Hypnosis

History

• Franz Anton Mesmer (mesmerize)
  • Sensing forces within people/animals and shaping them.
  • Magnets and magnetism
• Sigmund Freud
  • It’s not magnet, it’s Mesmer!
  • Suggesting to patients in a powerful way that they would be better.
  • Patients believe they feel better, but the trauma is not resolved.
  • This could be dangerous due to confabulation.

Details

• Confabulation
  • Pushed to tell something that is not in the memory.
  • After the trance, they still believe the thing they created.
• Relaxation
  • Imagery becomes much richer. (e.g. hypnotized witnesses)
  • Similar to relaxation therapy
• Modern therapeutic hypnosis
  • Pavlovian, drawing association between things (e.g. disgust and smoking)
• Works very well on some, not on others. Largely depending on the trust on the therapist and comfort level.
• Hypnosis as entertainment
  • Amazing Ravine

Theories

• State theories
  • Hypnotic inductions produce an altered state of consciousness.
  • Responses to hypnotic suggestions are a result of special process in the altered state of consciousness.
  • Hypnotizability is stable over long period.
• Non-state theories
  • Participants in hypnosis experiments are actively engaged.
  • People use hypnosis as an excuse to be a bit crazy and wacky.
  • Both conscious and unconscious are in play
• Experiment
  • Push the behavioral boundaries so far, that we are sure that the participants must be under our control to do these things.
  • e.g. picking up a snake, or shooting someone
  • However, due to the ethics restriction, we may never be able to come to definitive conclusion.