I am the owner and moderator of the Hypnosis Technique Exchange. Recently, the question of hypnosis and the language barrier has come up.

There are a number of stage acts where hypnotists use English with an induction aimed at English as a second/foreign language speakers, usually through an interpreter. The correspondent doesn’t see how this can work and asks one would go about inducing trance with folks who speak different languages from the hypnotist.

This really isn’t as difficult as it might seem. The truth of the matter is that going into trance is actually an extremely easy skill set for most folks to learn. Honestly, despite all the training and discussion, this is really something that any child can learn (actually, children are quite gifted at entering trance) and most adults can be led through the process within minutes. Since stage hypnotists are generally limiting their subjects to high suggestibles, the work is even easier.

When using an interpreter, the subjects will listen to the interpreter. If subjects speak both languages being used then they will pick one voice to listen to and usually filter out the other – as I did when participating in a stage show by Martin St. James in Taiwan where the interpreter spoke Chinese (albeit, in that case I did get a bit distracted by the interpreter’s tendency to mistranslate some phrases such as “you are feeling sleepy” to “I am feeling sleepy”). Around the same time, Tom Silver was in Taiwan performing bilingually as well (followed soon after by Marshall Sylver). At one time or another, Ormond McGill, Gil Boyne, and many others have peformed through interpreters. Subjects will regard the interpreter’s instructions as if he is the hypnotist. The hypnotist can still watch for compliance and signs of suggestion the same as any other induction. Despite the claims by some, this is not really all that unusual or difficult.

Any stage hypnotist worth his salt is going to use body language to reinforce suggestions, a nonverbal induction if you will, that helps clarify instructions and deepens the state.

I have worked with folks through interpretation on a few occassions . . . albeit, my preference when doing hypnotic work – especially for therapeutic purposes – is to work with native speakers of English or folks with high language proficiency. I have done some entertainment hypnosis with lower level language proficient individuals but then the effects you can muster without interpretation are pretty low-level. For therapy, I always refer folks I can’t work with directly to local hypnotists who can work in their native language as I just simply prefer not to do translational therapy. However, I am confident that in a pinch I could do so with an untrained hypnotist. I just choose not to as there are other options available locally.

If a hypnotist is working through an interpreter who is already a skilled hypnotist in his own right, then the interpretation is really not needed. This does happen in some cases to capitalize on the prestige effect as a “foreign expert” or “big name guy” who does not speak the local language may have more success with certain types of subjects merely because of prestige.

I have addressed some of this in an earlier post on Bilingual and Interlingual Hypnosis at https://briandavidphillips.net/2003/11/bilingual_and_i.html if you care to take a peek there.