Ponderings
This week we had a long awaited change in the weather as the sun came out and temperatures hit 19 degrees after months of cold and damp. The therapist in me chuckled as I walked to the local shops in a t-shirt noting the people who were habitually still dressed for cold and rain.
Magic
Even if you aren’t a sci-fi fan like me, you will probably heard of the famous quotation by the British author Sir Arthur C Clarke; ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ One of the things I really like about my job is that occasionally I get to create some apparent magic.
I was reminded of this in the past week after a couple of incidents with clients and other people where I demonstrated some hypnotic phenomena or did some process with them which resulted a wide eyed, open-mouthed look of astonishment.
Not Magic
I can often be head to say that what I do is definitely not magic even if it sometimes appears that way; I am using ideas, approaches and techniques that are outside the previous experience of the client or subject.
They have no frame of reference – that is they don’t have a previous similar experience. If you went to a cinema having never seen a film before – it would appear like magic. If later you go to your first 3D film – you again would get that feeling of ‘wow’.
When we have a new experience we search for something from our past that is similar – so we can decide that ‘ah – that is LIKE that other thing but different/better/worse in these ways…’. So the 3D film experience is like the 2D film experience but I have to wear funny glasses (worse) and get amazing 3D effects, depth of vision and the appearance that things are coming out of the screen at me (better). Unless you are like my wife - one of those people who left the recent Hobbit film using new 3D technology film feeling nauseous (worse).
Where we can’t do this then we blame the mystical – magical, or more rationally just decide we are missing some knowledge that we need to fully understand this new experience.
The Science
Hypnosis and the nature of hypnosis has been debated and more importantly subjected to rigorous study for some time now. The NCH, one of the major professional hypnotherapy bodies in the UK, reports that there are over 70,000 scientific references to hypnosis. Ideas, beliefs and models of how hypnosis works have been supported and refuted by evidence and peer review.
Not Performance
So what is my motivation and reasoning when I am just demonstrating hypnotic phenomena? Am I perhaps showing off my skill or wanting to entertain? Not at all.
Firstly my skill, one that has to be learnt and practiced like any other, is being able to guide people into experiencing hypnosis. In other words whilst I provide guidance it is the subject who is actually demonstrating the hypnotic skill.
Secondly – I am demonstrating a very important point in an irrefutable manner – that our vividly held beliefs can have a real effect on us even if we intellectually know that the belief is false. For example, I can have someone imagine that they cannot bend an outstretched arm simple because they have temporarily adopted the suggestion and belief that it has become rigid, like a bar of steel perhaps.
Finally – it is a usual assessment for me as to how well the client is following my instructions and their receptivity to suggestion. Many people are naturally good at this whilst others need some coaching – usually to stop trying too hard.
The Real Magic
I often refer to therapy as giving people choices. The person who habitually or obsessively eats, snacks, cleans, exercises, smokes gets to make a choice whether to continue to do that thing with no compulsion, no huge amount of willpower – turning it back into a rational decision. The person who has lived with a particular fear or phobia is presented with that thing they feared and finds that the old irrational panic has been replaced by calm or a rational level of care. The person with low confidence or self-esteem will chip in at meetings, interrupting if necessary and with skill and tact where before they would have sat back, kicking themselves at the end of the meeting for not having the courage to make an important point or stand up for themselves.
Again this is not magic, it is knowing how to affect these changes. When the change happens there is often no immediate sensation of a shift, no lightning bolt or electric shock. But then they notice the difference, it can be a profound and yet subtle feeling like they have always been this new way.