What Some of Clients Say About Me

Hypnosis—Opening the door to the unconscious mind

By Alana Gallant

The China Post

Friday, February 28, 1997

Like many others, my first glimpse into hypnosis was at a stage show. During the performance my shy, introverted best friend was hypnotized, where upon she beat her chest and bellowed a beastly Tarzan call, warbled a pathetic version of “Jingle Bells,” and passed out in my lap during intermission when a certain melody was played. Though hilariously entertaining, I left the show convinced that hypnotic trances were a powerful mode of entrance into the far recesses of the mind, induced by an all-controlling wizard.

According to Jim Steed, a practicing hypnotherapist living in Kaohsiung, such widespread public misconceptions about hypnosis make people fearful to try hypnotherapy. “The world is so ignorant about hypnosis. They’ve watched al these movies and gone to these stage shows, and now they believe I van control them in some way,” he observed.

He explained that he could never—even if he wanted to—force a subject to accept suggestions that don’t make sense to them or that they feel are morally wrong. “I could never convince a person to act against their will, or over their better judgment,” Steed clarified.

So if hypnosis isn’t a means to turn people into unthinking zombies for the practitioners’ entertainment, just what it is it and why would anyone want to try it?

“Hypnosis is a focused state of attention. It is (a state) where you can focus all of your attention on one single item at a time,” the hypnotherapist explained. And contrary to its namesake, which was derived from “hypnos” meaning sleep, people do not fall asleep while they are under hypnosis. Steed pointed out that people are unfocused when they sleep, with random thoughts running rampant throught their minds. And unlike sleep, you are aware of everything happening around you while under hypnosis.

In the hypnotic state, our conscious mind (the decision-making, rational mind) relaxes, allowing suggestions to penetrate our subconscious, which houses our emotions, imagination, memories, and automatic nervous system.

Using hypnosis to heal dates back to 4,000 B.C., but today hypnotic suggestions are used to help people do everything from quit smoking and lose weight, to enabling them to regress to past lives. Beyond medicine and therapy, hypnosis has also reportedly been successfully used as a tool to greatly enhance personal development, by helping people perform better professionally, improve memory, and instill a more optimistic attitude.

Steed attested to these claims. “Medically, I think hypnosis can do a lot for you. There are some cases where cancers were shrunk and creative visualization—which is the same as hypnosis—was used to build up the immune system,” he said. The hypnotherapist himself has used hypnosis to alleviate his back pain, as well as improve his recognition of Chinese characters.

Deciding that I had little to lose and a great deal to gain, I decided to allow Steed to work his magic trance on me. He explained that the object of my session was to learn self-hypnosis, whereby he would put me under three trances and install a “trigger.” Afterwards, I would be able to use the trigger to hypnotize myself.

Before getting started, Steed carefully detailed what I would soon feel. Then, as he had me focus my eyes on his finger as he moved it up and down and back and fro, I began to experience what he had described.

My breathing slowed down, my eyes became heavy, and the sounds around me—with the exception of my hypnotist’s voice—began to dull. I could still hear the two cats I the room mewing, but the sounds became increasing irrelevant to my experience. The muscles in my face completely relaxed and flattened out. I didn’t want to move or speak very much, and began to feel very heavy. And though I felt completely conscious of what was happening around me, I felt I was floating within myself, to a place where there was only me and the soothing suggestions of my hypnotist.

Steed led me through a visualization where I was walking along the beach at twilight. I could vividly see the waves hitting the shore, smell the salty air, feel the sand swishing under my toes, see the sun dropping under the horizon. When I was sufficiently relaxed, he incorporated my trigger, which was to place my hand on my chest and say the word “twilight.”

During my second trance, the hypnotist demonstrated the deepness of my hypnotic state by getting me to raise my arm above my lead. He instructed me to let it drop to my lap of its own accord—independent of my conscious decision to place it there. Amazingly, my arm followed this suggestion.

Steed also had me think of a favorite toy I had as a child, one that I hadn’t thought about in a long time, that made me very happy. Bringing even this small to the surface filled me with an overwhelming sense of joy and tranquility.

After successfully using my trigger to induce and terminate trance myself, I opened my eyes feeling refreshed, rested, and completely at peace with myself.

Though I turned out to be a good subject for self-hypnosis, Steed was careful to point out that hypnotherapy is not for everyone. He explained that he tends avoid treating clients plagued by depression because they’re difficult to hypnotize. “I have worked with people who are really depressed, and they can’t concentrate, I can’t hypnotize them… they are already I a horrible trance.” However, he added that he was currently treating a depressed client anyway, and was making some progress, though he still hadn’t reached the core of the problem.

Steed also emphasized that those Chinese patients he does accept must sing an agreement taking sole responsibility for seeking the hypnotherapist out. “The Chinese are very superstitious about hypnosis…and, I don’t want to be victimized by opportunists,” he remarked.

He sited the example of a local woman who was hypnotized by a foreign hypnotist in Taipei, and later claimed she was trapped in a past life. “Being stuck in a past life is ludicrous! She’s explaining to people here and now that she can’t come back from a past life…but she would have to be back (to be able to talk about it).”

Steed added that he doesn’t take on every potential client who contacts hem about hypnotherapy. In fact, he rejects 90 percent of people seeking past life regression. “If you feel there is nothing wrong with you and you don’t have a reason to go to the past life, it’s not going to do you any good. You won’t understand the meaning of the life you visited, and you will lust end up disappointed, while I’m bored to death,” he explained.

But for those willing to explore a reality beyond their conscious mind, a whole new world awaits…

  Since September 7, 2004