Arnie Lerma claims:
Dianetics used MANY covert Hypnosis techniques including The Confusion technique - links on Lermanet.com Exposing the CON index pageAll this is debunked in the recent Scientific American article. A large body of literature on hypnosis has been unable to document any kind of special "trance" state and there is no evidence that hypnosis has this sort of power over people and their so-called "subconscious".
And advanced technique for deep trance induction that merely requires that you cause another person to repetitively imagine something (anything) that IS NOT REALLY THERE.The state of being in a hypnotic trance may also be characterized as extreme relaxation, it is very pleasant, 'floaty' and pain-free... in TR0 we were TRICKED into going into a hypnotic trance while we practiced for hours staying awake and looking alert... what Hubbard told us was "anaten" and "somatics" are all the items listed as the symptoms and/or milestone markers for deepness of trance state.. Ill post the list in a few days...
Consider while reading this the promises AND if they were JUST promises why were they repeated so many times.. Consider Hubbard's choice and use of the word "CLEAR" as a noun, as a future condition promised AND consider its' COMMAND value to the subconscious.....!!
However, instead of looking at current data, Lerma chooses to refer to an outdated 1956 handbook by a science fiction writer, A E Van Vogt that makes all kinds of arbitrary, unsupported assertions, stating them as if they were facts that Lerma appears to uncritically swallow whole. Sounds like someone needs to come up to present time and look at current research. It doesn't require hypnosis or any kind of special "trance" state for the placebo effect to have an impact on someone. In fact, what the much more recent actual research (as opposed to the proclamations of a sci fi writer) have shown is that people respond just as well to suggestions outside of hypnosis as they do under hypnosis. Of course, one trick of the pseudoscientists is to expand the definition of hypnosis so it includes just about everything in life, to it can then be invoked any time they want to show someone was under undue influence of hypnosis.
Although I never brought into some of the more extreme versions Lerma appears to buy into, I once bought into the theory that people are put into a "trance" state during Scientology's TR-0 that makes them more suggestible to whatever else goes on. This was before I became aware of the large body of literature on hypnosis that thankfully, one of the researchers on hypnosis cited in the Scientific American Article, Steven Jay Lynn, made me aware of. I had the opportunity to have a chat with Lynn on this topic and I later read, wrote and published a review of his excellent book on the empirical evidence on hypnosis, entitled Essentials of Clinical Hypnosis: An Evidence-Based Approach. I highly recommend people read this book, along with the Scientific American article to get a more accurate picture of what hypnosis can do and not do.
People might want to take me to task for citing someone such as Lerma who is so easy to refute. However, if one looks at the writings of other self proclaimed cult experts such as Steve Hassan, the claims are not much different. In his books, Hassan has cited the writings of famous proponents of hypnosis such as Milton Erikson, who's work, although it has far more acceptance among certain therapists, really has no more scientific validity than Scientology. Again, Lynn's book refutes much of what is claimed by such "cult experts".
Hello Monica,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your blog, which I find intelligent and thought-provoking. With all due respect to Steven Lynn's work, I want to remind you that there are hypnosis researchers just as well-published and respected as Dr. Lynn who nevertheless do not agree with him. I believe a major problem with how many people think about hypnosis is that we/they tend to see it as a unitary phenomenon when (according to T.X. Barber) it is probably different for different people. Barber's revised theory of hypnosis posits at least three different kinds of hypnotic experiences. One group of subjects are more fantasy-prone, the second amnesia-prone (dissociative), and the third are called "positively-set." This latter group typically does NOT experience "trance" but can nevertheless exhibit all the behaviors and phenomena collectively believed to be indicative of an excellent hypnotic subject. It seems possible that some researchers are utilizing this group of subjects in studies that counter-indicate the existence of trance, especially when that subject pool consists of college students. (As social psychologist Phil Shaver once stated, the field of "social psychology" should probably be relabeled "the social psychology of freshmen psychology students".) Ed Frischholtz (another well-published researcher who has been critical of Lynn) has repeatedly stated, a great number of hypnosis studies with conflicting results did not account for degree of hypnotizability and/or which one of the three "types" of hypnosis the subjects tended toward. There are many studies that, when these characteristics are factored in as covariates, come up with far more consistent and understandable results. One should also take into account recent brain-imaging studies that are calling into question the old notion that there is no "hypnotic state" that can be objectively observed. By "objectively observed" these older studies typically referred to EEGs. By today's standards (and who knows about tomorrow!) EEGs are crude and blunt instruments, almost akin to comparing a magnifying glass to an electron microscope. As our ability to peer into the workings of the brain continues to improve, additional surprises seem likely.
As one of my old professors used to say, when you don't know the answer to a question in psychology, you can almost always bluff your way through by saying "It depends" or "It's an interaction." Is there such a thing as "hypnotic trance?" Right now, I believe the correct answer is "it depends."
Thanks for your comments, Steve. Several of my professors also like to say "it depends" and indeed it does! Granted, there is quite a large body of literature on the group of fantasy prone subjects you mention, but if that is the case it would have very different implications for hypnosis and cult susceptibility than what is currently assumed by many people who see the hypnotic trance state as the core of what gets and keeps people in cults. I don't think that all people who get into cults fall into that category and that more ordinary social influence dynamics are more parsimonious explanations. It may play a role for a subset of people, but I don't see it as the main factor.
ReplyDeleteAs for brain scans, that's a complicated issue because things showing up on a scan doesn't necessarily prove that what's showing up is a trance state. Actually, there's also an interesting article in Scientific American about some of the problems with brain scans:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=five-ways-brain-scans-mislead-us
Monica,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the 2.5 month delay in responding to your response. Briefly: I agree with your criticism of those counter-cult people who place a too-high level of importance on "hypnosis" in cults. I think it is wrong to lump all cultists into one pot; that was a serious mistake made by the earliest deprogrammers, beginning with Patrick. In my clinical experience (assuming experience matters, right?) there have been a range of factors that have lured and kept people in cults. For some, it was as "banal" as romantic attraction or money, for others it was a "fit" with certain aspects of their personality, and for some it was because they probably were in fact "dissociative" or "fantasy-prone" individuals who were especially responsive to hypnotic influence. Indeed, in my experience, I have encountered ex-cultists who demanded "trance" experiences (especially true of those in "new age" cults)! Some even seemed to manufacture these experiences within the cult, taking their socialization/indoctrination rituals to an extreme beyond what the cult was demanding.
I think many cults...like a good salespersons, I suppose...often throw everything in their tool kit at a potential recruit: promises of power, sense of control, sometimes financial wealth (MLMs), self-actualization, romance, freedom from unwanted sexual desires (eh, John?), instant kinship...and hypnotic experiences. Some of these will stick with some recruits, others with other recruits. I think many cults are fairly eclectic, while others tend to rely on a more select group of influencing tactics.
One final note: I have great respect for Steve Lynn's work. Again, however, his is not the last word and there are many researchers of at least equal caliber who do not agree with him. In conversations with Steve and with Michael Yapko, I have noted their "all or nothing" attitude toward "repressed" (sic) memories. The problem with an all or nothing attitude is that it only takes one example to bring down the whole house of cards. We know that from working with people in cults. At a lunch with Michael Yapko, he became flustered after saying he had never met anyone with a verifiable "recovered" memory...yet at that very lunch there were two of us (and I was/am one of them) who have experienced exactly that. He could not respond to us; I do not know if he changed his views. If he did not, isn't that a form of thinking along the lines of "pure science" a la Lifton?
On a personal note, I have also unearthed at least two examples of FALSE memories in my own life...so yes, I believe both dissociated ("repressed") memories and false memories are real phenomena.
there are many reasons things occur or a combination of reason...lets not be so black and white like the cultists thinking there is only one right reason.
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