P R E S E N T E R : M S .

A S M I T A D A L VI
DISCUSSANT: MS. AKANKSHA GUPTA
CHAIRPERSON: MR. SHUVABRATA PODDAR
 Introduction
 Derived from the Greek word ‘Hypnos’ meaning sleep.

 Spiegel :
 An altered state of awareness
 Withdrawal from peripheral awareness
 Ability to concentrate in an attentive, responsive manner, even to the
point of dissociation

 The Society of Psychological Hypnosis

 Procedure during which a health professional or researcher suggests that a
client, patient or subject experiences a change in perceptions, thoughts or
behaviour.
 History of Hypnosis
 Earliest roots: Ancient writings of the Egyptians and Hindus.
 Rhythmic chanting and drumming often followed by temple sleep or sacred sleep.

Franz Anton Mesmer - 1766

Theory of Animal Magnetism:
 Planets influence humans via a magnetic force.
 Redirecting magnetic flow will restore health.
 Experience of a somnambulistic stage preceded by convulsions

James Braide - 1843

 Introduced the term Hypnosis
 Monoideism (having one dominant idea) or mental concentration.
 Demonstrated that one could initiate self induced sleep by staring fixedly at a
bright object
 History of Hypnosis
Jean Martin Charcot Hippolyte Bernheim Sigmund Freud
1878 1886 1891
• Muscular symptoms • Theory of hypnotic • Hypnosis as means
(catalepsy, paralyses, suggestion based on of:
and contracture) ideomotor action • Uncovering one’s
• Sensory changes • Ideas suggested by innermost thoughts
(hyperesthesia and the hypnotist lead • Uncovering and
anesthesia) automatically to reviving the original
• Three stages of actions experiences
hypnosis: catalepsy, • Actions experienced • Discharge the
lethargy and as unwilled emotions they had
somnambulism • Suggestion: Useful aroused
• Hypnotism as a psychological process
pathological
phenomenon, an
artificial neurosis
 History of Hypnosis

Morton Prince
Hypnosis as condition involving alteration of the
personality (attention, abstraction, reverie, sleep,
moods, somnabulisms, and multiple personality)
Involves dissociation, inhibition, and synthesis or
reintegration

Milton H. Erickson
Changed style of Hypnosis
Shift from direct instruction issued by an
authoritarian figure to a more indirect
and permissive style of trance induction
Subtly persuasive language patterns
 Myths and Facts
 Hypnosis is sleep
Fact: Hypnosis: State of attentive concentration (Peripheral awareness is withdrawn,
Focal awareness is heightened); Sleep: Both peripheral and focal concentration is
withdrawn.
 Hypnosis as a sign of mental weakness or instability
Fact: Sign of mental health than of mental weaknesses.
 Hypnotist is in control of the subject
Fact: Subject consents and chooses to be responsive to the instructions.
 People can’t be made to do anything abnormal /against their normal belief
Fact: Fact: Grade 5 hypnotizable persons - Vulnerable to act in ways they do not
remember.
 Hypnosis is Dangerous:
Fact: Natural phenomenon, and of itself, not dangerous; a rewarding and helpful
experience
 Myths and Facts
 Symptom removal is Dangerous
 Hypnosis is therapy
Fact: Not a treatment in itself. Can simply accelerate and facilitate treatment.
 A Hypnotist should be Charismatic, Unique or Weird
Fact: Good hypnotist - encourages the patient to explore his or her own trance
capacity.
 Women are more Hypnotizable than Men
Fact: No gender difference in hypnotizability
 Hypnosis is only a superficial Psychological Phenomenon:
Fact: Hypnosis is a brain-body phenomenon.
 Theories of hypnosis
 Sleep State Theory

 Dissociation Theories

 Social Cognitive Theories

 Cognitive Theories

 Psychoanalytic Theories
 Sleep State theory

 Hypnotic state resembles sleep.

Participants appear in a state of slumber.

Behave more as if awake than asleep

 Partial sleep: Pavlov

Inhibition of certain cerebral areas resulting in both sleep and hypnosis.

 Preservation of channels or communication accounted for limited reactivity

to surroundings.

 Global physiological measures - hypnosis bears semblance to wakefulness in

that reflexes are not altered nor is the output of awareness diminished.
 Dissociation theories

Hilgard Bowers
Janet • Neodissociative Theory: • Neodissociation
• Suggestive phenomena. • Planning and initiative Model:
• Lack of conscious functions of the executive ego • Effort and volition
awareness. reduced in enacting
• Dissociated cognitions • Monitoring functions of the suggestions - not
triggered into executive system reduced monitored
conscious awareness • Failure of the monitor to appropriately
through suggestion correct the control functions. • Control not
techniques. Imagination may be confused consciously
with external reality experienced
 Dissociation theories
Integrative View of Dissociation Theories:
 Two major types of suggestion: Facilitating and Blocking
 Three types of content: Motor action; Sensation and perception; and
Memory and identity
 Amalgamation of the two factors results in the respective realm of hypnotic
behavior.
Type of Content
Type of
Suggestion Motor Action Sensation & Perception Memory & Identity

Ideomotor Memory creation

Facilitating Positive Hallucinations
Behaviours Changes in Identity
Negative
Failure of Willed Post Hypnotic
Blocking Hallucinations
Action amnesia
analgesia
 Social Cognitive theories

Theodore Barber
Robert White Sarbin • Operational Approach:
• Hypnotic responding • Role theory: • Determinants of
behaviour is a • To be hypnotized, one hypnosis: Individual
meaningful, goal must want to adopt that differences in fantasy
directed striving. role. proneness and
imaginative ability
 Social Cognitive theories

Steven Jay Lynn

Spanos Kirsch • Integrative Model:
• Multifactorial Model of • Response • Incorporates situational,
Hypnotic Suggestibility: Expectancy Theory interpersonal and
• Focused on - Strategic • Expectancies for intrapersonal variables.
role enactment. change in subjective • Focus: Goal-directed
• Individuals transform experience can creative assimilation of
imaginings, thoughts and affect experience information, rapport,
feelings into experiences directly and affective and relational
and behaviors that are generate automatic, factors, individual
consistent with their non-volitional differences, and
ideas of how a good responses in the unconscious
hypnotic subject should form of self-fulfilling determinants of
respond prophesies. hypnotic
responsiveness.
 Cognitive theories
Woody and Sadler: Cold control theory
Distinguishes first order states from second order states.
During hypnosis, control may be intact, but the process of
forming first-order states is compromised

Barnier and Mitchell: Discrepancy-Attribution theory

Hypnotic experiences occur when a response is executed
slightly more easily in hypnosis.
This slightly easier production generates a discrepancy that is
attributed to local, salient factors of involuntariness, and reality

Sheehan and McConkey

Emphasis: Interaction of aptitude factors and contextual influences
determine outcome of hypnotic suggestion.
Focus: Individual pathways to and profiles of hypnotic responding
(cognitive skills and personal traits )
 Psychoanalytic theory
 Ego ideal: Image which every individual has of his own self and in accordance with
which he would like to form his personality.
 Develops out of identifications with those whom one loves.

 Ego-psychological theory: Change from conscious perception to preconscious

functioning.
 The stronger the controlling ego, the greater is the individual’s awareness.

 Continuous interchange takes place between the hypnotized portions of the

personality and those which assume the role of observer.
 Hypnosis has been attributed to patient’s non-rational submission and relative
abandonment of executive control to a more or less regressed, dissociated state.
 Phenomena of Hypnosis
 Predictors of hypnotic state: Union of an induction procedure, alterations in
subjective experience, associated changes in overt behavior, and physiological
correlates
 Left hemisphere (analysis, judgement and synthesis) is circumvented and the right
brain (non-analytic aspects) is activated.
oAlterations in memory oRedness around the eyes
oIncreased susceptibility to suggestion oRelaxed posture and slumping
oProduction of responses and ideas oSlowed breathing, tearing of eyes.
unfamiliar to the subject in his normal oAltered state of consciousness.
state of mind. oConscious control-Decreased
oLack of body movement oSubconscious - Alert and reachable.
oPallid complexion oModified sensorium
oRapid and fluttering eye movement oMinimal motor functioning.
Stages of Hypnosis

Preparation:

Induction

Deepening

Utilization

Termination
 Therapeutic Suggestion

 Stimulus that evokes uncritical acceptance of an idea.

 Used to indirectly appeal to the subject to use imagination to induce hypnosis.
 Automatic evocation and utilization of the patient’s own unique repertory of
response potentials.
 Kroger: Process by which sensory impressions are conveyed in a meaningful
manner to evoke altered psycho-physiological responses.
Sensory input methods: verbal, nonverbal, intra verbal (Voice modulation), and
extra-verbal communication (Implication of words).
 James: Composite of three processes - emotional rapport, acceptance of the
suggested idea, and effect created by the idea once it has been incorporated into
the personality.
 Weitzenhoffer: Two distinct ways of responding to suggestions - experience of
the response as voluntary; and experience of the response as involuntary and
without conscious participation.
 Laws of Suggestion

• Whenever attention is • The harder one tries • A strong emotion

concentrated on an to do something, the tends to replace a
idea over and over less chance one has of weaker one.
again, it spontaneously success. • Suggestions that
tends to realize itself. • Continual negative effectively divert
• It may be attained thoughts can lead to attention can change
through hints and their realization their perceptual
subtle implications. because of the belief degree of importance.
and expectation that
they will happen.

Law of
Law of Reversed Law of
Concentrated
Effect Dominant Effect
Attention
 Types of Suggestion
 Indirect suggestion: It can involve simple rephrasing of the suggestion to make it
more permissive or may convey a variety of options as to how a solution can be
developed.
 Content Suggestions: Commenting on something that is indisputably true and linking
it with something you would like the patient to perceive.
 Conjunctive Suggestion: Links two or more statements.
 Presupposition Suggestion: Assumes and presupposes a desirable response.
 Conversational postulates: Utilizes questions to instruct client behavior.
 Dissociative Suggestions: Separate perception of a body part or parts.
 Interspersed Suggestion: Interspersed within the framework of a permissive
comment or an unrelated statement.
 Generalized Referential Index: Describes an actual hypothetical situation and then
provides generalized option that the patient can mentally develop.
 Posthypnotic Suggestion: Suggestion offered during hypnosis that is intended to be
carried out in the subsequent waking state, usually elicited by an associated cue, and
tends to spontaneously reinstate a brief hypnotic trance.
 Techniques Used during Hypnosis

 Induction Techniques:
 Stein’s Clenched Fist Technique
 Eye Fixation technique with Sleep suggestion
 Handclasp technique
 Coin Technique with eyes closed
 Arm Levitation Technique
 Visual imagery techniques
 Hyperventilation Technique
 Blood Pressure Technique
 Techniques Used during Hypnosis

Deepening Techniques:

Hypnotic
Fantasy/imagery Somato-attentional
Dream

The Diving
The Progressive
Spiral Under Breathing
Beach Heaviness
Staircase the
Water
 Autohypnosis and Drug Hypnosis
 Suggestions directed to the self.  Altered state caused by drugs
 Effectiveness factors: resembles the trance state attained
 Motivation
during hypnosis
 Medications are employed in order to
 Application of autosuggestions
produce the trance state in the subject
 Diligence.
 Decreasing central autonomic
 Determined by the nature and type of reactivity while maintaining good
posthypnotic suggestions given. arousal pattern
 Dynamic, reciprocal reaction between  Relaxes/facilitates induction in
our reality perceptions and our patients with musculoskeletal
innermost feelings and needs influences tensions.
behaviour.
 Deepen autohypnosis through visual
imagery techniques.
 Clear, definitive suggestions for its
termination
 Pre-requisites and Factors Affecting
Hypnotizability

 Being trusting of others: Signifies an aptitude for sociability and co-operation in

social relationships.
 Intense imagination: Inclination to engage in clear and seemingly real
imaginative experiences.
 Living in the present: Capacity to dissociate past and future concerns and focus
on the present.
 Suggestibility: Highly suggestible and susceptible.
 Personality: Docile, dependent, cooperative, over-conventional, responsible,
non anxious and hypernormal persons are more hypnotizable
 Absorption, reaction time on go/no-go task, empathy, self-directedness, and
imaginative suggestibility are correlated with hypnotic susceptibility
Indications
 Contraindications

 Incongruence in emotional state of the patient and the desired outcome.

 Uncooperative or hostile clients
 Patient having brain trauma or cognitive deficits.
 Individuals using drugs or alcohol.
 Patients with borderline personality disorder, dependent personality disorder,
or psychosis
 Risk: Patient will want to form intense or inappropriate relationships or
interactions with the practitioner.
 Hypnosis could exacerbate a pre-existing psychosis