Who is in control?

Hypnosis always inspires strong opinions and emotions.  Some are awed and willingly put under the spell.  Some are terrified and run miles away.  The fundamental difference between the two attitudes can be boiled down to the attitude towards control.

We are born differently and our life experience further defines our character and beliefs.  Some will say  “follow the flow and see where life takes me”, some will insist that “you make your own luck as a free willed person”.  Nobody can say which is a better way of living, because we only live once, and when you choose to go down one path, you will never be able to find out what would it be like had you chosen the other path.

You will be able to identify these two types of people easily in your life and how they react differently to the same thing.  When it comes to hypnosis, the former are much more willing subjects and often get the most out of hypnosis, and these tend to be “dreamers” who have a lot of creativity either in their jobs or in their daily lives.  The latter however, often fear hypnosis and in fact they won’t like anything that they can’t control, such as emotions and uncertainties.  They can be tricky subjects if you ever manage to convince them to give hypnosis a go.  These are often the “wise”ones with a cool head and logical mind, who are goal oriented and dedicated to their goals. 

I used to be in the latter camp.

However, having been trained as a scientist, I firmly believe in evidence, everything can be possibly right or wrong unless evidence proves either way.  And when new evidence turns up, I must adjust my opinions accordingly.  We all remember our childhood when everything is so simple and straight forward.  There are good people and bad people, there are rewards and punishments, there are friends and enemies.  As we stepped into the adult world, things started to get messy and confusing.  Cinderella never meets her prince and Romeo doesn’t die for Juliet, heroes are not always saints and villains can also be kind.  More subtly, the world seems a bit random, things don’t work out the way we tried very hard to steer towards, and we reach a destination only to find out it is not what we thought we had travelled to.

So it seems that neither we ourselves nor the rules that we were taught will govern our lives are actually in control.  What is in the driving seat then?

That’s why I started to learn about philosophy and psychology.  The former is to find the truth of the universe and the latter is to find the truth of us human beings. 

And here is the truth, the universe is neutral, there is no good or bad, it is just what it is, we humans assign meanings to our own version of the world and look at it though our own tinted glasses.  How the world feels like to us very much depends on which coloured glasses we are wearing.  We might admire successful people because of we “see” their greatness, or we might feel jealous because we “think” it is entirely due to the luck of being in the right place at the right time.  And what glasses we wear is a result of our own beliefs that we have acquired through social experiences.  However, many of these beliefs are delusional, no wonder happiness and success never have a perfect correlation, and no wonder we get frustrated or upset when things don’t turn out the way we think they should. 

If you take off these glasses, you will see that in the grand scheme of things, there is very limited scope for us to be in control beyond our own selves.  And profound happiness and strength ultimately comes from within, from the unity of one’s inner self and the outer identity that is defined by social experience.  In other words, one’s own soul needs to be in control of oneself.

In a therapy session, who will be in control also depends the subject’s own belief and will.  If the subject is affected by his/her own beliefs such as “I can’t be hypnotised” or “I will lose control and do something embarrassing”, ultimately, it will be this outer identity that is in charge.  On the other hand, if the subject is willing to walk down the path to find the inner self, ultimately, it will be exactly that taking charge.  Therapist can only give guidance but not orders.  And it is subject’s own inner self and inner resource that will induce desired changes from within.  Therapist’s job is not to create but to discover, which can only be achieved without the subject’s objection or obstruction.

You might be asking what about those subjects on stage hypnosis who jump abound like a chicken when the hypnotist says so? Putting aside the social pressure I explained in my previous blog post, the subject perhaps deep down wants to be an entertainer who makes people laugh but never had the chance to do so.  And those news that people rob a bank under the influence of hypnosis? Well, check how genuine the news is, and might I say that the subject probably secretly admires Robin Hood.  

Hypnosis can indeed help to find the inner self, but often characters are like double edged sword, the brave can be reckless, and the considerate can be indecisive, when the character is standing right on the wall between these two sides, it sometimes doesn’t take much to get tipped over to either one side.  So watch out for rogue therapist who might have hidden agendas and being aware of this itself is often all that is needed to avoid being victimised. 

So are you still fearful of losing control? My advice is, trust yourself the ability to find your soul, and of course, make sure you do so with a decent therapist.