DELUSIONS THAT RUN DEEP
Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy: A Patient’s Guide – Hellmut W A Karle
Here at Cosmic Pancakes! headquarters, we keep our eyes peeled for interesting or obscure vintage books on hypnosis. During our search, we came across this rather unique item. A Patient’s Guide is certainly a different proposition to the majority of books we read. That is, dear reader, until you open the cover.
Luckily it’s quite a short book; I say ‘luckily’ for all the obvious reasons. It’s not that it’s completely terrible – the author is a bone fide psychologist, after all, with a degree and letters after his name, who’s principle psychologist at Guy’s Hospital in London at time of writing – it’s just that it talks a load of nonsense, and doesn’t say anything particularly new or refreshing.
For example, even though it was written in 1988, Karle ignores the whole socio-cognitive and cognitive-behaviour revolution in hypnosis that, by the late 1980s, had produced many readable books on the topic, and instead favours his 25 years of ‘experience’ ‘hypnotising’ people into ‘trances’ and ‘hypnotic states’. Sigh.
(As an interesting aside, two funny things happened when I searched Amazon for ‘barber hypnosis’ in order to find some relevant socio-cognitive books by T X Barber so I could check the publishing dates... First was that a ‘sexy’ hypnosis book showed up in the search, about a woman seducing her barber with hypnosis – I guess ‘barber hypnosis’ was quite on-the-money for that one, in fairness. Second was that Amazon advertised to me some very questionable books by Emory Green on ‘dark psychology’ and other nonsense. The funny thing happened when I googled ‘emory green’ and tried to visit his website – time after time it simply led me to a scam website. I can’t tell whether this was a deliberate ploy by Emory Green, or whether his website had been hacked. Either way, I thought that was quite funny – the author of ‘dark psychology’ has a website that employs some actual ‘dark’ psychology! Note, I’m not actually thinking of purchasing any of Green’s books, but if you want to see them discussed here, maybe send us some copies and I’ll happily tear them a new one – I mean, ‘critically appraise their value’.)
Karle rolls out all the tropes. Hypnosis is like driving or day-dreaming. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. Hypnotic states are real things that have depths and such. Hypnosis can’t make you do things against your will. Except when it can, but then not against your unconscious morals, which no one really knows about themselves, or ever reveals. Except when alcohol is involved and then all bets are off! It really is a potpourri of everything he’d have come across while learning and using hypnosis between the 60s and the 80s.
He’s quite dismissive of stage hypnosis because hypnosis Is A Really Serious Business. But also, I believe, because it challenges some of the pillars that he’s built his house on. For example, if it’s all self-hypnosis, and the participant is always in control, then why do people wilfully embarrass themselves during stage hypnosis? According to Karle it’s because they’ve been drinking. Firstly, has he never seen a tee-total stage hypnosis show (ask Martin S Taylor about his sixth-form school shows). Secondly, and maybe this makes me think he has a ‘holier than thou’ clinical-psychologist-sized chip on his shoulder, doesn’t that do a massive disservice to those of us who actually (and, potentially, ‘responsibly’) enjoy a drink?
I think the point of the book was to demystify, and maybe justify, the use of hypnosis in a clinical setting. But even then Karle, as a statist, can’t quite relinquish all the magic. He states that hypnosis itself isn’t magical, but he just seems to love all manner of magical things that people like to claim about it. To quote: “For instance, a severe burn will not produce blisters, inflammation, or any of the normal physiological responses to burning, if you hold in your mind a clear and vivid image of the burned parts being cool and comfortable.”
Let’s just highlight a few words in that quote: “severe burn”, “will not produce”, “blisters”, “inflammation”, “or ANY of the normal physiological responses to burning” (my emphasis). Any. That means none. Whatsoever. I mean, really?! I’m down with the mind impacting supposedly autonomous functions, but ANY? I think you’d need to be a hardcore believer in witch-doctoring to believe that the imagination will prevent ANY response to SEVERE burning.
And maybe that’s the takeaway. Maybe that’s the magical belief system that comes from believing in a hypnotic state. Maybe that’s why this book has the words “ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE” written on the back. Maybe it’s all just make-believe and wishful thinking. It’s sad, but it does kind of make people like Karle look a little silly. And, as a result, to a rational person, it brings everything else written in the book (none of which was referenced with citations, by the way) into question.
As I implied at the outset, it’s a short book and it’s not very good. It’s just not the worst I’ve read.
