How to go to your page This eBook contains two volumes. Each volume has its own page numbering scheme, consisting of a volume number, and a page number, separated by a colon. For example, to go to page 5, of Volume 1, type Vol1:5 in the “page #” box at the top of the screen and click “Go.” To go to page 5, of Volume 2, type Vol2:5 in the "page #" box… and so forth. Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy This page intentionally left blank Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Volume 1: Neuroscience, Personality, and Cultural Factors Deirdre Barrett, Editor Copyright 2010 by Deirdre Barrett All rights reserved.
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Praeger An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction Deirdre Barrett ix Chapter 1 The Hypnotic Deactivation of Self-Conscious Source Monitoring Robert G. Kunzendorf 1 Chapter 2 Dissociaters, Fantasizers, and Their Relation to Hypnotizability Deirdre Barrett 15 Chapter 3 Hypnosis, Mindfulness Meditation, and Brain Imaging David Spiegel, Matthew White, and Lynn C. Waelde 37 Chapter 4 Forensic Hypnosis: A Practical Approach Melvin A.
Gravitz 53 Chapter 5 Hypnosis in Popular Media Deirdre Barrett 77 Chapter 6 Hypnotic-Like Procedures in Indigenous Shamanism and Mediumship Stanley Krippner and J€urgen W. Kremer 97 Chapter 7 Lay Hypnotherapy and the Credentialing of Zoe the Cat Steve K. Eichel 125 vi Contents Chapter 8 Pedagogical Perspectives on Teaching Hypnosis Ian E. Wickramasekera II 145 About the Editor and Contributors 161 Index 165 Acknowledgments I would like to thank Debbie Carvalko from Praeger Publishers for her advocacy of this project, and for her advice, organization, and review of these volumes.
I would also like to thank the book’s advisory board: Arreed Barabasz, PhD, EdD; Elvira Lang, MD; Steve Lynn, PhD; and David Spiegel, MD, for their help in identifying topics to be covered and advice on the best authors to cover them. Finally, I want to acknowledge the professional hypnosis societies that introduced me to the members of the advisory board and to most of the chapter authors. These organizations taught me much of the hypnosis I’ve learned since my basic graduate school training, as they have for many of the chapter authors. They provide forums in which advances in hypnosis are shared in a timely manner among practitioners.
The first two societies listed here publish academic journals in which much of the research and clinical techniques summarized in these volumes has appeared. All five conduct stim- ulating conferences with research presentations and workshops—for students as well as practicing professionals. All maintain referral lists from which potential clients can locate skilled hypnotherapists in their geographic area. They constitute a rich resource for readers wishing to pursue more learning about hypnosis.
The Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis SCEH Executive Office P. Box 252 Southborough, MA 01772 Tel: 508-598-5553 Fax: 866-397-1839 Email: info@sceh.us Publishes International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis viii Acknowledgments American Society of Clinical Hypnosis 140 N. Bloomingdale, IL 60108 Telephone: 630-980-4740 Fax: 630-351-8490 Email: info@asch.net Publishes American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis Society of Psychological Hypnosis Division 30–American Psychological Association APA Division 30 Membership 1400 N. La Salle, Unit 3-S Chicago, IL 60610 http://www.org/divisions/div30/homepage.html European Society for Hypnosis ESH Central Office Inspiration House Redbrook Grove Sheffield, S20 6RR United Kingdom Telephone : þ44 11 4248 8917 Fax : þ44 11 4247 4627 E-mail : mail@esh-hypnosis.eu http://www.php?folder_id¼14&file_id¼0 International Society for Hypnosis http://www.php Introduction Deirdre Barrett Hypnosis is named for the Greek god of sleep though, even in ancient times, few thought of it as literal sleep—this was simply the best analogy for an altered state so far from waking cognition and behavior.
Western medicine first called the phenomena “mesmerism” after Franz Mesmer, who conducted group trance inductions in eighteenth-century Europe. Mesmer attracted attention for his flamboyant style and his cures of hyste- ria that eluded other physicians of the time. Of course, Mesmer did not invent hypnosis, he merely rediscovered techniques that had been prac- ticed around the world since the dawn of history. A fourth-century BCE Egyptian demotic papyrus from Thebes describes a boy being induced into a healing trance by eye fixation on a lighted lamp.1 Third-century BCE Greek temples in Epidaurus and Kos, dedicated to the god Asclepius— whose snake-entwined staff is now our modern medical symbol, the caduceus—used hypnotic-like incubation rituals to produce their dramatic cures.2 Mesmer’s contribution was that he reminded the Western world of this marvelous therapy.
Young doctors flocked to him to study, but the medical establishment was no friendlier to alternative medicine then than now. Mesmer was exiled from medical practice, but therapists and the general public have remained fascinated with hypnosis ever since. In recent years, we have been able to understand hypnosis much better than Mesmer did with his eighteenth-century versions of magnetic and electrical fields of the body. Indeed we are able to see what real changes in brain activity occur during the process, but also a wealth of modern cogni- tive, linguistic, and personality research help explain it.
Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy brings together the latest research on the nature of hypnosis and studies of what it can accomplish in treatment. Volume 1 addresses the question of what hypnosis is: the cognitions, brain activity, and per- sonality traits that characterize it, as well as cultural beliefs about hypnosis. In Chapter 1, Robert Kunzendorf describes how cognitive processing differs x Introduction during hypnosis from usual waking modes. He characterizes the core change as “the deactivation of self-conscious source monitoring.” This lack of awareness of the self as the origin of many perceptions during hypnosis leads to experiencing imagery as hallucinations and to alterations of memory processing including dissociation, amnesia, and hypermnesia.
Kunzendorf explains how these changes can sometimes enable hypnosis to recover repressed memories but also increase the possibility of creating false ones. The most common misconception in hypnosis lore is the notion that trance, hallucinatory imagery, the will to carry out suggestions—indeed all the phenomena of hypnosis—emanate from the hypnotist. In fact, it is the subject who produces these. In Chapter 2, I examine personality traits associated with the ability to enter hypnotic trance.
Very few people are totally unhypnotizable, but the number able to experience the deepest hypnotic phenomena—eyes open hallucinations, negative hallucinations (failing to perceive something that is right in front of one), suggested amnesia and analgesia sufficient for surgery—is similarly small. Hypnotiz- ability is not a present/absent dichotomy but a continuum. Many traits were historically hypothesized to determine hypnotizability such as hysteric personality, passivity, “weak will,” and “need to please,” but these actually bear little or no correlation when subjected to modern research analyses. This chapter summarizes the cluster of traits that do predict response to hypnotic induction.
All of the interview and test questions that correlate highly concern hypnotic-like experiences of everyday life vividness of imagery, propensity to daydream, and the ability to block out real sensory stimuli. I also present a distinction between two types of high hypnotizables—one of whom has more of a propensity toward vivid, hallu- cinatory imagery, and the other toward dissociative, amnestic separation of memory. The first group “fantasizers” tend to have a history of parents who read them much fiction and encouraged fantasy play, while the second group “dissociaters” have a history of trauma or isolation during which they learned amnestic defenses. In Chapter 3, David Spiegel, Matthew White, and Lynn Waelde review the effects of hypnosis on physiologic functions.
Past studies have found that induction of the hypnotic state reduces sympathetic nervous system activity and increases parasympathetic activity, as measured by the low fre- quency/high frequency ratio in spectral analysis of heart rate, and by increases in vagal tone. Both of these changes are associated with the abil- ity to self-soothe. Hypnosis has also been found to affect the secretion of cortisol and prolactin and to modulate other neural and endocrine compo- nents of the stress response. The authors then describe recent brain imag- ing of hypnosis at their lab and other research facilities.
The most consistent changes are found in the frontal attentional systems. Spiegel, White, and Waelde explain why these often track with the alterations of autonomic tone noted in the peripheral studies of hypnosis. They describe Introduction xi how hypnosis is associated with changes in the executive attention func- tion of the anterior cingulate gyrus and involves “activation” rather than “arousal” in neurological terms—and dopaminergic rather than noradren- ergic in biochemical ones. This type of activation promotes “chunking,” or reducing the number of parallel systems, and indicates an inner rather than outer focus.
Spiegel, White, and Waelde compare brain imaging findings in hypnosis with those associated with mindfulness meditation and discuss the physiological similarity of states produced by the two techniques. Finally, they discuss shifts in brain activity associated with particular hyp- notic phenomena such as alterations of pain perception and with the lessened sense of self-agency during hypnosis that was characterized as essential in Chapter 1. In Chapter 4, Melvin Gravitz describes forensic hypnosis—the role it has played in police investigation and the court system. Views of hypnosis have swung from touting hypnosis as a truth serum to seeing it as inherently inva- lidating witness testimony.
Gravitz reviews the precedents and opinions at all levels, up to and including the U. Supreme Court, and offers his own balanced view of appropriate uses and safeguards. He discusses how the hypnotic alterations of memory discussed in Chapters 1 and 3, and the hyp- notic-associated personality traits dealt with in Chapter 2, manifest specifi- cally during criminal witness proceedings. Next, in Chapter 5, I discuss the depiction of hypnosis in art and media—film, television, theater, music, and cartoons.
These depictions emphasize behavioral control rather than rich alterations of subjective experience. Most films cast hypnosis in a dark light—as a tool for seduction or murder. When hypnosis is portrayed posi- tively, it is often either as a truth serum—similar to the overly optimistic court opinions discussed in Chapter 4 (in fact, these often appear in court- room dramas) or as endowing subjects with impossible psychological, men- tal, or athletic abilities. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how more realistic depictions of hypnosis in media might be encouraged.
In Chapter 6, Stanley Krippner and J€urgen Kremer discuss hypnotic-like practices in shamanism and folk medium traditions with illustrative examples from various North American tribes, Balinese folk customs, contemporary Sami (indigenous Scandinavian) practices and African- Brazilian mediumship. They describe the many similarities in these soci- eties’ inductions and Western hypnosis, including verbal inductions and suggestion, sleep analogies, and heavy reliance on imagery and storytelling (the latter being characteristic mostly of Ericksonian hypnosis to be described in Volume 2, Chapter 1, rather than of all Western hypnosis). Krippner and Kremer also contrast trance-induction practices that are common in the indigenous cultures but not in Western hypnosis including chanting, percussion, dance or other ritualistic movement, and the burning of incense. They note a fundamental difference in the two types of indige- nous practices of shamanism versus mediumship.