 Hypnosis is a procedure during which a health

professional or researcher suggests while treating

someone that he or she experience changes in
sensations, perceptions, thoughts, or behavior.
Although some hypnosis is used to make people more
alert, most hypnosis includes suggestions for
relaxation, calmness, and well-being. Instructions to
imagine or think about pleasant experiences are also
commonly included during hypnosis. People respond
to hypnosis in different ways. Some describe hypnosis
as a state of focused attention, in which they feel very
calm and relaxed.
 Franz Anton Mesmer, late 1700’s, cured
problems through “mesmerism”.

 Mesmer is also known as “Father of Hypnosis”.

 James Braid, early 1800’s, coined the term

hypnosis (a deep sleep-like state).

 Clark Hull, 1920s, established first experimental

hypnosis lab.
 Altered state of consciousness in which
people become deeply relaxed and highly
suggestible to changes in experiences &
behaviors.
 Induction

 Application
 Enhanced Memory.
 Recall remote events in great detail.
 Age regression.
 Pseudomemories: (false) recollections are
problem.

 Quasi-Hallucination
Subject will act as though hypnotic delusion is
real.
“Imagined Perception”
 Posthypnotic Amnesia
 Subject can’t recall events that took place under
hypnosis
 You are wide-awake, alert. Your mind is sharp
focused
 When you are truly relaxed, the brain activity
slows from rapid pattern of beta into more
gentle waves of alpha.
 Delta is the slowest of all brain wave
frequencies. Most commonly associated with
deep sleep.
 Sleep vs. Hypnosis
 Ability to think critically?
 Sleep: NO.
 Hypnosis: NO.

 Change in heart rate, respiration?

 Sleep: YES.
 Hypnosis: YES.
 Change in brain wave activity?
 Sleep: YES.
 Hypnosis: NO.

 Responsive to external stimuli?

 Sleep: NO.
 Hypnosis: YES, Very much.
 FICTION: When your under hypnosis you surrender your free will.
FACT: Hypnosis is a heighten state of concentration and focus. When
your under hypnosis you do not lose your personality, free-will, or
personal strength.
 FICTION: When your under hypnosis the therapist controls you.
FACT: You do hypnotherapy only for yourself. A hypnotherapist serves
only as a guide or facilitator.
 FICTION: Under hypnosis you lose consciousness, or suffer from
amnesia.
FACT: A small number of people who go into a very hypnotic state,
experience spontaneous amnesia.
 FICTION:You can be put under hypnosis without your consent.
FACT: Successful hypnosis depends on your willingness to experience
it—even with voluntary hypnosis, not everyone can be led into a hypnotic
state.
 Psychoanalytic Approach
 Neodissociation Approach
 Socio-Cognitive Approach
 Transpersonal Approach
• Freud initially utilized hypnosis to help remove
psychosomatic symptoms from patients who
suffered from what we would now call a somatoform
disorder.
• Freud learned that he could temporarily or
permanently reduce many of these symptoms using
direct hypnotic suggestions for the symptoms to be
reversed. (e.g.“Your arm is calm again and will no
longer be in pain.”)
• Freud also believed that Hypnosis allowed him access
to memories within the patient’s unconscious mind
which had been previously repressed.
• A more recent psychoanalytically-oriented theory.
• Developed by Ernest Hilgard.
• Under hypnosis, part of the mind enters an altered
state of consciousness.
• A second dissociated part of the mind, later
designated as the “Hidden Observer”, remains aware
of what is going on during a hypnotic session.
• The part of the mind in an altered state of
consciousness is very open to hypnotic suggestions.
• Contends that the principles of social psychology
explain behavior during hypnosis.
• Not a single theory, but a group of theories.
• Examples:
 Role Theory
 Response Expectancy Theory
• Many of humanity’s earliest views of hypnotic phenomena
are described by various religious and spiritual traditions in
the world. (Krippner, 2005)
• Experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends
beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider
aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos.
• It has also been defined as "development beyond
conventional, personal or individual levels

 Exorcism and Demonology