Who Can Hypnotize

HOWEVER incomplete our knowledge may be concerning the exact nature of hypnotism, we know a great deal more about what may be called the practical side of the subject. First and foremost there is the question which is so often asked: ‘Can anyone learn to hypnotize, or is it a special gift?’

Popular imagination has pictured the hypnotist as a Svengali-like creature with dark piercing eyes and some mysterious ‘power’ with which he is able to subject ordinary people to his will. Actually, anybody can learn to hypnotize, just as they can learn any other scientific subject. Everybody can hypnotize someone, and everyone can be hypnotized by somebody.

Hypnotism is a science, but the practice of it is an art. Everybody can learn to play a musical instrument after a fashion, but there are few outstanding performers. So it is with hypnotism. It is easy to gain a smattering of the subject and perhaps hypnotize a few of the most susceptible subjects; but to use hypnotism safely as it should be used (that is, as a valuable form of medical treatment, often treating the most difficult and obscure cases) demands considerable patience and hypnotic skill, in addition to an allround medical training.

Unfortunately, those subjects who ‘sleep’ deeply are the easiest to hypnotize and could be thrown into a trance by almost anybody who happens to have even the most elementary knowledge of hypnotism. Such subjects are very likely to suffer considerable mental and physical harm in the hands of enthusiastic amateur hypnotists. And in this connection we must consider the professional stage hypnotist as an amateur: because, no matter what his hypnotic ability may be, he has no real medical knowledge.

Amateurs and stage professionals who dabble in medicine are a positive menace. Having no real medical knowledge, they are unable to diagnose disease, and content themselves with treating symptoms - which usually resolves itself into suggesting the disappearance of pain. As the only people they can hypnotize deeply and quickly are the easiest and most susceptible, they are sometimes able to achieve apparently striking results which the sensation-seeking newspapers never fail to report with a wealth of detail.

Pain, however, is often a warning symptom. A headache, for instance, may be simple, due to nerves, some organic disease such as high blood pressure, or kidney disease, or it may even be a sign of a cerebral tumour. No amateur or professional hypnotist lacking proper medical training could diagnose definitely between the various conditions. Nevertheless, hypnotism could remove the pain, but it would be nothing short of criminal to remove the pain and allow the disease to progress unchecked and unsuspected until it killed the patient.

It is this dabbling in medicine without a proper understanding of the subject, which constitutes one of the major dangers of the amateur hypnotist and the stage professional. Too often these gentlemen seek to use their hypnotic ability as a means of entering medical practice by the back door, so to speak. Unwilling, or unable, to put in the years of grinding hard work and intensive study demanded of a medical man, they are content to capitalize on their hypnotic ability to gull the public with occasional, apparently marvellous ‘cures’.

The current craze for psychology has, of course, played right into their hands. Reading a few cheap and popular books on psychology no more qualifies a person to treat the mind than reading a book on surgery would enable him to perform an operation. Yet people who would not dream of letting a butcher remove their appendix will not hesitate to let a medically unqualified hypnotist treat their mind.

The use of hypnotism for medical purposes should be confined to properly qualified medical men who have specialized in this subject. This does not mean that every doctor should dabble in hypnotism any more than he should dabble in surgery. Although many subjects can be quickly and easily hypnotized, by far the greater proportion, particularly nervous cases, demand far more time and patience than the average general practitioner has to spare.

Furthermore, there is no one foolproof method of hypnotizing which will suit everybody. The hypnotist must learn to judge which method will suit the particular patient best; and only considerable practical experience will enable the hypnotist to gain this knowledge.

Again, the patient is not likely to have any more confidence in the general practitioner who dabbles in hypnotism than he would in the doctor who experimented with surgery.

The successful hypnotist must have complete confidence in himself, with boundless enthusiasm for his subject, and considerable patience. A single word, look, tone of voice or gesture is often sufficient to turn the scale and decide whether hypnosis will be successfully achieved or not. The medical man who wishes to specialize in this work needs considerable talent for invention and improvization. Any doubt or mistrust in his own ability will reflect itself in his voice and manner, and will effectively prevent hypnosis.

No two patients are the same. Some want to be dominated, some like to be coaxed, and others like to think they are doing it all themselves. For instance, a young man was sent by his doctor for hypnotic treatment, but expressed the view that he did not think anybody could hypnotize him. When asked why he thought this, he explained that he had volunteered to be hypnotized by a stage hypnotist - who boasted some absurdly magnificent title, selfselected - but that this gentleman had been unable to influence him. In fact, the patient had unwillingly spoilt the show because the hypnotist had been deceived for a while into thinking the patient was ‘asleep’, with naturally some rather embarrassing results. Knowing that this particular performer specialized in domineering methods, and observing that the patient was obviously the type to resent this approach, a rather ‘coaxing’ technique was employed, and the patient was soon deeply in a trance.

Any hypnotist who attempts to work by a rule-of-thumb method in an automatic sort of way will achieve only a small proportion of successes. Stage hypnotists invariably have a stereotyped technique; but as they deal only with the easiest and most susceptible cases who could be hypnotized by anyone and by any method, this does not matter a great deal.

Another patient illustrates how careful a hypnotist has to be and how easily a simple suggestion can prevent a successful hypnosis. The subject, a young girl, had previously visited a lay hypnotist who had failed to hypnotize her even after repeated attempts. Enquiry revealed that he had foolishly boasted how powerful hypnosis was - so powerful, in fact, that he could even make her fall in love with him! This was said jokingly, but the patient, who was engaged to be married, did not take it as a joke, and her distrust and resistance effectively prevented any hypnosis despite his utmost efforts. On reassuring her that, for medical purposes, only a light stage of hypnosis was necessary and that she would be conscious all the time and would remember all the suggestions, hypnosis was easily achieved. To practise hypnosis for medical purposes a thorough knowledge of the laws of suggestion is highly desirable both for the purposes of induction of the trance and applying the curative suggestions.

Enough has been said to show that although anybody can pick up a rudimentary knowledge of the theory and technique of hypnosis very easily and even bring about a few spectacular successes, if one wishes to achieve consistently good results in a high proportion of cases, then considerable experience is absolutely necessary. Unlike massage or electro-therapy, hypnosis is not a suitable branch of medicine to be delegated to medical auxiliaries.