For which people is Hypnosis likely to be be least helpful?

Answer 1

It really depends on what you mean by "helpful" or the negative thereof? Basically the facts are some of us are more easily hypnotised than others. Usually people with an intense imaginitive life respond best to hypnotism but for hypnosis to be successful it is essential you must first want to be hypnotised. The second requirement is your ability to relax and thirdly it may be dependent on the way your brain works..

So To try to answer your question, I submit the three key factor in you being successfully hypnotised are

1.that you believe it is going to work on you,

2. that you have the will and

3. you have the motivation to make whatever change in your behaviour is involved 4., That you yourself are not somebody who cannot be hypnotised.

Because importantly not everyone is able to be hypnotized. According to research conducted by the Stanford School of Medicine in the USA. about 15% of the world population appear to be "highly hypnotizable", around 60% can be hypnotised with more difficulty and 25% are thought to be not hypnotizable at all.

Why is this you may well ask? That is a really complex and controversial issue. But it seems that changes in people's brain activity have been found in some studies of highly responsive hypnotic subjects. These changes vary depending upon the type of suggestions being given to you, the state of light to medium hypnosis, whereit appears the body undergoes physical and mental relaxation associated with a pattern mostly of alpha waves.

The Stanford University study cites evidence that the brains of people who can not be hypnotised differ from those who can easily be. In the brains of people they found to be highly hypnotizable it was found the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, that is an executive-control region of their brain, appeared to be activated in tandem with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which is part of the salience network. It is that which is known to play a key role in focusing the individual's attention. The Standford University studies found little functional connectivity between these two areas of people's the brain of those individuals with low hypnotizability.

But very many have used clinical hypnotherapy to change their behaviour successfully. One factor in assessing this is that people who consult a hypnotherapist to address their anxieties, phobias, or stop such bad habits as smoking or overeating causing them obesity are highly motivated to change their behavior as well as being highly likely to have a high degree of faith in the process of hypnotherapy . So that is likely to mean they are extremely motivated to adopt the role of being a hypnotic subject and that also involves them being very willing to listen to positive suggestions from the hypnotherapist specifically because they may have this personal commitment or in some cases are absolutely desperate to overcoming their problems. Similarly people with phobias and bulimia also appear to score high on hypnotic susceptibility scales and to respond favourably to hypnotic intervention.

As for Stage Hypnosis it is also believed by many to be indication of the successful controlling people's minds. But whether that really is the case is highly controversial. Stage hypnosis is essentially a popular form of entertainment employed in a club or theatre before an audience where the hypnotist typically tries to hypnotise the entire audience. Then he chooses individuals who are "under" to come up to the stage and he makes them do silly and perhaps embarrassing things while the audience watches in amusement.

Although there is some controversy, many claim rightly or wrongly that the effects of stage hypnosis are not really mind control but probably due to a combination of psychological factors, participant selection, deception and other sorts of trickery such as people planted in the audience who pretend their mind is being totally controlled against their will just to make the show more entertaining.