101 Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started Using Hypnosis

Dabney Ewin

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781845902919
• eBook ISBN: 9781845904586
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Always read the little book' Charles Dunlap, MD. Dr Dunlap rolled a small library of about 30 books into his medical class and told them it was a monumental compilation of everything that was known about diabetes, published in 1920, before the discovery of insulin. He then held up a book of about 200 pages and said 'this was published in 1930, after the discover of insulin. 'Always read the little book'. Dabney Ewin has been teaching medical hypnosis for the past thirty years and in his experience he believes that a small book is likely to be a clear message by a knowledgeable author. This simple but immensely powerful book is a testament to all the ideas that Dr Ewin wished he had known about when he first starting practising hypnosis. He has sought to make this publication as little as possible, consistent with the message of seeking to take a complicated idea and presenting it in the simplest way.The words and phrases are designed to give any beginning or experienced student a foundation about the working of hypnosis. Divided into five sections with a comprehensive reference section for further reading, this book can be taken one page at a time from the beginning or browsed through randomly.

Miscellaneous
Pearls of Wisdom

In medical school we used to classify keen insights and clever or astute discernments as “Pearls of Wisdom,” or just Pearls. Sometimes they were simply philosophical thoughts, and often they could not be easily classified, but were worthy of recollection. In this section I have included some random observations, insights, and thoughts that have impinged on my experiences in life as a doctor who uses hypnotic concepts in daily practice. Perhaps this section should just be labeled “Pearls.”

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57. Nobel Prize for
left–right brain function

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Roger Sperry, PhD won the 1981 Nobel Prize for his studies of the difference in function of the two cerebral hemispheres. Clinical experience demonstrates that in a good trance the left brain functions are progressively shut down. Speech is a left brain function, and a subject in trance will not ordinarily initiate speech (but will answer and talk when so instructed), ordinary logic is abandoned in favor of trance logic, timekeeping sense is lost, and the analytical step-by-step sense is switched to global, metaphoric, and intuitive (right brain) processing of information.

Doing clinical work, I have found this knowledge very helpful in my understanding of what is going on with my patients as I do nonverbal (right brain) ideomotor questioning. Since most left brain functions are learned, children don’t have a lot to turn off. They are simply not yet completely on, and children live easily in daydream and trancelike states. Animals function as though they have two right brains.

We must of course be aware that hypnosis is much more than Sperry’s studies show, and that respected scientists disagree vigorously on details of its true nature. Nonetheless, it is a simple concept for me as a clinician working with a patient. I can drive a car without understanding all the machinery and electronics, and I can treat nearly all of the patients who come to my office. Sometimes a car has to be referred to a mechanic, and sometimes a patient must be referred to a more knowledgeable doctor.

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58. Left and right are a
title and a picture

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Sperry’s studies indicate that the left brain processes information in words, and the right brain processes the same incoming information in the senses (mainly sight, sound, and action – NLP anyone?).

The right brain visualizes the information, and the left brain puts a verbal descriptive title under it. David Pedersen, MD, of Oxford, theorizes that in trance, with the patient’s left brain function inhibited, the voice of the hypnotist becomes the substitute for the verbal input of the left brain to the right brain (Pedersen 1994). He stresses how useful this concept is in clinical work, and I agree.

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59. Dissociation
requires association

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In psychology, the word dissociation was always difficult for me to understand, because no one ever said what the patient was dissociating from. You can’t dissociate without being first associated with something. When it became clear that left brain functions are shut down when a person is dissociated, I was able to make sense of the word.

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60. Fixed idea
(idée fixe of Pierre Janet)

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Anyone carrying out a post-hypnotic suggestion or an imprint has his/her behavior unshakably determined by the fixed idea. A fixed idea can be violated but only at the expense of experiencing anxiety.

Phobias are fixed ideas and locating their origin by a regression in hypnosis allows reframing to a better idea.

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61. Strong emotion makes one
vulnerable to waking suggestion

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I had a patient with a hysterical paralysis who had lost the tip of his finger in an industrial accident. He was very upset because he was not a laborer; he was just working a part time job before beginning teaching music at a local university. The skin closure was tight and the orthopedist said “Don’t bend your finger, because you will pull out the stitches.”

Three months after the stitches were removed he was still unable to bend the finger. In a regression to the surgery I learned what the surgeon said, removed the suggestion, and pointed out that the sutures were already out and the wound healed. He rapidly regained a full range of motion. An emotional state focuses like a trance and a statement at that time can act like a post-hypnotic suggestion.

The strong emotion at the time of a death-bed wish affects the recipient like a post-hypnotic suggestion. It becomes a fixed idea and may be carried out at considerable inconvenience. In his famous poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” the poet Robert Service (1940) says “A promise made is a debt unpaid,” and it’s a long story as he is determined to carry out his friend’s dying request (Thing 62, Law iv).

In therapy, we know that if you can put an idea in, you can remove it. Correct diagnosis requires that we identify the suggestion we want to remove. A regression to the incident and reframing that it was a good idea at the time, but it has now outlived its usefulness, will resolve a problem that started at a time of high emotion.

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62. Coué’s Laws

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Emile Coué was a French pharmacist who studied hypnosis in Nancy under Liébeault around 1900. He is considered the father of auto hypnosis, and gave us the classic self-suggestion “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” He also gave us five laws that have stood the test of time:

1. Law of Reversed Effort (or Effect). If a person fears that he cannot do something, the harder he tries, the less he is able. In fact, he tends to do the opposite of what he wishes to do. I’ve seen this many times with insomnia, with excellent students who are failing exams, and with impotence. They all solve themselves naturally if one doesn’t try too hard.
2. Law of Dominant Effect. When the will (I translate as left brain) and the imagination (I translate as right brain) are at odds, the imagination invariably wins. I see this in nearly every phobia that I treat. If someone imagines that it is very dangerous in an elevator, even though his left brain logic says it’s not, he will walk up ten flights of steps to avoid the elevator.
3. Law of Concentrated Attention. An idea tends to realize itself, within the limits of possibility. Choices in daily life tend to favor the realization of the idea. I recall reading that as a boy Jimmy Carter dreamed of becoming President. He sought and obtained an appointment to Annapolis and became the only member of his family to have a college education. Then he went into politics, was Governor of Georgia, and ran as an almost unknown candidate for President, and won. His idea realized itself.
4. Law of Auxiliary Emotion. The intensity of a suggestion is proportional to the emotion that accompanies it. An idea goes into the subconscious with very little force if there is no emotion attached. When there is strong emotion, particularly terror, an idea is strongly fixed in the subconscious. Henry Beecher, MD at Harvard, studied placebos and found that the greater the stress, the more effective the placebo (Beecher 1956).
5. Law of Autosuggestion. A suggestion only produces the condition to be transformed into an autosuggestion, that is to say accepted by the deepest self. The same incidents produce different effects depending on the subject who receives the suggestion. In other words, all suggestion is self-suggestion and a subject still has a choice to accept (self-suggest) or reject a new idea. This is why it is wise when doing ideomotor work to ask “Is it all right … (to regress to birth, to visit the White Light, to stop smoking now, etc.)?” A “yes” answer means the patient is open to accept what is contemplated, and a “no” means I may as well drop the subject for now, because nothing is going to happen.

Coué maintained that he had never cured anyone: “I teach you a method, and you can cure yourself.”

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63. Law of Pessimistic
Interpretation

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David Cheek said “If a statement can be interpreted optimistically or pessimistically, a frightened person will interpret it pessimistically.” This is protection against perceived danger. An antelope that sees the bushes wiggling and (pessimistically) moves away for fear it is a lion is more likely to survive (natural selection) than one that assumes it’s a wart hog and keeps on grazing. In a “haunted house” a squeaking sound could be a rusty door closing or it could be a ghost. If you’re already frightened, it’s a ghost! Many of our patients arrive frightened about their health and are inclined to interpret any imprecise statement pessimistically.

When President Reagan was shot through the lung I saw a news item in the Los Angeles Times stating that the surgical resident said “This is it!” Reagan blanched, and unable to talk (he was intubated), he scribbled a note to the nurse “What does he mean, this is it?”

Pity the poor frightened patient whose doctor’s advice was “You have to learn to live with it.” If he takes that literally (pessimistically), the only way to be without it is to die. I spend a good part of my therapy time removing that suggestion and replacing it with “There’s nothing wrong with living without it.” We must use precise language to avoid pessimistic interpretation by a frightened patient.

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64. Law of Perceived Reality

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If a patient believes something to be true, it is true for him/her. We know that in any kind of forensic work the veridical facts are what matter, and external corroboration is needed before we accept information obtained in trance. Not so in clinical work. Regardless of the reality, if a patient believes something to be true, he/she will think, feel, and act as though it were true. We need to meet the patient where he/she is, or lose rapport. If we treat an idea with respect, even though we don’t agree, we put ourselves in a position to lead.

In treating psychosomatic disorders, I often ask a patient to regress to the first time this symptom was too important, and occasionally (rarely) he/she arrives at a past life. When this occurs, it is usually associated with the (supposed?) cause of death in the past life – a tomahawk to the head, a sword in the stomach, a suffocation, and so on. I interpret that as a protective idea (a sort of trance logic) that as long as the symptom is there, “I can’t be dead yet.” If I get an ideomotor confirmation that this thought is occurring, I can point out in trance that it really doesn’t matter anymore, because we know that you did die in that life, and you are back now in a new life. “Do you really still need this symptom to prove that you’re alive now, in a new body, at a new time, and in a new place?” An ideomotor “No” answer makes it easy to say “In that case, since you don’t need it anymore, would it be all right to just let it go and get on comfortably in this new life?” I have no idea if the patient had a previous life, but I can treat a patient who believes he/she did have one by accepting the fact that it is true for that patient.

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65. Laws of Hypnotic Depth

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A patient tends to go as deep as he/she needs to go to solve a problem. A patient tends to stay as light as necessary to protect him/her self.

Just my personal observation, so it’s Ewin’s Law.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Words
• Smoking Cessation
• Pain
• Techniques
• Miscellaneous Pearls of Wisdom
• References