There's a book written by a well–known hypnotist that gives people inductions to read aloud to each other. There are programs in those inductions that make people really junky. People who read them will install strategies in each other which will not be beneficial for their overall functioning. To me that's foolish, and it's a kind of foolishness that I call indulgence. It's important not to be indulgent about using hypnosis. When you build a reality, build one that will work, and build it completely and thoroughly so that you gel exactly what you need. You don't want to just build a crazy reality and go live in it, because you have no idea how you will respond to it. You may respond to it with emphysema! You want to make sure that you build one that is going to work well for you.
Most of the hypnotic realities that people have built for themselves and live in most of the time—what they call the waking state —are not profoundly useful. I mean that literally. The majority of the people I meet in the world have built a hypnotic reality which, on the whole, weighing the good against the bad and the pleasure against the pain, isn't really beneficial for them. To me that's indulgent. You don't want to make matters worse, only more useful.
Erickson's criteria of usefulness were for all his clients to get married, get a job, have children, and send him presents. Those are not my criteria. People sent me presents but I never got anything 1 wanted, except once. I'm not going to change everybody so that they get married and so on. Erickson did, because he believed that you must do those things,
I do think that you've got to be thorough when you build alternative realities, or when you build your own reality. For instance, I think the reality that humanistic psychologists have built is incredibly indulgent and not useful. That kind of indulgence is dangerous. Sometimes I get invited to do a keynote address at some humanistic psychology conference, and I find being there more terrifying than being in a criminal institution. The ethic that criminals have is at least conducive to survival. Many of the programs and kinds of realities that people are installing in each other at humanistic conferences are not even conducive to their own survival. If anything, they are detrimental. Those realities have a tendency to put people in situations of danger where they might actually get hurt. It may never happen, but it could. People don't usually consider the premises of what they do, and it's not just humanistic psychologists who operate that way. Everybody does.
Woman: What kind of realities do psychologists create that are destructive?
For example "To be a good person is to meta–comment." So you come in and say "I'm really mad about your walking out on me last night" and 1 say "Well, I really feel good that you can express your anger towards me." That kind of response is built into the fabric of most humanistic psychologies. That is not a useful response in any way. It does not help either of the two human beings. If anything, someone who uses that particular kind of response will end up becoming more and more alienated, and having unpleasant feelings more and more often, That's a logical outcome of using that particular kind of response. Just look at the people who use that response a lot, and you can find out for yourself.
There was a guy at the college I taught at who was a humanistic organizational development consultant. He used to be a hero, but now he's only a counterculture hero. His whole world is built upon those kinds of responses. He meta–comments about everything. He is also lonely, depressed, miserable, and alienated. It's no surprise to me, because his responses are never responses to people; they are always responses about people. He doesn't respond to people, so he can't have any intimacy or any feeling of connection. That limitation is built right into the fabric of his reality: he believes that a meta–comment is a "genuine" response.
People often create realities or pick outcomes that aren't worth having. That is a limitation in self–hypnosis. One of our students had a client who had decided that it was crazy for one person to carry on a conversation with himself. He read in a book "It takes two people to have a conversation. Since conversations are for two people to talk to one another, he decided that talking to yourself is stupid. So he just stopped having internal dialogue. When he stopped, he lost the ability to do certain things that he had used internal dialogue for—little things like the ability to plan! All he could do was see pictures and have feelings. He couldn't ask himself questions like "What would i like to do today?" He hadn't considered the overall impact of that change before he made it.
Clients often come in asking for things that wouldn't make them happy. Sometimes 1 give it to them and let them suffer for a while. Then it's easier for me to go back and give them something more meaningful.
One client of mine came in saying he didn't want to be able to feel anything. He told me that everything he had felt for years had been terrible, that people had hurt him over and over again, and he didn't want to have to feel things anymore. So I hypnotized him and hypnotically removed his kinesthetic experience. Of course he lost his sense of balance and could no longer stand up. Then I brought him back out of trance, still without any feelings, and asked if he would like to come back next week. He said "Please! Do something!" I said "All right, now we'll do it my way."
When you do self–hypnosis, consider the outcomes you go for very carefully. Play the counter–example game and ask yourself if there is any way in which your outcome could be harmful, and then use that information to improve your outcome. In both the examples 1 just gave you the person was trying to improve his life by limiting himself. Giving yourself more limitations is rarely a way to solve limitations. A guiding principle is to always add to your abilities and add to your choices.
Questions
Man: Would it be OK to give you a case description and get suggestions from you?
Well, it would be OK. I don't know if I'll be able to say anything about it. A lot of times people describe a client to me, but since I don't have the person in front of me, I don't know what to do. Most of our procedures are based on moment–to–moment sensory feedback, and that doesn't exist in a verbal description. But I'm certainly willing to take a shot at it.
Man: This is a nineteen–year–old young man whom I saw once last week, and I will see him again tomorrow.
He certainly elicits a response from you! The first step is for you to use the phobia cure on yourself! OK, what about him?
Man: He told me that he's worn a surgical mask for four years.
How is that a problem? Does it mess up his French kissing, or what?
Man: Several years ago he became very preoccupied with his nose and—
Do you have any idea how this occurred?
Man: Yes. He developed acne on both sides of his nose, so he started wearing a surgical mask to cover it up. Does he still have acne on his nose?
Man: No. When he came to see me, it was the first time he'd left the house in four years.
He's a courageous young man.
Man: He was totally housebound, and is convinced that his nose is the most deformed nose in existence.
Well, I'll give you an amusing approach you can try. I can't guarantee you that this will work, but it's something I have done.
If you have a secretary, get her to type up a short article on the positive relationship between unusual noses and sexual attraction. Get her to use a selectric typewriter that has one of those type faces that looks like magazine print. Type up this article and make xerox copies of it and put the name of some prestigious journal or magazine on it. Then leave the article somewhere in the waiting room. When your client comes in and sits down, have your secretary watch him until he sees the article. The minute he sees it and picks it up, have her run up and take it away from him.