by Tim Brunson PhD
Almost always when I see a person in a clinical situation, the obvious conclusion is that the presenting problem or issues involves prior decisions. However, while the wisdom of their choices – to include their awareness of relevant options – may indeed be part of the problem, I have increasingly come to the determination that the true nature of their concerns is not which decisions are being made but rather how they are made.
Over the past several years much of my exploration into hypnotherapeutic theory has focused on understanding the role of neurology. That is, how does the brain become involved with the personality formation, achievement, and physical health? What that has led to is a better appreciation the nature of the brain's cells and major functional substrates. One of the more glaringly obvious conclusions has been in regards whether transformation involves more intellectual and cognitive processes that are unique to the advanced human brain or whether a person continues to predominantly be stuck in the more primitive and emotional limbic areas. This realization is the basis of Cognitive Based Therapy (CBT), which attempts to move the subject's mental functioning toward the former. Additionally, the recent trendy interest in mindfulness and "emotional intelligence" (which is an oxymoron) appears to focus on increased limbic awareness.
What this comes down to is quite simple. When a person is faced with a perception that challenges their heretofore comfort levels, what process do they typically use as they seek resolution? For instance, suppose a person has just discovered that their car's left low-beam headlight is no longer coming on when desired. This perception is rapidly transmitted to their Anterior Cingulate Cortex, which serves as brain's thought switchboard. Immediately, a search for a solution ensues. A logical cognitive process would be to check the electrical connections to the bulb, check for blown out fuses, and, of course, to investigate whether the bulb has been damaged or shows other signs that it is no longer working. A more limbic response would be to immediately experience sensations of intense emotion such as crying, hatred, etc. and possibly complain that this should not be happening to you as you are a good Christian, Democrat, and member of the NRA. You may even light up a cigarette, pop a candy bar into your mouth, or want to return to the comfort of your bed. Obviously, of the two strategies I would hope that you realize that the speed of an effective resolution would lie with the first one and not the second.
Another way of looking at our limbic decision making processes is to understand that most – if not all – of our values and beliefs are found at that level. Essentially, these basic components of our unique personalities give us our identity. However, as much as we are attached to our identity, when it comes to making use of it as a decision making tool can very often lead to illogical and erroneous results. When Grinder and Bandler created Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) back in the 1970's, one of their first observations was that values and beliefs are filters that distort and delete reality while creating our subjective experience of reality. Therefore, any decision making that is primarily limbic in orientation is by default inferior. (Note: For the most part, NLP is based upon changing internal states by modifying those filters. While I still advocate the study of NLP, it is for the most part a historically relevant field – but historical nevertheless.)
Regardless, we will never be able to entirely escape the ravages of emotion when it comes to decision making. It is well known that political candidates almost always get more votes based upon their emotional (i.e. visual, auditory, kinesthetic) attractiveness – to include sex appeal. This trend is emphasized in exit polls, which show that people with strong ethnic or cultural identity will often vote for candidates with whom they have increased affinity – even when the candidate is a convicted criminal. Likewise, a recent study showed criminal court judges have a tendency to impose more lenient sentences when the convicted person is an attractive woman or a baby-faced man – and within a couple of hours of eating lunch. As Erik Peper, PhD, a San Francisco psychotherapist and professor, once put it, despite our evolutionary advanced brain, most of our neurophysiology remains stuck in 40,000 year old instinctual patterns.
As I have pointed out in a few of my courses and in my other articles, the awareness of a hypnotherapy subject's mental processing is critical as an effective intervention is designed. Although as I just pointed out a vast majority of your clients will have a primarily limbic orientation merely because of the current state human evolution, it is important to realize many people do have an enhanced capability to use cognitive reasoning. (Don't get caught in the prejudicial trap of believing that a formal education level is an indicator of intelligence. I have frequently found the poorly educated to be surprisingly intelligent and occasionally university professors who were not – despite their bravado and self-image.)
When a client has a presenting problem that can be explained by defective limbic processing, as with CBT, the goal may very well activating their brain's cognitive abilities. What should not be pursued is to assume that using hypnosis to increase mindful awareness of their emotional state will resolve the issue. Thus using a guided imagery session to give the subject an intense kinesthetic experience will do little to resolve their presenting issue. Any achieved success will most likely be solely due to the role of positive expectancy (i.e. the Placebo Effect). I would hope that a competent hypnotherapist would be more capable than that. Rather, using the hypnosis session to reframe situations and address other cognitive reasoning skills would hopefully shift their locus of mental functioning from a less logical and more reactive state to one that is more likely to resolve the problem. Also, such a shift will improve the probability that they will be able to self-resolve issues in the future.
Although this approach is very profound and extremely appropriate in most situations, I would warn any clinician to be wary of universally using it. This is especially true when considering the use of hypnosis with the typical trauma sufferer. And, as a tremendously large percent of the Western world's population have experienced some form of childhood trauma – which includes such things as poor parenting and abuse – there is a very high probability that someone who comes to see you for the simplest issue may have self-soothing or internal process phobias, which may interfere with the best meant interventions. In the most extreme cases – which must only be addressed by properly licensed and trained clinicians – the initial emphasis should be on increased here-and-now mindfulness and the use of CBT or more cognitively oriented hypnotherapy employed at later stages.
Other than when encountering trauma issues just mentioned, I trust that you will find using hypnosis for the purpose of enhancing a subject's cognitive capabilities will produce positive results in a vast number of cases. As suggestion and imagination, which are the two principle tools of a hypnotist, are seated in the evolutionary more advanced areas of the brain, our skills are very well suited to improving a person's intellectual skills. (By the way, this is why I say that the ability to be hypnotized and to respond to hypnotherapy is a sign of higher intelligence levels – despite popular myths to the contrary.) Therefore, a hypnotherapist should seek competency in understanding the basic nature of the major brain substrates and how to activate and enhance them. As this is achieved, you should be able to observe a radical alteration of your client's decision making skills.
Posted: 10/12/2012
