What do you think of claims that hypnosis and NLP is all a con and doesn't exist?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Susan French on September 15, 2008 at 6:08am

I think that there is a tendency in our profession to imply that hypnosis and NLP give faster and more consistent results than is actually the case. Sometimes it produces (verifiable) results in one session, or 3, 4, 5 or however long it can take.

Other than that, how can one argue with success? I think that many people, even hypnotherapists and NLPers, don't know how it works so there is a tendency to discount it's efficacy.

As I work more and more with both and, because I'm a student of neuroscience, I've been figuring out how it works in the brain, it becomes more tangible for me.

Sometimes they don't work as we had hoped and we don't always know why it works magically for some and not at all for others.

Is it a con that you learn to walk or drive a car? We don't always understand how we got from zero to completion, but the proof is in the pudding.

I also think that if we want to be trusted and taken seriously we have to admit that it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, just like psychotherapy or medicine and get our collective egos out of the way.

Susan

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Don Gibbons, Ph.D. on October 19, 2008 at 2:03am

To respond more concretely to the accusation that hypnosis is just a con, one can ask: So why is there a Division of Psychological Hypnosis in the American Psychological Association (Divison 30), which was founded by the late Ernest R. "Jack" Hilgard, a former President of the Association? And why are there two professional societies devoted to research in hypnosis, the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, which restrict their memberships solely to licensed professionals, primarily physicians, dentists, and psychiatrists? And what about the hundreds of experimental studies published on hypnosis every year?

As for NLP, I can't give you an opinion because I personally haven't seen or heard of any carefully-controlled research which has been presented at the conventions of these Societies or published in their professional journals, nor have I heard of any presentations on NLP at A.P.A. -- which doesn't mean that there aren't any, but you need to check it out.

Don

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Dr. Jonathan Royle aka Alex Smith on September 15, 2008 at 9:15am

Hypnosis as such does not exisit at least not in the manner many so called experts and training schools (who should know better claim)

Real "Hypnosis" is used everyday by the media, Policitians, Sale People, Religious Preachers, Conmen and well asically by anyone and everyone who has chosen to learn effective communication skills and has the intent to use them for an end result (in some cases postive and in others negative)

The unethical part I feel is misleading the public that hypnosis/NLP is safe, well in the correct hands and used with positive intent it is, but in my experinece so called hypnosis/nlp (effective communication) can be used by the skilled to make anybody, do anything and often without them consciously realising that they are being manipulated.

But hey Religion and Politics can (and does) do exactly the same thing.

To be honest I think the problem is that there are far too many "Brainwashed" NLP'ers and Hypnotists out there who have believed all the incorrect rubbish taught to them by their (usually) well meaning teachers who themslves are usually just spouting what they have been brainwashed to believe by their (usually) well meaning teachers and so on.

I for one am not scared to go on record and admit that most anything and everything is possible with so called hypnosis and nlp (just effective communication), indeed in Delavars Hypnotist Bible Book (which I can supply) he details how and what methods he sed during the war for hypnotic brainwashing in milatary circles and such like.

Open Your Mind those who are sleepwalkers (the majority) and walk around with their eyes closed are unqittingly placing the public into danger by purpotrating Flase Myths that nobody can be made to do things against their will with hypnosis when the TRUTH is very much the opposite.

I'd say thats unethical, and thats why I (and a few select others in this industry) teach people the truth, yes its a controversial viewpoint, but hey you can't argue with the facts.

And all that matters is effective communication (call it nlp or hypnosis if you will) used correctly with positive intent can and does change peoples lifes for the better and all that truly matters is RESULT'S and thats why those who are confident of their results offer a full money back guarantee on their treatment (as I do)

Cheers

Alex/Jonathan

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on September 16, 2008 at 5:15pm

I agree - Alex/Jonathan-

I find that most who suggest hypnosis doesn't exist are challenging the belief that hypnosis is "state" dependent. Modern science has clearly demonstrated that there is NO signature state for hypnosis.

I view hypnosis and NLP as persuasive healing arts - when you help some one change their minds in dynamic ways - it automatically changes their brains which changes their physiology and behavior --

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by James Hayashi on September 23, 2008 at 10:00pm

I have to agree just go to the mall and look around to see all the different people. Look at how they walk around in a state of hypnosis, All that we are doing is allow them to take control and make major changes in their life.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Conrad Cook on September 16, 2008 at 2:04pm

The most insightful comment I've heard on this topic was from the guy who runs Providence Hypnosis (I'm afraid I've forgotten his name; we only crossed paths the once).

He was talking about the emotional baggage, the cultural charge, that comes with the word "hypnosis." On the one hand, he said he found himself working against that a lot -- reworking people's media-conceptions of hypnotism. On the other, while he wanted to work from a clean slate, with something like "NLP," a less-known moniker with (for most people) less cultural charge and less emotional baggage, he found that people weren't as interested in it.

And then he said the most interesting thing:

"The fear people have of the word 'hypnosis' is what gives it its power."

--I don't know which comes first: whether people have issues about self-control and *therefore* develop emotional defensiveness about hypnotism, or if they hear the stories about hypnotism and it doesn't seem right and they develop the fear.

I've noticed these trends: and I can't prove them, so maybe they're not there; but this is how it seems to me currently:

* People who are the most adamant that hypnotism is a sham do not seem to have open, relaxed attitudes toward their own unconscious minds.

* People who tend to uncritically accept that hypnotism is powerful seem often to have religious backgrounds.

(Someone in the field recently told me I'm one of only two atheist hypnotists that he knows of: and I'm not a very good atheist, veering off sometimes into agnosticism.)

Conrad.

ps - You could argue, to doctors, that accepting the placebo effect is accepting the power of suggestion; so in effect good research methodology accepts the efficacy of hypnotism and takes steps to filter it out.

C.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Paul Duncan on September 16, 2008 at 4:20pm

"Particularly that such claims are used by so-called experts who then turn around and use hypnosis and NLP to try and prove their claims?"

Does that idea not seem funny to anyone else? If they're able to "use" this stuff to prove their claims, then doesn't that imply that it works?

I started out going to seminars on the sneaky, persuasive side of hypnosis. So, you're sitting in a room where they're telling you the specifics of how it works, the tricks and so on - its like school. But WHILE they're teaching you about anchoring your business card to good feelings, for instance, they're also anchoring good feelings to you. In my case, they were holding up a name tag. Several years later I found that name tag, and almost went right to my computer to sign up for another seminar, mindlessly, because I had *such a good time* at the seminars...

Basically, anytime they were demonstrating something, they were running it on you as well, its the nature of the beast. IME, it works, and the more levels of it you can become aware of, the deeper it can get. But, working in a seminar room and working in real life is two different things. I just finished reading one of Fritz Perl's Gestalt therapy books, so that night I started to experiment with those techniques on a client, ala Gil Boyne's Transforming Therapy. Why not, it worked so magically in the transcripts of the seminar the book was written with? But my client wasn't really going for it.

Because, as I surmise, the people in those seminars, after a few demonstrations, know what is expected of them. My new client did not, so a lot of what I tried made him look at me funny. The people who are masters of this, like the politicians, they know how to do it in the real world. Studying NLP might actually be a hindrance in that light.

The mistake as I see it, regarding your question, is that we as "intelligent" humans always need to label things, to distil detail from it. Hypnosis is a limiting word, and closes off the infinite potential of what's really going on - the word itself is a box, and its too easy to get your brain trapped in that box. NLP at its core was nothing more than a detailed categorization of behavior and responses, etc. But then they started to buy into the model, so the jargon was added, and the jargon is also limiting in its nature, so the more you think of something as an "anchor" for instance, the less able you're apt to be to see the natural phenomenon as anything but "an anchor", with all the rules and regulations and possibilities that come with the word and the semantic idea that is "anchoring".

That, and as Alex Smith wrote, there are too many "experts" who actually haven't done the research, they're only experts at what everyone else believes to be the truth, or what they've been taught. I read a book about Herbert Spiegel a while back, and while he's billed as "the utmost medical authority on hypnosis" of his time, I'm finding his work is very lazy. With each new client I now do the speigel eye roll to research the issue myself, and at best, that test is an indication of where a client's current ability to accept trance is, NOT their potential. Not to mention, all the light trance work that has come up from NLP makes much of his work moot. He would say that only a small percentage of people can be hypnotized, which is a silly claim in a modern light - if you're flexible in what "hypnosis" means, then you can get away with far more than he suspected. He was caught in the semantics of "hypnosis". IMO, of course. Not to belittle the man, because he definately contributed much.

Man I wish I could contribute to these threads without being so long winded. My apologies, I'm working on it...

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Donn Tefft / Red Crow bfa,mcht (d.d. Hon) on September 16, 2008 at 6:01pm

Who cares as long as it works for you.
Red CrOW

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by James Hazlerig on September 16, 2008 at 9:47pm

I'd like to propose Hazlerig's Law of Inverse Publicity:

The more someone publically disparages hypnosis, the more likely it is that they use it.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Serge Joseph Grandbois on September 17, 2008 at 9:28am

I guess that's like McCain promising to do away with Lobbyists, even though his major campaign people themselves are big lobbyists!! :-)

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Steve Garf on September 17, 2008 at 2:49pm

Excellent example. 7 of the major lobbyists to be exact... but let's not digress from the topic.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Leo Gopal - www.LeoGopal.com on October 18, 2008 at 6:22am

"Cogito, ergo sum" (English: I think, therefore I am) - Rene Decartes

I hypnotize, There it IS - Leo Gopal

▶ Reply to This

• 1
• 2