In my last entry (which you are welcome to read here), I focused on past lives and memory, ending on the idea that an experience doesn’t need to necessarily be real in order to be therapeutic. Which is to say, it’s possible to derive value from a past life regression, without needing the past life experience to be true. And indeed, as I argued in that post, past life regressions are not real experiences, they are exercises in imagination. And that act of imagining can be just as unreal, yet just as beneficial, as any number of other suggestions hypnotherapists give. After all we frequently invite people to imagine themselves floating through space, or drifting through time, and all sorts of other things that have never, and will never occur.
And as far as it goes, that’s fine. But the practice of past life regression still makes me somewhat uneasy. All too often it seems to be a borderline (or even overtly) spiritual practice. Again, it’s fine to be spiritual and have spiritual practices; but not if you bemoan that the medical field doesn’t take hypnotherapy seriously at the same time as insisting that your client really was (for example) a 14th century Amazonian warrior woman in a past life.
Hypnotherapy is in a strange place at the moment. On the one hand the credible research as to its benefits is overwhelming, and a major hospital in Melbourne is currently advertising for a hypnotherapist specialising in irritable bowel syndrome. On the other hand, the NDIS has recently removed hypnotherapy from their available treatment options because it has been deemed ‘not evidence-based’. While I disagree with that decision, it’s difficult to argue the point well when the profession is full to bursting with people incorporating all sorts of non-evidence based treatments into their practice.
At this point I’ll divert a little to talk about using hypnosis for entertainment. A lot of practitioners (particularly those utilising hypnosis within the mainstream medical system) are very opposed to the use of hypnosis for entertainment and want to see such acts abolished. They cite various safety concerns, but also the concern that using hypnosis for entertainment diminishes the public perception of hypnotherapy as a viable and evidence-based treatment.
The safety concerns are perhaps valid, although a competent performer should always screen their participants beforehand, and know how to manage any abreactions should they occur. But I cannot agree to the second concern. If anything, I’ve seen people come away from stage shows with a heightened interest in, and respect for, the art of hypnosis.
I suppose it’s not surprising that I take this view, given that I regularly incorporate hypnosis into my magic. Although I operate differently to most traditional stage hypnosis acts (which I’ll dive into another time), it is still something I utilise, and there would be plenty of professionals who frown upon that. But from where I stand, I think hypnosis would gain more respect if it worried less about the entertainers, and more about the dubious practices of even more dubious therapists.
