure, voluntarily submitted to for a distinct purpose. Neurosis is a global state, involuntary developed as an adaptive response to emotional trauma very early in life. It can be argued that neurosis is a post-hypnotic state, maintained by constant reinforcement of repression and dissociation. Hypnotic procedures can easily tap into that state to produce definite and recognizable post-hypnotic episodes.
What do I mean when I say that neurosis is a hypnotic or post-hypnotic state? It is apparent that in order to feel, the human brain requires the full use of its consciousness. Yet, as we have seen, the brain possesses the capacity to shut down part of itself to defend against the full conscious experience of Pain. The left brain can be disconnect ed from the right so that one side doesn’t know what the other is doing or feeling. This ability is brought into play when the naïve and vulnerable system of the developing child is faced with more Pain that it can handle – when for example the child is rejected, abused, or abandoned. The child's mind represses the Pain by functionally detaching much of conscious awareness from the lower brain functions (such as emotion and sensation) where the Pain is stored. We call this state a split, dissociation, or disconnection. The behaviors which arise to maintain it we call neurosis.
The dissociated person is left with a host of unresolved primal needs which, from their obscured position of repression, exert a continuous but unconscious force. This force directs a person into symbolic attempts to fulfill primal need. The person becomes an intellectual because that is what the parents' expected: a smart student who got good grades and whose main interest was books. Being an intellectual can be a symbolic route to feeling loved and to having one's other needs met. Yet this neurotic diversion plagues him with all manner of symptoms such as migraines and compels him to act in ways which maintain the disconnection, living in his head totally detached from his feelings. Only thoughts guide him. He therefore makes the wrong choices of partners in life because he is out of touch with himself and his real needs. An adult grows up around the unfulfilled child whose urgent needs remain the dominant preoccupation. He continuously seeks fulfillment while attempting to avoid experiencing the reality of deprivation.
To me, not enough can be said about how neurosis and hypnosis are nearly the same. We are easily hypnotized by things around us. We are vulnerable. Knowing we are vulnerable can make us more alert to watch for it and overcome it to some degree.
ReplyDeleteAJ pointed out >> The person becomes an intellectual because that is what the parents' expected: a smart student who got good grades and whose main interest was books. Being an intellectual can be a symbolic route to feeling loved and to having one's other needs met. Yet this neurotic diversion plagues him with all manner of symptoms such as migraines and compels him to act in ways which maintain the disconnection, living in his head totally detached from his feelings. Only thoughts guide him.
Me >> This is all very true. But it can also mislead, since some could and likely do conclude that all intellectualism is from this and this alone. But being intellectual can be the result of different motivations or causes. Intellectualism can often be a means of survival and protection. It does not always have to be something that enables escape, delusion, or avoidance of pain. In fact, it can confront pain and bring on more pain.
If I had a bone to pick or fault to find in Arthur’s writing, it would be the single consideration of just one aspect and not the full consideration of the whole spectrum of possibilities. This leads to some deploring the intellect in any and all spectrums.
It is not Arthur’s fault if someone misconstrues what he writes. But since people can do this so easily, I think it important to wrote in a way, if it can be anticipated, that as much as possible, avoids being overly simplistic and possibly leading someone to a wrong conclusion.
It is common, by my perception, that the intellect is sort of despised among many who follow PT. The intellect is only seen in its ability to help hinder feeling and provide neurotic pain relief. These are, indeed, possibilities the intellect is capable of. But these are not the only possibilities the intellect is capable of. Could it be that the whole spectrum of the intellect has been ignored because of its complications in therapy?
I really do think that has happened. The intellect can overcome neurosis often to produce good sound results. It is often more likely it gets nowhere. But that it gets nowhere more often than not does not negate the successes, though they are far less in number.
The problem with being an authority in or on a subject, or a celebrity, or a status symbol is that people can easily distort what is put forth by authorities and celebrities. Therefore, an authority has to be much more careful about what he puts forth. He must look carefully at how others react to his writings so that he does not produce a lop sided effect in his communication.
Many authorities do not ask to be authorities. They are conferred that status, anyway, even though they may not wish to be conferred that way. But whether welcomed or not, like gravity, we can not repeal it and do not dare ignore it. If people treat us as an authority and celebrity, we have to accept it in stride and act more carefully, for the benefit of our message so that we do not stain or impede the progress of our message. So perhaps it is best for each of us to ask, “How am I or my message being perceived?”
I understand hypnosis as a phenomenon that shows how language is a most typically ambiadvantageously naturally selected for (or AEVASIVE) mutations/adaptation - i.e. an AEVASIVE functionality that has enabled especially the 'human lineage' to keep on lenghtening by allowing its individuals to survive by controlling their own acute and conditioned-in pain as the result of adversely challenging environmental factors while at the same time also enabling individuals to mainly but not only cooperatively exploit environmental procreation promoting opportunities.
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