Some Questions I Find Interesting

[Unregistered]

Belwow are some questions/topics that I find interesting about hypnosis.

I have heard that women, as a gender, are more easy to hypnotize then men. I have also heard that this that is a myth and is complete rubbish. So what is the deal? Does anyone know of any studies related to this subject? If it is a myth, does anyone know how it started or why poeple believed it?

Also I have also heard that there is a correlation between intelligence and hypnotizability (if that is a word). Is this true? What studies indicate this?

Finally, I was listening to an lecture given by Aldous Huxley in which he stated that (I'm paraphrasing here) roughly speaking about 20% of the popluation is highly suggestable (ex. suseptable to advertising, hypnosis, propaganda) and for another 20% it is the exact opposite. The 60% inbetween possess varying degrees of this "suggestablility trait" (my phrase). Does this resonate with poeple on this board or do you think that this is sounds like more rubbish.

[Merlin]

Hi,

Both men and women, young and old, genius or stupid are easily hypnotised.
It's more a matter of the skill of the hypnotist than the subject.

The research on hypnotisability is old! It was determined by creating a record in a monotone voice so that (in theory) there would be no variables to worry about.
Guess what?
There is a difference between men and women, young and old etc. who can be 'hypnotised' (or bored to death) by a monotonous record.
And the percentages reflect fairly accurately who is bored easily and who isn't.

So much for the research.

[Don]

Hello, "Unregistered."

These are some great questions, and I hope you'll consider registering and joining our board.

I'll give you my ideas and responses. Those of others may (and probably will) differ.

You wrote:
"I have heard that women, as a gender, are more easy to hypnotize then men. I have also heard that this that is a myth and is complete rubbish. So what is the deal? Does anyone know of any studies related to this subject? If it is a myth, does anyone know how it started or why poeple believed it?"

Here is the problem with answering that. It makes the assumption that women are a group with classifiable characteristics.Sort of like the money-making idea that "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus."

To my mind, this is the exact antithisis of hypnotherapeutic theory. As I understand hypnotherapy, each and every person is a unique individual. Every individual deserves to be treated as a unique person, not a group of people who all get the same therapy for everything. No single treatment works for every person even though the same problem is presented. Two woman may come to a hypnotherapist with the same problem, but the appropriate form of hypnotherapy may be completely different for the people.

So to my mind, the concept behind the question is completely absurd.

Now please don't mistake what I'm saying as some sort of dis to you. It is not meant that way at all. In fact, I have no doubt that some people somewhere have done research that you're talking about which would naturally lead to your question.

So it is not that your question is absurd, but rather that there are some researchers who probably tried to do exactly what you are suggesting.

So why, if I am accurate, would anybody do such research? Because they are operating from a decidedly non-hypnotherapeutic paradigm. It would sort of be like a physicist trying to determine if women or men had bigger minds. The question is absurd because minds cannot be measured, and it assumes that men and women are not individuals but simply part of groups. Groups and averages are very well understood by physicists, but such comments make poor examinations of the mind. Psychologists often try to do this in what I would consider a vain attempt to make their "soft science" into a hard science like physics (and even that is slipping as we move away from Newtonian and into quantum physics).

I know this is rambling a bit, but it comes back to something I wrote earlier. The fact is, men are NOT from Mars and women are NOT from Venus. Men and women are both from earth and every man and every woman is magnificently unique. Trying to stick human beings into groups so they can be quantified and qualified is what leads to lack of understanding and in some cases, racist philosophy.


You wrote:
Also I have also heard that there is a correlation between intelligence and hypnotizability (if that is a word). Is this true? What studies indicate this?


Unfortunately, you didn't define what "intelligence" is. Some people define "IQ" as intelligence, but the people at Stanford-Binet (who oversee the tests and popularized the concept) admitted (in the past, at least) that they have no idea of what IQ measures.

As far as I can tell, IQ doesn't measure intelligence so much as middle-class norms. This is something which has been highly debated over the last couple of decades.

In my experience, many (if not most) modern hypnotherapists would contend that everyone is constantly in one state of trance or another, and a hypnotherapist helps to move a person from one trance state (where they believe X, something no longer desired) and into another trance state (where the will come to change X to Y, which is desired).

In order to do this, a client of a hypnotherapist needs to be able to pay attention to what the hypnotherapist is saying or telling him/her to do. If a person has trouble concentrating and following directions, induction to a desired trance becomes difficult (although not impossible). Generally speaking, people who have trouble concentrating and following simple directions have a lower IQ. However, there are other methods to hypnotize them.

If a hypnotherapist is having trouble hypnotizing a person, it means that the client is sending a message to the hypnotherapist which the hypnotherapist has not received and/or understood. It may be that the client doesn't trust the hypnotherapist or that a different method of trance induction is required.


You wrote:
Finally, I was listening to an lecture given by Aldous Huxley in which he stated that (I'm paraphrasing here) roughly speaking about 20% of the popluation is highly suggestable (ex. suseptable to advertising, hypnosis, propaganda) and for another 20% it is the exact opposite. The 60% inbetween possess varying degrees of this "suggestablility trait" (my phrase). Does this resonate with poeple on this board or do you think that this is sounds like more rubbish.


I actually do some work in advertising. Recently, a person told me that you can't use common advertising techniques with younger people because they are too sharp and don't like it when they are being advertised "to." I had to stifle a laugh because the group she is talking about receives as much or more advertising than any other age group. Why? Because it works. Unfortunately, her forte was in editing, not advertising and she has no experience in the field and didn't know what she was talking about.

So was Huxley and expert in advertising suggestibility or in hypnotherapy? I don't think so, although he was very interested in it. The question is, where did he get these ideas?

The answer is one small test in a prison. They attempted "sleep learning" which was basically a form of programming people by giving messages while the prisoners were asleep through speakers beneath their pillows. The only area where their seemed to be results was changing moral attitudes and not much else. To the best of my knowledge, this test has never been repeated. The rest of his research: self-experimentation with LSD and other powerful mind-altering substances.

So I would respectfully suggest that Mr. Huxley made assumptions without documentation to support it. Everyone is suggestible if the person doing the suggesting knows how to present the suggestion.

Well? What do others here think?

[Kala2]

Don: Loved your answer and just want to add my two cents. Especially to the kind of bell curve Huxley was suggesting for suggestability. And, your comment about young people and their response to advertising.

I absolutely agree with you. Just as knowing about NLP techniques does not make you immune to them, being knowlegeable about advertising techniques does not make you immune. It might, however, be a useful strategy. I remember a story about Erickson who was heckled by a person who announced that he was too smart to be hypnotized. Erickson challenged him to come up on the dias and make that comment which the man promptly did. Then Erickson challenged him to make to commet with his eyes closed...and you can guess the rest. Shortly the man was fully hypnotized. I think it is called Utilization.

In any case, it seems to me that young people who are convinced that they know too much about advertising to be affected are probably really excellent targets. Do a blatantly obvious campaign and embed your real message in it. Maybe arrogance is just a great ally to both a hypnotist and an advertiser.

[Terry]

"I think it is called Utilization".. Well, could be, but it might also be a con job. During my time in practise, I was occassionally challenged by someone on the basis that they couldn't be hypnotised. I saw it as a con to get a freebee, so I would ask them to put their money were their mouth was, and pay my if I succeeded. Naturally they would agree, since not to do so would expose them as a fraud.....Upon their agreeing, I would point out that any intelligent person could be hypnotised, and in fact, only those who were certifiable as mentally defective were beyond the reach of hypnosis. Such double bind resulted in success of course, and just for my own interest I gave tests to ensure that all present saw that I had indeed got the results I predicted, and was able to claim the money with a clear concience. Strangely, some of those persons later became my best advocates, and came to me for help also......