No Delusions Here
Photo courtesy PDPhoto.org
There was that whole Charcot thing, remember? My little walk back in hypnosis history led us to his door and I became a bit obsessed with him. At first I thought he was easy to dismiss - brought back hypnosis from Mesmer’s depths, but then it became so distorted in hysteria, that it was hard to take him very seriously in this genre.
But, perhaps, I made judgments too soon. Maybe he really had something going on. Hypnosis has made the news again in a way that brings back the notions of Charcot. He believed that people could study hysteria by inducing a hypnotically hysterical state in people (women). Did Freud and Bernheim dismiss him too quickly? Perhaps.
The Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science has recently been involved in the study of the delusional mind. How? You guessed it - through hypnotic procedures. More specifically they have been studying mirrored-self misidentification, which is when someone looks into a mirror and he or she believes the person looking back is not one’s self.
Apparently it is really hard to study such things in a controlled environment. So, enter hypnosis. Participants (I believe they did not suffer from mirrored-self misidentification) were then hypnotized and given one of three hypnotic suggestions. These suggestions were in the form “of initial thoughts that might ‘seed’ the delusion.” The delusions experienced by the participants were apparently remarkably similar to the malady. Why do this? It is hoped that this will lay a foundation for more research into the delusional mind, creating more understanding and therapies that will help those who truly suffer from delusion.
This is not at all far away from the work of Charcot. His premise was to recreate hysteria in those already suffering from it to study it, though history seems to show that he would did not use hypnosis to try to cure it. Perhaps this new school of thought will inspire scientists to use it as a therapy in itself. Would it not maybe be possible to create a “delusion” or a hypnotic “seed” in those with mirrored-self misidentification that when they do look in a mirror they see themselves?
Source: PhysOrg.com
April 4th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I think you might enjoy Scott Adams’s (the guy who created Dilbert cartoons) blog. He’s also a trained hypnotist and he occasionally blogs about that… but he also writes about everything else in the world.
-Shan
optimistworld.blogspot.com
April 5th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Thanks Shan!
I do occasionally read his blog, though I am less amused with it since he would not grant me permission to use one of his hypnosis cartoons here and does not have the time to answer my 10 questions. I have become very aware of his celebrity status and maybe that has taken some of the fun out of it for me. I do not begrudge him anything and I wish him well. But I was a tad disappointed…
Ellie