Ben Bullock: Hello, everybody.
Welcome to this interview today.
My name is Dr. Ben Bullock, and today I'm
talking to Associate Professor Steve Theiler, who
is going to talk to us a little bit about clinical hypnosis
and the techniques that he uses in his private practice
as a psychologist and counselor.
Welcome, Steve.
Steve Theiler: Good day, Ben.
Ben Bullock: Is there-- can you first of all maybe
give us a bit of a background on what you do,
how you use hypnosis with your clients,
and how often you've been doing it for?
Steve Theiler: OK.
Well, keep me on track if I vary off the question.
So I'm a clinical and counseling psychologist,
and I've been working for about 20 years.
And I've found that my training in hypnosis
has been really helpful in deepening the kind of work
that I'm doing in my counseling.
So for example, with clients that
come to see me that might have difficulty with anxiety,
hypnosis just helps me to really reinforce
areas like becoming more calm, being able to feel like they're
more in control, and depending on the specific kind
of instance, if they've got a particular fear of something,
just to help to lessen that fear and that anxiety.
Ben Bullock: OK.
Would you say that there are-- so you mentioned anxiety.
Is that one of the conditions that
is particularly suitable to using hypnosis,
or are all psychological conditions
suitable for using hypnosis?
Steve Theiler: It's a good question.
Well, I find anxiety really, that hypnosis
is really helpful with anxiety, but there
are particular disorders and issues where
I wouldn't be using hypnosis.
So--
Ben Bullock: Such as--
Steve Theiler: Well, if someone's
got clinical levels of depression,
if they're quite seriously depressed,
it's contraindicated for using hypnosis.
And also, if someone's got some of the more psychotic disorders
like schizophrenia, to take someone
into what I would call an altered state when they're
already in a state which can have a crisis or delusional
sort of crisis, again, that wouldn't
be suitable to use hypnosis.
Ben Bullock: OK.
And you mentioned it is an altered state.
For those people who perhaps haven't been hypnotized,
how would you describe that hypnotic state to them?
Steve Theiler: Yeah, you are coming up with good questions.
Ben Bullock: That's my job.
Steve Theiler: The altered state,
which contrary to what maybe a lot of people think,
is not really that different to where
you might be just completely absorbed
in reading a really good novel, or going to a movie like Lord
of the Rings and you all of a sudden forget about anyone
else in the theater and you're just completely involved,
absorbed, in whatever it is that's happening for you,
whether it be the book or the movie.
So really, it's a state where there's not
a lot of conscious or rational thinking.
It's more of just a state where you're
feeling just calm and absorbed in whatever is happening
for you at that point in time.
Ben Bullock: OK.
So absorption is a way to describe
what the hypnotic state is, a state of deep absorption
in whatever you are doing.
Steve Theiler: Yeah, yeah.
Ben Bullock: And that, I guess, is
why you might use a swinging fob watch to induce the hypnotic
state, or am I showing my biases there?
That might be a little bit old fashioned.
How do you induce a hypnotic state?
Steve Theiler: Yeah, well, the fob watch,
or the looking at a finger, or getting someone
to focus on a light on a wall is one of the methods
that you may use.
And it's really to get someone's attention
to focus on just one thing.
And at the same time, you bring in another,
if you like narrative or another set of instructions that
are happening when someone is very focused on
the light, the watch, can be a mandala spinning around,
it might be a candle, it might be just a relaxation technique.
So for me, I find it usually helpful
to get someone into a relaxed state.
So I usually take them into a fairly quick kind of body
relaxation or a more mindfulness state,
and when I can tell that they're in that absorbed and relaxed
state, then I'll start putting in what's called suggestions,
which is really just suggesting to someone positive
and if you like clinical kinds of statements.
And what I mean by clinical is if they're anxious, something
that's related to helping their anxiety,
and putting those suggestions in.
We don't fully understand how this mechanism works,
but there's something about bypassing
our rational, conscious mind and putting in a suggestion that
seems to have quite profound and clinical applications
in psychology.
Ben Bullock: OK, interesting.
So is everyone easily hypnotizable,
or are there different levels of hypnotizability?
I tend to think of myself as someone who is
quite difficult to hypnotize.
And what are some of the signs you
look for with a client in terms of perhaps deciding
that hypnosis might be suitable, particularly suitable I should
say, for one person or another?
Steve Theiler: Yeah.
Well, if we put aside some of those examples of schizophrenia
or major depression, if we've screened
for sort of contraindications, we'll then--
normally we would give people some sort
of education about what hypnosis is
and that there will be a slight feeling
that they'll go into this altered sort of state
of consciousness that's where they feeling relaxed.
Because sometimes, for some people,
that's a little bit disconcerting
that they're concerned about losing control
because it's been a lot of the TV sorts of programs
and so forth that make people a little bit nervous that they're
going to cluck like a chicken or walk around doing things
that they would not normally want to do.
So once there's been that sort of education,
then I just gently take someone into what's
called a light trance, and you can talk to them.
Usually I like clients to have their eyes closed,
but some people don't like to close their eyes,
but normally it does help with your absorption
if you can just get into a relaxed state
and close your eyes.
So once I do that, you can tell whether someone's
moving into that state, and also I ask them how they're going
and whether they're feeling relaxed,
and for them to report back to me how that experience is
going.
So that's on one level, but on another level,
there are measures.
One of them is called the Stanford Hypnotic Scale,
and that gives you a measure of how hypnotizable someone is.
Ben Bullock: What are some of the questions
or elements of that scale?
Steve Theiler: Well, it's looking into all the aspects
of the senses.
So it's looking at whether someone
is able to lose the sense of touch in a sort of--
let's say they handle their finger
so we can see whether we can bring
about some sort of numbing of the hand, which
might be then useful in terms of a medical condition.
We also might ask them or put a suggestion in there
that they might hear something that physically, we
haven't actually made that sound or whether they can hear it,
whether they can visualize something that isn't actually
physically there.
And even whether they have amnesia,
if we can say that when you come out of this particular trance,
you won't remember such and such.
And so we have these different measures
and they all have items we tick off.
And at the end we get a score, and we
can see how then hypnotizable someone is, and they normally
fall into a bell curve.
Ben Bullock: Right, OK.
So some people-- there are differences
between people's level of hypnotizability.
Steve Theiler: Yes.
Ben Bullock: I imagine-- from what you're saying,
I imagine that trust in the therapist is actually quite
an important thing as well because if someone--
if the client doesn't trust the therapist implicitly,
then they're not going to allow themselves
to go into a relaxed state.
Steve Theiler: Yeah, absolutely.
Ben Bullock: So I guess building that rapport with them is--
and trust-- is really important.
Steve Theiler: It is really important.
You brought up about counseling, I see that being a clinical
and counseling psychologist, that's
a really, a fundamental ingredient as well,
to make sure that you are continually building
that trust, not taking advantage of that
or taking it for granted.
And I think the same in--
the same goes for hypnosis, and probably even more so
because often people are concerned
about what will happen to me, and what are you
going to do to me.
And it's really alleviating those on one level
by giving them education about it, but on another level
it's really conveying that you are hopefully
a trustworthy practitioner.
Ben Bullock: OK.
You also mentioned earlier that people
can worry that they're going to get told to
or get induced into a hypnotic state
to walk around like a chicken and cluck like a chicken.
Is that one of the big myths surrounding hypnosis,
and are there other myths that you, as a clinical hypnotist,
that you would like to dispel today?
Steve Theiler: Well, I think television
hasn't done clinical hypnosis any favors with doing that.
What normally happens is that the hypnotist
in those television programs is fairly
expert at being able to discern whether someone is hypnotizable
or not.
Sometimes there's already been a screening,
so the people who are going to be selected
are highly hypnotizable.
And I think it's, you know, really
a misuse of a vulnerability that people have.
Ben Bullock: So you're talking about those stage hypnotists.
Steve Theiler: I'm talking about those stage hypnotists
that get--
Ben Bullock: And characters on TV.
Steve Theiler: Yeah, that get people up,
or even series, some sort of series on TV.
And I don't think that does the clinical hypnosis
any good service because it brings
about then that kind of fear of what will happen to me?
What will he do?
What will she do?
And that is not helpful because I'm
aware of some really excellent uses that you can put hypnosis
to in reducing anxiety, reducing fears, really
helping to reinforce and enhance people's
lives with good suggestions that they're willingly
wanting to take on board.
But it's not something you can just
give someone homework to do and they'll necessarily
adhere to it.
But even something like quitting smoking,
people want to quit smoking, and yet if I just
tell you to quit smoking, you might go well look,
I've tried this and I've tried that, but hypnosis really
deepens and enhances the treatment of helping people
to be motivated to give up whatever it is,
and smoking is a good example.
Ben Bullock: Yeah, so it sounds like you need to take--
so the techniques that people learn within these counseling
and hypnosis sessions are techniques
they can take home and use on themselves away
from the counseling session.
Is that correct?
Steve Theiler: That's right.
And I usually give my clients a digital recording
of the session so that there's no mistake about it.
They can go home and they can then listen to that recording.
And let's say in the case of wanting to relax,
they're feeling quite stressed and life is stressful for them.
Just to be able to take a recording home and listen to it
before they go to sleep is something
that I've found really helpful.
Ben Bullock: OK.
But can they actually induce the hypnotic state themselves
without the use of the tape?
Can you teach people to do it themselves?
And in actual fact, a subquestion of that
is have you ever tried to hypnotize yourself
and can you hypnotize yourself, and why or why not?
Steve Theiler: Yeah.
Well, to answer that question first, yes, you
can hypnotize yourself, and I do hypnotize myself.
And I find these days-- for instance, I do pilates
and I do yoga, and it's really stretching me at the moment.
And sometimes I get really quite sore legs,
and so I'm actually awoken up in the night with pain in my leg.
And I'm able to just take that pain away instantly
by almost a self-hypnotic command,
just that you're not going to feel the pain anymore.
Ben Bullock: Right.
Steve Theiler: So I use it.
I do my own self-hypnosis in terms of relaxation,
and I use it for all sorts of things.
And so really ultimately, that's the goal of any therapy,
is to have people be able to do this themselves,
whether it be clinical counseling, hypnosis.
You really want people to become empowered
so they can learn a technique and then
it just becomes second nature that they use.
And in the area of pain management, anxiety,
I just find that that's mostly the most applicable areas
in my sort of work that is helpful.
And also just reinforcing some of those deeper, self-affirming
and in psychology we call them kind of ecostrengths
that might be developed, and hypnosis
is one technique that can help with that.
Ben Bullock: OK.
Fantastic.
Well, thank you so much for your insight today, Steve,
into hypnosis.
Steve Theiler: Pleasure.
Ben Bullock: I hope everyone has found
something useful or interesting out of today's talk with Steve,
and if you have any questions, if anyone
has any questions about hypnosis,
you can certainly contact myself and if I know the answer
I can answer it for you, or I can pass it on to Steve
and he can perhaps answer any questions you
have about hypnosis.
Bye for now.