I thought I would get in here first - it's 11.15, how keen is that?
Just watched this documentary on Channel 4 and it left me feeling rather saddened.
I thought there was a great deal of hype in the presentation style, both the narration and the accompanying graphics. It gave the impression of WANTING to find that stage hypnosis is a bad thing.
The only case covered that had any real substance was that of the unfortunate woman who was regressed to the age of eight, a time when she had experienced sexual abuse. It was not the hypnotist's intention to regress her to her personal childhood experience, merely to suggest to her that she should behave like an eight year old. She became very depressed, and made two suicide attempts. The court held the hypnotist responsible. The programme reported that since that case all stage hypnotists have experienced a dramatic decline in their bookings.
As a hypnotherapist, I spend a lot of time explaining to first time clients who have never experienced hypnosis what the difference is between stage hypnosis and hypnotherapy, and about how all stage hypnosis depends for its effect on enhancing the impression that the hypnotist is in full control of they minds of the subjects. In hypnotherapy, I am at pains to emphasise that it is the client who is in control, and has the choice to accept or reject any suggestion.
Nonetheless, I am also aware that some people, for a variety of reasons, are much more likely to accept suggestions than others, and it is not always clear in advance which people those are, and that I must therefore STILL be very careful about what I suggest, because some people will take it very literally indeed.
Stage hypnotists, I think, should be aware of this, and include safeguards in their pre-talks.
I don't think stage hypnosis is bad, I don't think it should be banned - if people want to make fools of themselves in public, there is no reason why they shouldn't. My only problem with it is that it puts people off considering hypnotherapy as something which could really help them out of serious difficulty, and so miss out.
Night night!
Kathleen