The first time I hypnotized anyone, I was in the tenth grade. I had been reading about hypnosis in a chapter in a set of encyclopedia-type books which we had at home, and in a couple of books which I had checked out of the local library. Finally, I saw an induction done on television. (Now it is illegal to do a hypnotic induction on television, because we realize that somebody in the viewing audience might be hypnotized, just by watching it!) I started saying at school that I knew how to hypnotize people, and a seventh-grader came up to me and said defiantly, "Aah, you can't hypnotize me -- that's a bunch of baloney!" I remembered what I had read about how to hypnotize a "skeptical" subject, and I told him solemnly, "Well if you cooperate and you do exactly as I say, you'll be hypnotized." (That was a "waking suggestion," of course, but he didn't know it.)
He assured me that he would.
I asked him to sit down on a long, low stone wall which the students commonly used as a bench, and to close his eyes. When he had done so, I said, "I'm going to count slowly from one to ten; and by the time I get to the count of ten, you will be resting comfortably in a deep, sound sleep." Then I improvised a hypnotic induction based on what I had read, pausing appropriately and speaking with conviction, which went something like this.
One. Just let your whole body relax, and as you listen to my voice, every word that I utter will put you into a deep, sound sleep.
Two. You can feel a heavy, relaxed feeling coming over you as you continue to listen to my voice. You can feel your arms relaxing, and your legs relaxing, and your entire body relaxing completely, as you continue floating, on and on, into a deep, peaceful and relaxing sleep.
Three. You can feel yourself relaxing even more deeply now, as that heavy, relaxed feeling continues to grow. You are relaxing deeper and deeper all the time, as you continue to drift and to float, slowly and aimlessly, on, and on, and on.
Four. You can feel that heavy, relaxed feeling growing stronger and stronger. And as I continue the count on up to ten, that heavy, relaxed feeling is going to continue growing stronger with every passing second, until it causes you to drift into a deep, sound sleep.
Five. Every word that I utter is putting you into a deep, sound sleep, as I continue to count and that heavy, relaxed feeling continues to grow. You are relaxing so very, very deeply now, relaxing so deeply that you can just let yourself go completely and begin to drift even faster into a deep, sound sleep.
Six. Just listen to my voice, as I continue to count, and by the time I get to the count of ten, you will be resting comfortably in a deep, sound sleep.
Seven. You are drifting even faster now, drifting faster and faster into a deep, sound sleep; and by the time I get to the count of ten, you will be resting comfortably in a deep, sound sleep.
Eight Every word that I utter is putting you faster and faster into a deep, sound sleep, deeper and faster, and deeper and faster, all the time. You are drifting very, very rapidly now into a deep, sound sleep, a deep, sound sleep.
Nine. Into a deep, sound sleep now, a deep, sound sleep.
Ten. Very deeply drifting, in a deep, sound sleep. Very deeply drifting, in a deep, sound sleep. Continuing to drift deeper, with each passing second, drifting deeper and deeper, down, and down, and down.
In less than five minutes, he was out like a light!
I told him that he wouldn't be able to feel anything in his scalp, and tugged on his hair hard enough to make a seventh-grader say ouch, but he didn't respond. Then a "big kid" came up, took hold of a lock of his hair, and pulled so hard that I thought he was going to pull his hair out. Still no response.
I told my volunteer that I was going to count to the count of five, and by the count of five he would be wide awake and feeling fine. I slowly counted to five, continuing my suggestions as I went along, which sounded something like this:
One. You are beginning to wake up now. Waking up more and more, and by the time I get to the count of five, you will be wide awake and fully refreshed.
Two. You are waking up more and more now, and by the time I get to the count of five, you will be completely awake.
Three. Waking up more and more.
Four. Almost awake now.
Five. Now you are completely awake, and feeling wonderful.
My seventh-grade volunteer dazedly disappeared among the crowd of students which had gathered around us and the crowd slowly dispersed, leaving me to wonder what in the world was going on.
"You hit it just right," a colleague said to me many years later, after I had become a psychologist, and of course he was correct. But why did I hit it just right? The method which I used was called "progressive relaxation," because that is what it entails. But I would rather think of it as "compounded conviction," because that is how it works. The volunteer had accepted my suggestion that if he cooperated fully with my instructions he would be in a deep hypnotic sleep by the time I got to the count of ten. As I began the count, I asked him to relax. Then, as he did so, I suggested, "You can feel yourself relaxing now. You can feel a heavy, relaxed feeling coming over you" (which implied that this voluntary relaxation was the hypnosis beginning to work). Then, all I had to do was to gradually suggest that this heavy relaxation was getting stronger and stronger, as it carried him into a deep, sound sleep, and finally, that he was asleep. After that, he could accept the suggestion that he could not feel anything in his scalp as just another property of the hypnotic state which he was in.
Stage hypnotists, who have less time to perform an induction than I did because they must retain the interest of their audience, can identify experientially gifted volunteers with only the briefest of screenings, and hypnotize them much more rapidly. Clearly, technique is much less important than many other factors.
As Steve Lynn and I were to put it many years later, in our induction chapter in the Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis, "
. . .how clients respond to suggestions depends less on the nature and success of a particular induction than on the following variables: (a) clients' prehypnotic attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and expectations about hypnosis; (b) their ability to think, fantasize, and absorb themselves in suggestions; (c) their ability to form a trusting relationship with the hypnotist; (d) their ability to interpret suggestions appropriately and view their responses as successful; (e) their ability to discern task demands and cues; (f) their ongoing interaction with the hypnotist; and (g) the appropriateness of the therapeutic methods and suggestions to treating the presenting problem. . . . Accordingly, clinicians should devise inductions and suggestions with these variables in mind and tailor their approach to the unique personal characteristics and agenda of each client they encounter" (Gibbons & Lynn, 2010, p. 289).It's one thing to convince someone that they have been hypnotized, and quite another to get your therapeutic suggestions to work. Nowadays, you can convince almost anyone of the former, as the polished professional demonstrations now available have admirably shown. But successfully accomplishing the latter result requires that sufficient attention be paid to the conditions mentioned in the previous paragraph, regardless of the technical sophistication of the induction which is employed.
Reference
Gibbons, D. E., & Lynn, S. J. (2010). Hypnotic inductions: A primer. In Ruhe, J.W., Lynn, S.J., & Kirsch, I. (Eds.) Handbook of Clincial Hypnosis, 2nd. ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association..
