Jerry Kein on Freud and Hypnosis

Comment

Comment by Richard Nongard - NLPBoard.com on April 15, 2010 at 9:17am

All of these are methods I have trained in, and methods I train others in. All of these can easily be integrated into hypnotherapy:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (I am a professional member of the organization for contexual psychology)

Mindfullness Based Stress Reduction

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy

Dialectical behavioral Therapy

There are others, but by googling the above once could stay busy for months....
The single best book summarizing these is by Ruth Baer "Mindfulness Based Treatment approaches" It is very research specific and a true textbook, rather than a "how to"

Comment by Jeff Albright on April 14, 2010 at 11:50am

Cole,
Thanks for the input. I'm always glad to learn new things. That's what I think is so good about these kind of discussions. They definitely expose you to opinions, thoughts, and ideas that no one, single instructor can expose you too.

I look forward to everyone's input.
Thanks again,
Jeff

Comment by Hugh Cole on April 14, 2010 at 11:47am

Jeff ... One of the things that happens on Hypnothoughts is that ... We all love to talk. You will find that discussions ramble .. on point off point around point in any direction, That is actually a strength of the forum. Don't concern yourself. Yours is NOT the first discussion to carreen off in unexpected directions, It certainly won't be the last. If Saul and Micheal and Richard are in it rest assured It will be a good discussion. Of course ,,, Jerry (God bless him) can always become the fodder of a good discussion when hypnotic minds meet to mull over things.

Comment by Jeff Albright on April 14, 2010 at 10:16am

Richard,
Could you share some of the research you've found. I'm always trying to stay on top of what's new, and there's always so much new stuff coming out. I'd also love to see any research about methods that may be more effective.

Do you have any recommendations as to how you might specifically go about a session, or what therapies/modalities taht you have personally found effective?


Thanks again,
Jeff

Comment by Jeff Albright on April 14, 2010 at 9:45am

I'm surprised this stirred so much conversation. You all have valid points and agree with much of it. I am not a proponent of Freud's work. I think a short casual interview is hardly the place to determine one's, or someone elses, entire beliefs on therapy. I can not speak for Jerry, but I tend to consider myself a 'tour guide' on the clients recovery. I like to show them a variety of thigs to create change. I personally, wasn't trained with much RTC, however, can't see much difference between that and NLPs timeline therapy. I think they both do basically the same thing, no matter how you get there. But, would any of us just use one modality in a single session. I see most doing multiple modalities perhaps utilizing RTC, Visualization, Direct Suggestion, Metaphors, Pain/Pleasure, etc, etc.

I wanted to share this for the upbeat nature of both Jerry & Wendi, and for how they are promoting hypnosis as a profession, no matter what our individual approaches are.

I would love to hear any suggestions as to how you all plan a session, and help the client make changes.

Thanks to you all,
Jeff

Comment by Hugh Cole on April 14, 2010 at 2:15am

Only five good trainers in the country and Jerry is one of them! Wow! wonder who the other four are? Jerry of course is Mr. RTC. and it would be great as far as he is concerned if we could standardize our problem solving methodology on his technique, I frankly view regression to cause the same way I view PLR and it's variants. They are simply constructs for my client to communicate through. For all the reasons Richard so carefully laid out, I don't use it I prefer to view what I do as building positive resource states and empowering new behaviors. RTC for me is too content oriented. I prefer more blind approaches and negativity clearing processes. It seems to work for me. but then again I didn't train with Jerry and i might of missed the other four.
Choose your mentors carefully ... Limiting beliefs are contagious!

Comment by Richard Nongard - NLPBoard.com on April 13, 2010 at 7:37pm

Jerry said must of us would agree with Frued's statement "Every problem has a casue and that cause is usually deeply hidden from the consious mind." and "Our job is discover the underlying cause..."

I could not disagree more. RTC is one of the most narcissistic approaches to therapy/hypnotherapy presuming the all knowing therapist can decipher the exact cause. And knowing the cause of something is not nescessarily leading us any closer to a solution. jerry stated, not fining the cause is "unacceptable in my office". How seriously narcissistic.

Sure in some situation cause (or more accuratly orgin) may be easy to pinpoint (ie. specific phobia). But in hypnotherapy we are still teaching the outdated methods of Frued when we preach RTC as "the modality of therapy that is most effective." As Ellner points out, the research simply doesn't show this to be the case. Evidence Based Treatment, has long discarded RTC as a primary modality, and although it will have a place with some (but very few) clients, for the most part there are far better ways to help clients.

Anyone is free to disagree with me as I disagree Jerry and Frued, and you can still be a great person, but in my opinion RTC keeps clients stuck because they rarely move into the future, and therapists LOVE filling billable hours with endless quests for "THE cause" and coming up with all kinds of goofy answers.

THE casue is another problem with this whole RTC mentality of Frueds that is still taught in most hypnosis programs today. THE cause probaly does not exist. Clients are much more multi-dimensional then THE cause. In fact to attempt to isolate THE casue presumes only ONE cause, when in fact, it is probaly a lifetime of causes.

But lets put this in a practical and real perspective: Tiger Woods. Does it matter to Mrs. Woods WHY tiger is a slut? And does Tiger really need to go back in time and RTC to stop his behavior today? Of course not. Tiger in the present, has total control over his own pecker. Sure Sigmund would probly say it;s becasue Earl was also a womanizer, or becasue of the pressure, or becasue of his potty training, or becasue of birth trauma, or becasue he was abused in first grade, or because three lives ago he was a prostitute in france.... or whatever. But knowing or know knowing "cause" does not keep him from making healthy choices today and Mrs. Woods could probably care less. I do not know what his "course" of "sex addiction" treamtent is, but if they force Elin to sit and listen to Tiger expound on the "cause" of his problem, I would slap him and leave the therapy office.

Ellner says the same thing the research journals say, and that is that there is no evidence anyone is finding and fixing anything in RTC therapy... But there is evidence, people can change with or without knowing the cause, by integrating a number of other therapies into treatment.....

Comment by Saul Rosenfeld on April 13, 2010 at 4:29pm

Hello all,

I've decided to copy & paste my chapter on "Freud & hypnosis" here for anyone who may be interested.
Notes 19, 20 & 21 contain almost as much info as the main body of text and would take up too much room to post here as well.
However, NOTE 22 can be read in its entirety on my book's website- but is BEST read in the PDF format
if possible.
ENJOY!

Saul

www.HistoryOfHypnotism.com



CHAPTER 6



Interestingly enough, one of Bernheim’s disillusioned ex-pupils was going to become quite famous in his own right.
Unfortunately however, Dr. Sigmund Freud held about as many misconceptions regarding hypnosis and suggestion as was humanly possible.
Of course, this was hardly surprising when one considers that his very first exposure to the phenomenon was at a stage exhibition, the next- a stay at la Salpêtrière with Charcot, and finally- a visit with Liébeault and Bernheim at Nancy.
[NOTE 19]



To paraphrase Rawlson, Freud had burst into the tangled undergrowth of hypnotism with a pioneer’s hatchet. This path was narrow and dangerous and, sadly, he was unable to avoid the many pitfalls.
The source of his difficulties can clearly be traced to his hopelessly authoritarian frame of reference and crude approach to induction; for, as Kline (1958/1966) informs us: “Freud’s knowledge of hypnosis and his experience with it, clinically and experimentally, were at best limited not only in time but, most of all, in procedure and in approach. In many ways, Freud’s use of hypnosis was similar to the use of a pharmacologic agent.” (p. 63)
Sure enough, at one point Freud (1891) had actually complained that: “The chief deficiency of hypnotic therapy is that it cannot be dosed.” (p. 111)

His conceptualization of the induction process was so thoroughly distorted moreover, that he wrote in his landmark “Studien über Hysterie” (Breuer and Freud, 1895): “She was an excellent subject for hypnosis. I held my finger before her and called out “Sleep!” and she sank down with an expression of stupefication and confusion.” (p. 40)
Now, you couldn’t get much worse than that- unless it would be by waking subjects, as he did (in Tinterow, 1970), by shouting “That is enough for the present!” (P. 469)
[NOTE 20]


His primitive view (and use) of suggestion was clearly that of the Nancy school’s as well, for, according to Freud (1891): “...suggestions consist in an energetic denial of the ailments of which the patient has complained, or in an assurance that he can do something, or in a command to perform it.” (p. 111)
Such as the “suggestion”: “You will have no more headaches!”, or the "suggestion": “Sleep!”.

Not surprisingly, failure would often be his reward for employing this soon to be discredited methodology and, according to Kline (1958/1966):
“He grew weary of hearing from many...patients after the command, “you will sleep, sleep now” such protests as, “But doctor, I am not sleeping.” Freud would then be forced to...say, “I do not mean the usual sleep, I mean the hypnotic”...or “I really don’t want you to sleep.” The necessity for all this psychosemantics confused and embarrassed him. He began to feel it would be better to avoid the embarrassment altogether.”
(p. 12)

It was at this point in time that "psychoanalysis" was born.
Coindidence? Perhaps. But, as Gibson (1977) explained:
“To a man of Freud’s dominating personality, such failures to hypnotize must have been very galling...The technique of psychoanalysis which he went on to substitute for hypnotherapy contained no such hazards for the physician, and it is small wonder that it came to be accepted by so many psychiatrists as a preferable alternative. In psychoanalysis there is no attempt on the part of the therapist to do more than be a patient listener...Freud showed his genius in such an invention.”
(p. 50)

(continued below...)

Comment by Saul Rosenfeld on April 13, 2010 at 4:25pm

Be that as it may, no matter how one chooses to interpret his switch to psychoanalysis, this turn of events has never, as Kline (1958/1966) pointed out, altered the fact that: “Freud’s break with hypnosis is primarily related to his inability to manage hypnosis, to the limited range of hypnotizability that he himself encountered, and to his impatience and lack of concern with the meaning of refractoriness in hypnotic response.” (p. 63)
In other words, by his authoritarian approach to induction...
[NOTE 21]


* * *




Incidentally, as far as that goes, Freud (1910, in Strachey, 1966/1978) even admitted how: “When I found that, in spite of all my efforts, I could not succeed in bringing more than a fraction of my patients into a hypnotic state, I determined to give up hypnosis...” (p. 66)
The operative phrase here is “in spite of all my efforts”, for, as Gravitz and Gerton (1984b) remind us:
“His knowledge of hypnotic techniques was rather narrow and limited, and he relied heavily, as has already been noted, upon authoritarian commands...Furthermore, the induction methods per se employed by Freud were limited in scope. These included the use of manual passes a la Mesmer above the patient’s face and body, the placement of digital pressure upon the patient’s forehead, grasping the subject’s head between his own two hands and then commanding sleep, or holding the index finger sternly before the patient and calling “Sleep!”...”
(p. 13)

Ironically enough, practically all of his patients were “hypnotizable”, if only he’d have chosen to adopt a different type of approach.
The Art of hypnotism, to paraphrase Lacayo, had only needed fine-tuning, not the meat-axe!
But instead of applying himself to improving the methodology, Freud would simply discontinue his use of hypnotherapy.

The consequences of this decision are still clearly noticeable, for, as Kline (1958/1966) sadly informs us:
“Vast majorities of professional workers in medicine, physiology, psychiatry, psychology, and the social sciences have either antiquated, inadequate, or distorted ideas of the nature of hypnosis...To a great extent, the figure of Sigmund Freud and some of his observations have been built into a legend of hypnotic omnipotence and, on the basis of his observations and conclusions, hypnosis has been dismissed...In this lies one of the greatest distortions of scientific truth in modern times.”
(p. 44)
In fact, it would not be exaggerating to state that the price in terms of lost potential has been nothing less than staggering, because, to hear Karoly (1961) tell it: “...if he had not wandered off on his “tour de force”, psychoanalysis, and had turned his genius to developing hypnosis instead, the world today would be a mentally healthier place.”
(p. 28)

Ultimately however, Freud’s abandonment of hypnotism would, among other things, result in the fact that the “Dictionary of Psychoanalysis” (1950; in Kline, 1958/1966) ended up defining the phenomenon in a manner reminiscent of an epitaph: “Hypnosis...in the present day is only employed by laymen for the purposes of entertainment.” (p. 6)

Needless to say, that was anything but a laughing matter, because this cruel and senseless joke turned out to be entirely at our expense!



* * *




The predominance of Freud’s psychoanalytical movement was going to insure that his highly distorted view of hypnotism and suggestion would, for many years, be regarded as the Final Word on the subject.
Then again, as Wells (1947) scornfully observed: “One might as readily look for a satisfactory history of Great Britain from the pen of Adolf Hitler, as for a satisfactory account of hypnosis from the pen of psychoanalysts.”
(p. 198)
[NOTE 22]

Comment by Michael Ellner on April 13, 2010 at 3:46pm

Hello Jeff,

Freud is dead as is psychoanalysis and in my opinion, the further modern day hypnosis professionals get away from the hypnotic techniques based on Freud's ghosts the better, but that's just my opinion.

When you get right down to it, I believe that RTC&Fix works for the same reason that every other hypnotic technique works - The Power of Suggestion. Basically, if you are skilled and the client buys into the concept behind the technique that you are using -- it will be effective...I see no evidence that the RTC&Fix practitioners ae actually finding and fixing anything.

Suggested reading:
The Assault on Freud - TIME
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979704,00.html

Psychoanalysis Is Dead ... So How Does That Make You Feel? - Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/feb/18/opinion/oe-dufresne18