The Forgotten Elman Techniques

Because you have eye-closure it does not mean you have hypnosis. That is why so many beginners are unsuccessful. They don’t realise that it takes more than eye-closure to establish hypnosis.

Almost all books and courses about hypnosis state that you must first obtain eye-closure, a simple and fast technique to achieve this is:

“Close your eyes and pretend you can’t open them. Keep on pretending, and while you are pretending, try to open your eyes. You’ll find that it is impossible if you are concentrating hard on the pretense.”

This does not mean that you are hypnotised yet! You must establish selective thinking in order to bypass the critical mind. Therefore, you have to add: “As long as you are pretending that you can’t open your eyes, you will feel nothing. Nothing will bother you, no matter what happens.”

If you say this convincingly enough and you believe it completely, you have established selective thinking while your critical faculty was inoperative, and the result is complete anesthesia.

Elman used to call for the biggest skeptic in his audience, asked him to come forward, and sat him down in a chair. He would ask them what their favourite game or sport was, and said: “Now, all I want you to do is to close your eyes and visualise yourself actively engaged in this sport.”

He would tell them that so long as they continue to see themselves doing his activity nothing that is done will bother him.

”And it works! Why does it work? Because when the person visualises himself doing his sport, he is not really sporting, he is merely bypassing his critical faculty; and when you add the words, “So long as you keep on sporting, you won’t feel anything,” you establish selective thinking. The realisation that both steps can be made instantly and effectively is probably the key to why his students have been very successful in the use of hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis or Autosuggestion

Because you have eye-closure it does not mean you have hypnosis. That is why so many beginners are unsuccessful. They don’t realise that it takes more than eye-closure to establish hypnosis.

Almost all books and courses about hypnosis state that you must first obtain eye-closure, a simple and fast technique to achieve this is:

“Close your eyes and pretend you can’t open them. Keep on pretending, and while you are pretending, try to open your eyes. You’ll find that it is impossible if you are concentrating hard on the pretense.”

This does not mean that you are hypnotised yet! You must establish selective thinking in order to bypass the critical mind. Therefore, you have to add: “As long as you are pretending that you can’t open your eyes, you will feel nothing. Nothing will bother you, no matter what happens.”

If you say this convincingly enough and you believe it completely, you have established selective thinking while your critical faculty was inoperative, and the result is complete anesthesia.

Elman used to call for the biggest skeptic in his audience, asked him to come forward, and sat him down in a chair. He would ask them what their favourite game or sport was, and said: “Now, all I want you to do is to close your eyes and visualise yourself actively engaged in this sport.”

He would tell them that so long as they continue to see themselves doing his activity nothing that is done will bother him.

”And it works! Why does it work? Because when the person visualises himself doing his sport, he is not really sporting, he is merely bypassing his critical faculty; and when you add the words, “So long as you keep on sporting, you won’t feel anything,” you establish selective thinking. The realisation that both steps can be made instantly and effectively is probably the key to why his students have been very successful in the use of hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis or Autosuggestion

To obtain the state of mind in which autosuggestion is possible, you must do to yourself exactly what you would do to your subject. You must first bypass your own critical faculty and you must then establish selective thinking. How are you to bypass your own critical faculty? The way Elman did it is:

1. to close the eyes and pretend you can’t open them.
2. Then test to make certain that you have complete eye-closure. Until you have obtained eye-closure, however, don’t go any further.
3. Once the eye-closure is firmly established, then give yourself the suggestion which comprises selective thinking. This might be a suggestion for anaesthesia, to relieve a feeling of weariness, to be able to concentrate on your work, to relieve aches and pains of any type or sort, etc.

He usually helped himself establish autosuggestion by a cue word. He chose the word “green”, but any other meaningful word can do. Here are the instructions:

1. Say the word “green” and close your eyes. 
2. Test for eye-closure. 
3. When you are sure you have eye-closure, use the symbol word “green” again, knowing that the instant you say it your suggestion will take full and complete effect. 
4. Then test to make sure that the suggestion has taken full effect. 
5. To release the eye muscles, say the word “green” once again, and your eyes will open. 

It takes about four seconds to anesthetize yourself. But you must practice.

You may have noticed a conflict in your mind. One part of your brain is saying, “You can’t open your eyes.” And then the other part seemed to be saying, “Nonsense.” Doubt and fear are two valuable natural human reactions, but they can defeat us if we don’t know how to avoid or overcome them.

How to approach someone without causing fear

Many people are still misinformed about Hypnosis. Most people see the images of stage performers, making people do silly things. Why should you generate the fear associated with the word Hypnosis in the minds of the misinformed? Maybe, we should leave the word Hypnosis to the stage performers, and use a different word, e.g. Relaxation, in our practice, or don’t use any indication at all in our approach. For example, let’s take the dental patient approach as described in Elman’s book:

“The dentist might say this: “You know every time you come to the office, I notice how tense you get, and when you sit tensely you have to feel discomfort more because that’s the nature of tension. If I could teach you how to relax, your visits to this office could be made very easy and I’m sure you know that. How would you like to enjoy a dental visit for a change instead of being all tense about it?

All right, I’m going to show you how to relax. Take a long, deep breath. That’s it.

Now let me have your hand.

Now watch this left hand come down over the profile of your face.

Now close your eyes.

Relax those eye muscles to the point where they won’t work, and when you’re sure they won’t work, test them to make sure they won’t work. That’s right.

Stay like that and let that feeling of relaxation that you have in your eye muscles go right down to the toes.

I’m going to lift your hand and drop it and if it’s really as relaxed as it should be, it’ll just plump down like a wet dishrag.

Look at that relaxation.

Now, I’m going ahead with our dental treatment, and nothing I do in this office will bother or disturb you from this moment on.

You’ll know I’m working there, but if you’ll just hold on to this relaxation, you won’t feel a thing.

You won’t mind a thing that I do. You’ll know that I’m working there but that’s about all.”

And with that, the dentist can go ahead with his work.The whole procedure has taken 30 seconds, and the wonderful thing for the dentist is that even if the patient opens his eyes (and he has to open them to rinse his mouth) he can say,

“Now, I want you to open your eyes, and rinse your mouth, and then when you lean back you’ll relax even more.”

Instead of losing the state when this happens, you actually can intensify it.

TWO-FINGER EYE-CLOSURE METHOD

The two-finger eye-closure method is the fastest technique ever devised for obtaining hypnosis. Because it is so fast it is especially recommended for emergency patients.

This is also one of the best techniques for children, especially those who are really afraid of the dentist. In most instances, the hypnosis is quite deep.

Dentist induction for children goes as follows:

“I guess you play a lot with your toys when you’re home. And you probably pretend a lot with them, isn’t that right? Well, we have a little game of pretending too. And if you can learn to play this little game of pretending, nothing that happens in the dentist’s office will bother or disturb. You just won’t feel anything that we’re doing if you learn to play this little game. Would you like to learn about it?

PATIENT: Yes.

DENTIST: All right, open your eyes wide. I’m going to show you this little game. I’m going to pull your eyes shut with my forefinger and my thumb, like this. [Gently places thumb and finger on eyelids and draws them down.]

Now you pretend with your whole heart and soul that you can’t open your eyes. That’s all you have to do. Just pretend that. Now, I will take my hand away [removes hand] and you pretend so hard that when you try to open your eyes they just won’t work. Now try to make them work while you’re pretending. Try hard. They just won’t work, see. Now just because you’re pretending like that, anything we do in this office won’t bother or disturb you at all. In your mind, you can be home playing with your toys and you won’t feel anything I have to do“.

Dentist induction for adults goes as follows:

“Every time you come to this office, I notice how tense you get, and if I could teach you how to relax, you wouldn’t mind anything we have to do. Suppose I teach you how to relax. Would you like that?”

Patient: Yes.

“Take a good long deep breath.

Now open your eyes wide. I’m going to pull your eyelids shut with my forefinger and my thumb.

Now I want you to relax the muscles that are underneath my fingers.

Now I will take my hand away.

Relax your eye muscles to the point where they just won’t work.

Then, when you’re sure those eye muscles won’t work, test them, and make sure they won’t work.

Test them hard.

That’s right.

Now let that feeling of relaxation go right down to your toes, and when I lift your hand and drop it, that hand will be so relaxed it will just plop down into your lap.

And just let it plop. That’s it.

Any work that I do from this point on in your mouth or any other part of your body, you just won’t mind.

Just stay relaxed like that.

Make sure at all times that your eye muscles won’t work and you have relaxation all through your body and you won’t feel a thing.

I’m going to stroke your arm (body part) in the area where I’m going to work and you just won’t feel anything.

You’ll know I’m working there, but nothing will bother, nothing will disturb. I’m ready to do my work now and you have complete anaesthesia in your right arm (any other mentioned body part).

After the treatment is finished, say:

“Now, when I have you open your eyes notice how good you feel. Open your eyes. How do you feel?”

This approach was used to set a compound fracture on a 12-year old boy because the only anaesthesiologist available was working on another emergency case. The emergency doctor couldn’t stand the suffering of the boy anymore, and he used the method described above to produce anaesthesia. He then proceeded to reduce the compound fracture.

In the midst of the work, the anaesthesist came downstairs, prepared to give chemical anaesthesia. He was amazed to find his services were unnecessary, and soon afterward became Elman’s student.

This approach is recommended for the emergency victim because it is so fast; you generally get hypnosis within five seconds, but it is important to create deep hypnosis!

You can achieve this deepened state by having him pretend to smell beautiful flowers, or let them watch their favourite tv-show, or play their favourite game mentally.You can check this deepened state as you know that the patient’s eyelids should flutter, that the whites of the eyes should get red, and that there should be increased lacrimation. Don’t forget that you are working with a person who hears and understands everything you are saying. You are talking to a person who is perfectly conscious when he’s in deep hypnosis.

Numerous ways of induction

The ways of inducing hypnosis are as good as limitless. And although some methods take more time than others, they can all be used to produce the deep trance state known as somnambulism.One of Mesmer’s students, Marquis de Puseygur, discovered the state of somnambulism. One day, he found that a young boy had tied himself to a so-called ‘magnetic’ tree. As the Marquis watched, the boy closed his eyes and apparently fell asleep.The Marquis, ordered the boy to untie his knots, to walk forward, to stop, etcetera. After a few more orders of this kind which the boy followed Puseygur proclaimed his discovery to be somnambulism because he saw this boy walking and executing orders while apparently asleep.That is how the use of the word somnambulism originated in connection with hypnosis. The term has been used ever since to denote a specific hypnotic state. It is interesting to note that the boy went into true somnambulism by himself, without instructions from anyone, proving how easy the hypnotic procedure really is.The methods of achieving the trance state are limited only by your own imagination. There is no way in which you cannot hypnotize a patient, provided you know the art of suggestion. The old-time practitioners used the fixation method. That is, they had the subject stare at either a light or a brilliant object and sought to tire the muscles around the eyes, thus achieving eye-closure. The devices employed to achieve the trance state are used as catalysts. Therefore we call this the “catalyst method of achieving trance”.

WAKING HYPNOSIS AND WAKING SUGGESTION

The story of the dream medicine illustrates a phenomenon known as waking hypnosis and can be used best to save time, or when you find resistance to the trance state.Example 1 of waking hypnosis:Do you like to go to the dentist?No, I don’t.Watch this. I’m going to stroke your jaw three times. You will lose all feeling in the side of the jaw that I stroke … One, two, three …Example 2:Will you give us your name and address, please.All right, I’m going to snap my fingers and you’ll find that you can’t think of your name or address. [Snaps fingers.] Try to say it now and you’ll find it’s gone. Try hard.Waking suggestion example: when somebody in a room full of people yawns, soon other people start yawning too.In the study of waking hypnosis and waking suggestion, all post-hypnotic phenomena are excluded because waking hypnosis is not post-hypnotic. It may be achieved on patients who have never known the trance state. Again and again, waking hypnosis is used as a lever to enter the deep trance state. Therefore, a knowledge of waking suggestion and waking hypnosis will make you a better operator.Now, here is a valuable technique for stopping a person from gagging. This demonstration took place in a class, and the “patient” was a doctor who tended to gag during oral examinations:ELMAN: Doctor, come up here and examine this gentleman’s throat any way you want to, and try to make him gag after I show him what to do . . . [to the patient] Hold that pencil tightly with both hands, and you’ll find you can’t gag so long as you hold that pencil tightly. Watch this …[to examining doctor] make any examination you want to. You won’t be able to make him gag so long as he holds the pencil. .. You use that technique doctor, and I promise that you can have dental work done – you can have medical work done. Just hold on to the pencil -that’s all- hold on to the pencil with both hands. And you’ll have the nicest result.There is a specific and reliable way to attain waking hypnosis. This is the key to the process: The mind of the subject must lock itself around a given idea.The crying child is certain that if the mother kisses her the pain will disappear. To cause the human mind to lock around a given idea, suggestions in the waking state must be given with complete confidence, with absolute assurance. They must leave no room for doubt. If doubt creeps in, the suggestion usually becomes ineffective. Therefore, give the suggestions in a manner that implies that what you have said is as certain of happening as the dawn. Leave no room for doubt. Every one of the people in the experiments described locked his mind around a given idea that had the appearance of certainty.First, the mind of the subject must lock itself around a given idea.Second, the suggestion must be one that the patient wants.Any patient suffering intense pain wants relief. He’s apt to quickly take suggestions for the alleviation of his distress. Any patient facing the prospect of pain -the dental patient is an excellent example- is ready for waking hypnosis. The emotionally disturbed patient is usually ready to listen to the practitioner who shows sympathy and understanding. All these people will take suggestions because they want suggestions. Now, how do you convey these suggestions?Let the patient hear those words which he is anxious to hear

The differences between the hypnotic states

When the patient is physically relaxed we get light hypnosis. When the patient is both mentally and physically relaxed we get the state of somnambulism.

First, Elman made sure that the patient is physically relaxed. He proceeds to increase this relaxation until he can suggest that the mind become relaxed as well as the body. When there is no message to the brain except one of contentment, the brain has no need to be active with disturbing thoughts and is therefore ready for suggestions of a welcome nature.

The suggestion for deeper physical relaxation is welcome, and the suggestion that the mind relaxes, that all is well, is also welcome. A suggestion that there will be no active, conscious thoughts, that the mind will momentarily be blank, is usually readily acceptable.

How do you achieve this state of mind? By having the patient relax sufficiently so that for a fragmentary instant, or even longer, you can cause the mind to become blank concerning a specific thing, thereby causing amnesia. It does not matter what that specific thing is.

The suggestion I prefer to give the patient in order to bring on amnesia is that he will not remember numbers. I have a patient count backward from one hundred and relax more and more as he recites each number. As he relaxes further and further, the numbers gently fade from his mind, and when questioned, he has “numerical amnesia.”

The mind is blank concerning one specific thing – numbers. It is only when you are able to produce amnesia that you have the somnambulistic state.

There are four states of hypnosis:

(1) the light or superficial;

(2) the somnambulistic;

(3) the coma (the Esdaile state);

(4) hypnosis attached to sleep – the greatest depth of all, which Elman called hypno-sleep.

Compounded Suggestion

Suggestions can be compounded. The first one you give may be relatively weak. It becomes stronger, however, when you follow it with a second suggestion, even though the second one may be entirely different. You give suggestion one and that’s weak. Then you give suggestion two and number one gets stronger. Then you give suggestion three and numbers one and two get stronger. Give suggestion four and one, two, and three all get stronger. Give suggestion five, and one, two, three, and four get stronger. Always, the first suggestion gets stronger. The progression extends back to the beginning.

Open Eye Hypnosis

The technique is to give the patient a suggestion, while the eyes are closed, which will stay in effect when the eyes are opened. An anaesthetic suggestion is the perfect device to keep the hypnosis riding. It’s a good medical way. Then you can do all your work with the eyes wide open. It’s a technique that is much to be preferred for many people. You can tell an amateur from a good hypnotic operator by noticing whether he has learned to handle patients with their eyes open. If he can work with the eyes open, he knows what he’s doing. One advantage of the eyes-open state is just this: no one who walks into your office will know immediately that you’re using hypnosis. Open-eyed somnambulism has still further advantages. The patient can cooperate more fully with the doctor, pointing out troublesome areas, for example. The ophthalmologist obviously needs this state, as he works completely with the human eyes. The fact that the eyes can be kept wide open while the patient remains in deep somnambulism makes this the optimum state for him. Other medical and dental men find this state to be advantageous according to their requirements.

Post-hypnotic suggestion

A post-hypnotic suggestion is one given while the patient is in hypnosis to take effect after the patient is roused from the state. If you have been practicing the techniques described in this article, you have been working with post-hypnotic suggestions from the beginning. When you give a health suggestion, it’s post-hypnotic. You say, “When I have you open your eyes, you’re going to feel better than you’ve felt all day.”

 

 

The very first hypnotic recording against obesity

At some point in time, Elman’s students asked him to teach how to handle obesity problems with hypnosis. He explained to them that it is easy to put people on a hypnotic diet, but as soon as the suggestions wear off, they will gain weight again. Elman was convinced that underneath the cause of obesity there was a problem that needed to be solved first.

Why does the person eat so much? Treat this and the problem will be solved.

However, the doctors, his students, insisted and so he taught them how to put people on a hypnotic diet. Soon, one after the other reported big successes of thirty, forty, fifty pounds, or even more. But one or two years later they all reported failure, and that hypnosis wouldn’t give permanent results.

Because of these reports, he refused to teach any more doctor how to treat obese people with a hypnotic diet, but fortunately, a befriended psychiatrist was able to change his mind. “Think of the patient who needs to lose weight fast”, he said, “Even temporary loss of weight might be crucial to help him or her, for instance, because of an imminent operation”.

After a great deal of reflection, he decided to make an instructional recording. This would save doctors valuable time if they were made to understand that the hypnotic diet could not, by itself, constitute complete treatment. He gave a series of lectures on the subject, asking the doctors to tape-record every word said. Then he asked them to allow their obese patients to hear the tapes to see whether or not by listening to a recording they could be placed on a hypnotic diet.

“The tapes were very effective, and soon doctors requested a phonograph record to be made to give the patient to use at home.”

The Hypnotic Lie Detector or Truth Finder

Stroke the little finger or the thumb of the patient as you tell him, “This finger is being put under the control of your inside mind. In just a few seconds, when your inner mind takes over, you won’t be able to bend this finger no matter how hard you try. You’ll have no control of it consciously. You can go ahead and try to bend it but you’ll find it won’t bend.”

After testing to make sure the patient cannot will the finger to bend, continue speaking as follows: “Just as I said, that finger is now under the control of your inside mind- the real you. The real you knows exactly what happened- it can’t lie to you because you know the truth of everything, and that inside mind is the real you. If I should ask you something and you don’t tell me the entire truth, or if you should tell me a falsehood, that finger under the control of your inside mind will bend and I’ll know there is something more to the story than you are telling me.”

The suggestion that the patient’s finger will bend if he isn’t telling the truth or is hiding something, is an insidious one. It gives him the impression that the movement of that finger is beyond his control. In this way, when he tells a lie, he gives himself away by moving the finger, thereby keeping the operator on the right track. Should this occur, the operator must then find another means of arriving at the truth.

Be sure to make your statement casually, as if this were the most normal behavior pattern in the world, and in many cases, you will get at the complete truth of the situation. As you work, watch the finger or thumb. The instant the patient varies from the truth or does not give a complete answer, his inside thoughts will speak out through spasmodic movements of the immobilized finger.

Sometimes if the patient in Hypno-analysis begins to tell a protracted falsehood or gives misleading information, the finger will creep upward, not with a spasmodic movement, but little by little and steadily, and the patient will not even know it has changed position.The patient who bends his finger from the very outset, when you are first giving him the suggestion that it will not bend but that the finger will be under the control of his inner mind, is resisting from the outset. This patient knows that he is hiding something and prefers to keep it that way. On the other hand, the patient who accepts this suggestion and cannot will his finger to bend, but later bends it when he tells a lie, is not resisting.

Actually, he has accepted your suggestion that the finger will move when he lies, thus keeping you on the right track. The finger technique is a valuable tool for unearthing the causes of all sorts of phobias.

Hypnosis: an effective medical tool

Hypno analysis is a device that enables the doctor to trace the cause of the condition in which there is no pathological cause.The reason it’s important to trace the cause is that if you don’t know what it is, all you can do is treat the symptoms. The doctor is in a much better position when he knows what the cause of the illness is. Then he can often correct the condition.

How to put someone in a Hypnotic Sleep

I. Count the number of respirations in a minute, while the patient is fully awake.

2. Put the patient into deep somnambulism.

3. Give him sleep suggestions to take effect on cue after you arouse him from the relaxed state.

4. Arouse him from the hypnotic state, and let him fall asleep naturally on cue.

5. After the patient responds to the cue, wait until his respirations are down to seven or eight times per minute. This must occur without the giving of any suggestions of any kind.

To obtain hypnosis in sleep, the following steps are necessary:

1. Count the respirations of the patient. Make sure breathing is down to about seven or eight times a minute; six or seven a minute is even better. If the patient is breathing too fast, you will be wise to wait until he is more soundly asleep.

2. Approach the patient very gently, for the aim is to bypass the critical faculty without arousing him from sleep. The bypass must occur instantly, I have found the following speech to be extremely valuable if spoken very gently, but very confidently:

“This is [your name] speaking. You can hear me but you can’t wake up. You can hear me but you can’t wake up. You can hear me but you can’t wake up.”

3. The patient is usually in such deep sleep that the above must be repeated several times before it seems to penetrate his unconsciousness.

Continue: “I’ll know you’re hearing me when your thumb, which I’m going to touch, begins to rise. I’ll know you’re hearing me when your thumb moves. You can hear me but you can’t wake up.”

4, When the thumb responds, continue to talk gently, compounding suggestions as you proceed,

5. When you have finished giving the desired suggestions, or have concluded the hypnoanalysis, your next step is to remove the hypnotic state so that the patient can continue an entirely natural sleep state until he wakes up by himself.

Do it as follows: “When I stop talking to you, you will revert to the state you were in before I started talking to you. You will sleep deeply, and in the morning, you’ll awaken completely refreshed, you won’t even remember I’ve been talking to you, but you’ll feel so much better about the operation [or “will not be bothered anymore by this allergic reaction” or whatever suggestion is appropriate]. You won’t worry about it a bit. You just know we wouldn’t be performing the operation if we didn’t know it was going to be absolutely safe for you, and easy for you to take. And you’ll get well so fast. Now go to sleep very soundly, and I’ll see you in the morning . . . I’ll stop talking now.”

Doctor: Why are so many people afraid of hypnosis?

ELMAN: They have been exposed to Svengali and Trilby stories, movies, and television shows in which hypnosis is portrayed as villainous. They are also exposed to various statements written in newspapers and magazines by people who know nothing about the subject. Unfortunately, once statements are made in print they appear authoritative to the people who read them. These people are, moreover, exposed to the wrong attitudes by self-appointed authorities who don’t know the subject.

A book was written by Doctor Frank Caprio entitled, “Helping Yourself with Self-Hypnosis.” He is a psychiatrist and the writer of many excellent books. In this one, he recommends that people wishing to be treated by a doctor who uses hypnosis, call the local medical society for the name of a doctor employing hypnosis in his practice.

A lady called me the other day to say she had called her local medical society and had been informed by the doctor at the society that hypnosis was absolute nonsense and that anyone who uses hypnosis is a charlatan. He said that if she needed a physician for any specific medical purpose he would be glad to recommend one, but would not recommend anyone who uses hypnosis. He was willing to say this despite the fact that hypnosis is recognized as valid therapy by the American Medical Association and the American Dental Association.