A quick response to a query in the Hypnosis Technique Exchange where a gentleman asked me about a client he had for hypnosis with whom he had a pretalk and then went on with a suggestibility test with a pendulum in which the pendulum did not move at all . . . , so our correspondent asks me what that means, the NO movement with the pendulum with the client. Fear? Or just not suggestible at all?
My initial answer is short and sweet and to the point . . . ot indicates that the pendulum is not moving.
While the pendulum test is a nice bit, it . . . like any other suggestibility test . . . is not the be all end all. Contrary to what a number of tomes suggest, failure on a particular suggestibility test does not indicate that a person is non-hypnotizeable.
The hypnotist clarified further that he felt he had good rapport with the client and asks what I would do.
First, what did you do?
Second, for me, I would not stop with one test. I don’t think of the suggestibility set as merely an indication of whether or not I can work with a person . . . I think of them as a series of activities through which one engages the client’s imagination and creates further expectation. If someone is highly responsive, then you know you can pop ’em right then and there and get on with it.
If someone is less responsive then go to another set and use other language patterns to elicit . . . compliance to suggestion and intensify the involvement of the person’s imagination.
It is very important that you not telegraph it as a failure . . . remember, ALWAYS SAY "good, you are doing perfectly" or "good, now…" NEVER signpost that you were looking for another outcome.
While I have played a bit with my pendulum . . . it’s really quite a lot of fun when out and about . . . I don’t usually use it as a test for a client. Rather, I would use a progressed series with easiest tasks first as a means of cascading compliance and suggestibility (intensified imaginative involvement for critical factor bypass). For instance, here is a simple series set that works well enough one right after another:
1. Finger Magnet Test . . . with grip of fingers in handclasp . . . this is a nice opener as physiologically, the fingers will tend to move closer together anyway and so you are setting ’em up to succeed and to engage their imagination.
2. Finger Magnet Test . . . with hands in separate fists touching together . . . this is more of a true suggestion effect but after the first test it is more likely to succeed.
3. Handclasp . . . this works well with many folks and while watching the eyes, you can note whether or not you have already begun to get tearing and redness to pop ’em into an instant induction with this effect alone.
4. The arm lock . . . same as above.
5. Balloons and Bucket . . . most folks respond well to this, especially if you use tonality and language to correspond with the lighter and heavier suggestions as well as with breathing in for light and out for heavier (the physiological aid here is that when we breathe in the chest and shoulders rise so as to correspond with the suggestion of lighter while the breaths out cause the chest and shoulders to go down to correspond with heavier imagery and relaxation down, down, deeper down.
If I’m doing a suggestibility set, I will usually do the finger magnets then the handclasp and finally balloons that convert into an arm lock and instant induction.
If you run a series sequence like this or a number of "imagination games to see how well you can pay attention, concentrate, and imagine at the moment" and you don’t have positive responses, then I would suggest going back to the pretalk and dealing with any questions or anxiety or whatever (make sure the pretalk explains things quickly, completely, and well – don’t assume if they don’t have questions that they understand, they may not have questions because they think their misapprehensions are correct). After a set, I would probably start with my Elman or other induction and see how that goes, changing into another set if that’s a no go but complete nonresponsives after that are likely to cause me to terminate the session when I’d give ’em a practice CD and tell ’em to come back if and when they have practiced with the CD for "general relaxation responsiveness" (it’s not just a relaxation CD though, as it is a conditioning response CD with relaxation suggestions) . . . albeit, I would probably do 3D Mind or another waking suggestion process in addition to imagery prior to giving them this homework (I like 3D Mind, albeit, I prefer running it as a hypnotic process when I use it).
In all honesty, I’ve never actually had anyone fail a suggestibility sequence as I’ve outlined here so I am not speaking from experience when I say what I would do if it failed . . . although, I will say that when I started out I had experience with folks who I did not test but ran in with an induction at the get-go who turned out to be unresponsive (with clients, I now always run pretalk and sequence before first session induction – later sessions are all post-hypnotic reinduction sets and just take a few seconds to pop).
All in all, I really strongly suggest that while suggestibility tests are very useful, I find their usefulness to be much higher if we use them as a means of engaging and intensifying the imaginative involvement of the client rather than merely as a means of vetting and rejecting folks.
Success on one task will compound and strengthen the responsiveness to other suggestions . . . working from "easier" to more "difficult" tasks continues to engage the imagination and train and strengthen compliance to suggestion. So-called failure on a test is an indicator that the imagination needs to be further engaged . . . not that a person can’t be hypnotized. I do NOT agree with the out of date Stanford scales of five to ten percent non-hypnotizeables or with the Spiegel suppositions of ten to twenty percent non-hypnotizeables and as high as twenty-five to thirty percent of hypnotizables being incapable of entering state. I don’t buy Erickson’s claim that he could hypnotize anyone and everyone given enough time as there do seem to be folks who just aren’t responsive, for whatever reasons . . . just not as high as Spiegel and friends would cite (one of my favorite anecdotes about Erickson and Spiegel is that before travel became too difficult for him Erickson would go to New York and guest teach for Spiegel’s class and Erickson’s claim of being able to hypnotize anyone anywhere stuck in Spiegel’s craw so he arranged for a challenge demonstration and brought in one of the guy’s from the class that Spiegel had previously determined (from both his eye test and later induction failures) was one of the non-hypnotizeables for whom hypnosis would be a waste of time and after Erickson had unsuccessfully been talking to the guy and trying to pop him for a couple hours Spiegel finally terminated the session because everyone was simply bored watching and they wanted to move on to other things for the course . . . of course, this doesn’t prove Spiegel’s point or disprove Erickson’s . . . the guy may or may not have eventually responded to Erickson’s ministrations, we don’t know as the session was cut short . . . given as much time as Esdaile used to take with folks, perhaps he would have been able to pop anyone . . . also, since Spiegel had already told the guy that he was unhypnotizeable, he may have been operating under the effects of a pretty powerful prestige suggestion).
All of this . . . of course . . is . . . in my opinion.
Rambling out.
I hope this has been helpful.
All the best,
Brian
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.briandavidphillips.com
https://briandavidphillips.net/
