RING MY BELL
What is Hypnosis – Andrew Salter
Andrew Salter (1914-1996) was an American clinical psychologist known for his contribution to behavioural psychology and the study of hypnosis. Published in 1950, What is Hypnosis is a concise overview of Salter’s belief that hypnosis is linked to Pavlovian conditioning, followed by his (anecdotal) studies of ‘auto-’ and ‘hetero’-conditioning.
To align on current language, you can substitute ‘auto-conditioning’ with ‘self-suggesting’, and ‘hetero-conditioning’ with A Hypnotist giving suggestions. There are two testimonials on the dust jacket that perfectly capture these symbiotic yet juxtaposing applications of Salter’s work. I would agree with English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley, who had an interest in hypnosis (and psychedelics): “Fundamentally sound, lucid, forceful. This book can be read with real pleasure.” Huxley seems to have seen the personal applications that I, too, am grateful for – more on which shortly...
But then there’s the quote – or, rather, the literal missive to the niche readership – from British psychiatrist Dr E B Strauss: “The publication of this book may be regarded as a matter of some importance.” Strauss is further quoted on the inner sleeve via his comments on Salter’s experiments in the British Medical Journal: “It is extremely useful for a person to be able at will to abolish pain, cure himself of insomnia, render himself completely deaf to disturbing noises, increase his inclination to work, to eliminate stage fright and other crippling forms of self-consciousness.”
Strauss is giving Nietzschean ‘superman’ vibes already, and his final influence upon how Salter’s work could be capitalised upon is expressed via his foreword. I don’t wish to cast aspersions on Strauss, but he enthuses about the work of German psychiatrists Ernst Kretschmer and Johannes Heinrich Schultz while dismissing Sigmund Freud. Kretschmer supported the SS and, willingly or no, signed an educational pledge to support Hitler, and I’m unclear how matching people’s body compositions to mental illnesses isn’t eugenics..? Schultz’s ‘self-hypnosis’ process may have had its merits, but you’ll have to excuse me for being jaded of these vintage psychiatrists strangely ‘disenchanted’ with psychoanalysis.
My point is that this era of psychological academia, and its blurred lines with psychiatry, is infected with fascism and the white male hubris that ‘cream’ can be skimmed off poison for some ‘nobler’ justification. Salter’s studies are led by his belief that Pavlovian conditioning – where Russian-Soviet experimental neurologist and physiologist Ivan Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate at the ring of a bell – was the essence of hypnosis. It’s offensive that the studies in this book include sadistic anaesthesia and analgesia, as well as deafness to close-range gunshots; such studies were perhaps funded by government/military bodies seeking superior soldiers. But that was the nature of hypnosis study and funding at that time.
Fortunately, Salter’s belief that hypnosis is a simple (re)conditioning process, which empowers people to be their own hypnotist via auto-conditioning, rings through clear and true. I encourage you to read Salter’s words for yourself. For as much as he is a master of the power of suggestion, he often disables the prestige, power, and importance a case study subject and/or a reader might attribute to ‘him’ or ‘his’ words by reiterating that auto-conditioning is preferable. His comments on the myth of rapport and the gendered parental roles a hypnotist might play all weave into the authentic human interest, care, and attention-to-detail captured in his case studies. A couple more gems:
“It is the general opinion in the literature that an attitude of prestige and polite distance with hypnotic subjects is of primary importance for successful results. I do not agree with this. In these experiments, although the reputation of the experimenter was known to the subjects, everything was discussed and done with great and deliberate informality. I believe that sustaining an attitude of prestige and distance towards a subject is essentially unimportant. All that is involved is conditioning.”
“The error of those who believe that hypnosis is a form of hysteria is true – in reverse... Hysteria [...] is a sub-division of auto- or hetero-conditioning. It is only when the conditionings have certain so-called undesirable characteristics that they are labelled hysterical.”
“There is no such thing as A hypnotising B. All that A does is to tell B which roads to follow to get to his destination – hypnosis. It doesn’t matter who tells you what roads to follow – whether I tell you these roads (or directions), or whether you tell yourself those roads. In any case, if you follow those roads, you will hypnotize yourself.”
All in all, Salter provoked a sophistication of thought in me that has been absent from my reading for some time. I know that I’ve been spoilt by the everyday sorcery of the fresh, sometimes bespoke, suggestions I used to absorb via collaborative ‘mindset-shift’ projects of my previous workplace. So now I aim to be my own hypnotist, but sometimes I’m so lost without a suggestion from an outside source. Why is that? I’m not special, so a breadcrumb of inspiration from an old book or a current movie, etc, should surely suffice..? I think deeply about gender and power dynamics within hypnotism, and it’s interesting how Salter’s 1950s convincer to train people in self-suggestion still relied on the ultimate hypnotic dynamic:
“I tell the subject, who is wide-awake, and has previously been developed into as good a hypnotic subject as possible, that if he wishes, he can be taught to put himself into a trance wherein he can give himself suggestions exactly as I would give them, and with the same effect, if not better. “We might say,” I declare jokingly, “that you can be your own Svengali and Trilby simultaneously.” (This expression always appeals to subjects.)”
In my humble opinion, these masculine/feminine, mother/father, seducer/innocent, saint/sinner, god/child, etc, binary concepts still permeate ‘hypnosis’, and hypnosis, whilst being fundamentally unsustainable. If I were to pay A Hypnotist to, say, convince me to give up a bad habit, I would prefer they did so without one or both of us, probably unwittingly, tapping into a parental figure or some other imaginary person-based role-player. I don’t want the revivified echo of some weak mummy/daddy-vibed hypnotherapist’s voice to compel me not to eat a biscuit; I’m Grand Theft Auto driving my own car, thanks. (And there’s only a certain calibre of mother- and daddy-figure passengers that I can let in, anyways!)
Perhaps our task as future-fit self-suggestionistas is to question whether the suggestions we receive and accept (and give) carry a gender or power weight. And, if they do, to check our biases as to whether that’s working for or against us, individually – as well as collectively.
