John D wrote: ↑
VickyCaramel wrote: ↑
Imagination tends to be a marker of somebody's propensity... I just noticed I am using your own words back at you. Sorry, force of habit.
Anywho, I developed skills at visualizing ideas in my head (which is not surprising as I was trained as a designer and graphic artist) and it tends to make me highly susceptible to hypnosis.
I am a mechanical engineer and can visualize 3 dimensional models in my head. Still, I am not susceptible to hypnosis. The last hypnotist we saw said it is because I am a critical and skeptical person. I'm not saying visualization is not important to hypnotism... I think it is. I am just telling my story.
My psychology teacher was a psychologist who advertised as a hypnotherapist... it doesn't take long before I knew his tricks and would, "Hold on, you are trying to hypnotize me" which is all it takes to snap out. Chances are, it isn't because you are a critical and skeptical person, it is because you were BEING skeptical. If you are being guarded, trying to put you into a trance won't work.
I nearly mentioned focus too which is what the definition of hypnosis largely is. I am sure you are also able to focus, probably to the point where hours slip by and seem like minutes. But you are also probably trained to be mindful of a dozen peripheral considerations when you are doing engineering.
The truth is that hypnosis isn't magic.
Shatterface wrote: ↑
Is hypnosis a genuinely altered state of consciousness though, rather than just exploiting natural suggestibility?
I'm reading a book on memory at the moment and hypnosis naturally comes up. There's no real evidence that it can help dredge up memories but it's pretty good at helping confabulate false memories, and that's where suggestibility comes in. I've implanted minor false memories myself just for kicks. You don't need to put someone in a 'trance', exploit the mind's own tendency to make associations or to fail to notice something. It's one of the reasons I don't trust my own memory.
It depends what you mean my hypnosis. I dabbled in deep hypnosis but actually find that there is far more utility on the edges, which is where advertising, marketing and propaganda plays. And yes, that is all about getting people to accept suggestions, where as I don't really think that hypnosis is much better at retrieving memories than having a relaxing hot bath.
...and as I'm sure you are now aware how ridiculously bad our memories actually are, it won't help you overcome the flaws.
It was mentioned that it is good at helping give up smoking. I would say 'yes and no' to this, but it makes a good example.
Everybody wants you to believe they can help you quit smoking and there is a ton of advocacy research out there, but as far as I am aware, if you take smoking cessation methods in isolation their success rate is about 5% per year. I think I have seen figures that suggest the rate for hypnosis is 8% but even if this is accurate it isn't great because this is per year, meaning that in the first year 92% return to smoking and in the second year 92% of the 8% return to smoking.
As I said my psychology teacher advertised as a hypnotherapist, but he was a bona fide doctor of psychology much like Peterson, who as you know advises clients with strategies which work with their nature rather than against it. I am sure you can believe that this is reasonably effective.
Thirty years ago, if you suggested to somebody that a Doctor of psychology could help them with their problems, they would probably say, "I'm not mental, I don't need to see a shrink". However they might be far more open to the idea that somebody dangle a pocket watch in front of their eyes, they would fall asleep and on the count of three they would wake up a whole new person.... because we love quick fixes. So reading between the lines, he never said as much, but I think hypnotherapy was just another marketing gimmick to get people in the door.
He did tell me that hypnotherapy is a waste of time for people who don't really want to give up, and he complained that many of his clients turned up because their wife or kids had bought them a session as a birthday present, and so he was often faced with mildly unwilling subjects.
He was a little cagey about his work, but reading between the lines, I think that if he was successful in helping people quit smoking, and he claims he was, I seriously doubt that hypnosis would help much to overcome physical cravings. I think what he almost certainly did was use suggestion to convince people that quitting was what they really wanted, and then used the same kinds of methods as Peterson which would be strategies to help wean them off, putting cigarette ends in a jar of water and taking a sniff... all that kind of stuff.
I'd say that that hypnosis is good at what it is good at, but it is pretty limited. It is a useful tool but it is not a complete tool set.
