M&M: Big Fish

Dear reader,

imagine you've got an egoist and story teller as a father. He's so much an egoist and story teller that even in his speech at your own wedding, he tells stories of his own childhood, instead of something nice about you. Can you imagine how that would be? Well, if the answer is “yes”, you might have an idea of how Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) felt at his wedding in the movie “Big Fish” from the year 2003. The result is not surprising: Vater, Ed Bloom (Albert Finney) and son don't talk much with each other or if they do, it's through the mother, Sandra Bloom (Jessia Lange).

Until that day when the mother calls the son, to tell her that the father is going to die and he should come by for a reconciliation. The son then goes to his parents. He is accompanied by his wife, Josephine (Marion Cotillard). She didn't hear the stories of the father and she's curious. So he gets another chance to tell his adventures.

The younger Ed Bloom is played by Ewan McGregor, who has a striking resemblance to Albert Finney as the old Ed Bloom. Which was in fact the reason why Ewan McGregor got the part. Also part of the movie is Helena Bonham Carter in no less than three roles: the young and old Jenny as well as the witch. Danny DeVito can be seen as the circus director and Steve Buscemi might also be known to some film enthusiasts, to name only a couple of other stars of the film.

With all the fantastic and wonderful adventures, you might almost forget why the son actually went to the father. But the end is as sad as it is funny. Even after his death the story of the father's story is by far not completely told.

Behind every story is also some truth. Just how much truth in the case of Ed Bloom, you'll have to find out yourself by watching the film. Altogether I'd say that the film makes a skilful, successful balancing act: the life of Ed Bloom is not quite normal, but also not totally far-fetched. This film might bring back people, who themselves have listened to the parents telling stories to the children or parents, who have and still tell stories to their children. I believe that especially Ewan McGregor, who was able to play all the adventures of the young Ed Bloom, had certainly fun making the film. At least it seems like that for me watching the film, but also when I watch the extras and “behind the scenes” and Ewan McGregor as well as the others involved talk about it. Speaking of involved in the film: the film music was composed by Danny Elfman, like it was for (almost) all Tim Burton films. This Tim Burton film is not as scary as most of his other films. But it is a varied collection of many smaller, mostly funny stories in one single film.

Until next blog,
sarah 

Everyday hypnosis

Dear reader,

time and again there are debates even among experts what hypnosis is and what trance is. Many, even hypnotherapists, talk with clients and newbies about “putting them under hypnosis”. I personally prefer Milton Erickson's approach that trance is the state of awareness and hypnosis is the way or method to it. James Tripp on the other hand is famous for his “hypnosis without trance”.

I believe that most people would agree with the following: that this changed state of awareness, whether we call it trance or hypnosis now, is an everyday phenomenon. In order to reach this state of awareness, you don't necessarily need a second person and also words are not always necessary. In the following I'd like to describe a couple of examples and what phenomena are behind them.

One typical example of amnesia, memory loss, is when you get from one place to another and after reaching your destiny, you have no recollection of how you got there. I don't mean that you forgot if you got there by car or bus, but details about the way and occurrences on your way. Irrelevant details got cut out.

On one work day at the Alzheimer's society (of all places!) it happened one time that several of my colleagues came into the room at different times and even though nobody interrupted them, they came in and stopped dead with a desperate look on their face and the question, “What did I want here?” or, “Why am I here?” Although none of the persons in the room interrupted them, someone or something did interrupt their train of though on the way to the room. The original thought was covered up with other thoughts and therefore the reason to enter the room was forgotten.

I already mentioned eye fixation in the previous post, which doesn't necessarily need a shiny plate as a fix point, any more that you need a swinging pocket watch. Especially children can easily get lost in their own thoughts with a shining candle. I had to wait for over three hours in the waiting room at a doctor once. They had magazines and I most certainly had a book with me, too, but I just stared at the wall across from me and just hopped desperately that I would be still enough present to react fast enough when they finally called me up. Since I got myself out of that state only a short time later, I didn't miss the call. All I had needed was a point and the wall had nothing special, it was just plain white. The reason to pick a shiny object a lot is that it's eye-catching literally, because it's shiny.

It can also happen time and again that we notice bruises on our body, but don't remember at all about how we got them. That's pain control, anaesthesia for you and with that it's trance respectively hypnosis. That also applies to the way of doing pain control I described in a previous post, although I deliberately didn't use the words trance and hypnosis then.

Two phenomena are very typical with children and if you ask me, they should by all means not be taken in a negative or mean way. The first is positive hallucination: which is seeing things that aren't there really. For example there are every now and then reports of children that have “invisible friends” or imaginary friends. The reverse of that phenomenon would be negative hallucination: which is especially annoying when you're about to go out and can't find your house keys or car keys, check a table several times and after many unsuccessful attempts, you stand at the table again and suddenly the keys are there in plain sight and unable for you to overlook them on the table. Why didn't we see them before?

But negative hallucinations aren't limited to seeing only. Very annoyingly for the parents, sometimes children can be so absorbed in their own world, that the calls from the parents go unheard. That's not necessarily malicious not listening, but can also simply be a sign of the children being deeply absorbed in their activities in the way that they shut out all stimuli that doesn't directly belong to their activity. Dear parents: this is a normal phenomenon! In this context you should check if the seemingly repeatedly stubborn child is deliberately not listening as a kind of behavioural problem, if it's a hearing problem or if they are absorbed in their activity and therefore not listening. The physician and educator Maria Montessori described a phenomenon with children that are so deeply absorbed and where other obviously noisy children were unable to distract or disturb the child. As far as I know Montessori never wrote or spoke about hypnosis or trance then. Although I only learned about the principle ideas of her at university. The term Montessori used for this concentrated state of consciousness was “flow”.

Book lovers and film fans know how easily hours seem like minutes with a good book or movie. Time distortion is a phenomenon of hypnosis. Sadly we often don't use that phenomenon to our advantage. So good moments fly away way too fast and situations we'd prefer to be over in a flash drag on forever. There are possibilities to manipulate our perception to our advantage. Not only can we make it seem like it's warm for us when it's cold in reality or vice versa, we can also change our perception of time deliberately. We only have to find out how our individual perception of time works and what factors influence it.

One of my favourite phenomena is what I call “traffic trance”. A line of cars is standing at a red traffic. Everyone stares at the light and when the light changes there's inevitably someone every once in a while who doesn't change. We notice that when some other driver behind them gets impatient and honks. Here, again, is eye fixation the reason.

I hope that I was able to show that trance respectively hypnosis is something normal, even everyday. Only we often don't talk about it in those terms. I'd wish that people would be less scared of those words and phenomena, which are linked with trance and hypnosis. Sadly even today many people think that hypnosis has to do with loss of control and one can be turned into an evil criminal or they'd be totally ridiculed in hypnosis shows. Hypnosis is far more than that. Above all it's something totally normal. The phenomena I mentioned are only examples. Maybe you can think of situations you experienced. If you want to share them, write a comment. I'd be happy to read from you.

Until next blog,

sarah

What the... hypnosis

Dear reader,

hypnosis is when someone is swinging a pocket watch back and forth in front of you, counting and telling you that at some point, you won't be able to keep your eyes open and sleep. That is at best how many think about stage-hypnosis.

This was supposed to be a post to introduce you to some hypnosis-people, especially hypnotherapists, meaning people, who use hypnosis for therapy, combined with a bit of history of hypnosis. That's what I had planned for February. As you can see, as a result I didn't write anything at all in February.

The truth is that I have barely any knowledge about the history of hypnosis. I have read two or three general books on hypnosis. Of course they had bits about the history and names of famous people of the past, thanks to YouTube I was able to watch interviews with hypnotists and hypnotherapists and see demonstrations or seminars. But apart from Dr. Milton Erickson, I hardly know more than the name of most people.

In addition to that I noticed during the past couple of months that I forgot now things I knew quite well, say half a year ago or so. Including terms I was able to explain or at least use without any problems back then. Am I getting old? Or am I becoming like Sherlock Holmes, who doesn't know that the earth goes around the sun, because it's irrelevant for his life?

Here comes what I'd like to share with you, for which I don't have to consult (my) books: my history of hypnosis. (Confession: I didn't use a book, but I did look up the dates on wikipedia.)

The name used very often as the sort of father of hypnosis or hypnotherapy is Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Years ago I liked the actor Alan Rickman a lot. I like him still today, but I'm not that much familiar with his more recent works now as I was years ago. In any case, he was in the movie “Mesmer” playing him in 1994. The frame story of the movie is a court hearing, which Mesmer has to go through. The treatment method of the doctor are so unconventional for his time that many thought he was a charlatan. That's why he was in court for. Later I read a couple of books about Mesmer to find out, what parts of the story in the movie had really happened. Without knowing it, this was my introduction to hypnosis, I guess. Although Mesmer didn't call what he did hypnosis. At first he worked with magnets. In one book I read that story that he was taking part in a sort of parade, when someone came up to him asking for help, because no other doctor was so close and available. He went and was lead to the ill person and only realised when he was there, that he had left the magnets in the coach at the parade. If lifeless stones and magnets were able to help, surely he, Mesmer, a warm living being full of energy, must be able to help with touch and strokes with his hands. Indeed he was able to help, so he didn't use the magnets anymore after that experience. He called what he did “animal magnetism”. Today it's also known as “mesmerism”. His name even became an adjective in English as “mesmerising” (to describe something as being fascinating or hypnotising).

Independently from Mesmer back then, also the Chinese medicine assumes an energy, known as chi or qi. Reiki is a method practised to this day, in which the hands are used to heal.

But Mesmer wasn't quite the beginning. Even the Egypts and Greeks knew sleep temples. Priests, who at that time were also functioning as doctors, healed a variety of illnesses through rites with putting the sick into a healing sleep.

The miracle healings of Jesus, his apostles and the early Christians came most likely often with hypnosis, too. Imposition of hands and fixation of the eyes (fixation) e. g. with a shining metal plate, are typical practices.

Another surgeon one should know is the Scotsman James Braid (1795-1860). He too studied magnetism and coined the term “neurypnology”, so still not “hypnosis” as a term. In Braid's time anaesthesia was still in its infancy. His book is called: Neurypnology; Or, the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism.

James Esdaile (1808-1859) on the other hand reminds me a bit of Erickson. Esdaile had asthma and he moved from Great Britain to India in the hope that the climate there would be better for him. Erickson got vaccinated after a bike accident, but he got an anaphylactic shock from the vaccination, which nearly killed him and as a result he developed allergies. Therefore he moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Anyway, it shouldn't surprise you that Esdailes book title is: Mesmerism in India and Its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine.

Another doctor, who should be mentioned is the psychiatrist and neurologist Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919), who studied the reactions to suggestions. Suggestions are also an important aspect with hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Consequently his form of therapy was the “suggestive therapy”, on which he wrote several books, for example: Suggestive Therapeutics: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism.

By the way, the so called Russian miracle healer Rasputin (1869-1916) also used hypnosis to help especially the tsar son, when he had one of his bleedings again. I find it inappropriate, to call the treatments of the tsar son miracle healings though. Because Rasputin didn't heal him from hemophilia. He only stopped the immediate bleedings. More on Rasputin in another entry later.

Many people certainly don't know that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) studied with the neurologist Jean-Martin Charco (1825-1893) and used hypnosis before he invented his psychoanalysis. Later he turned away from hypnosis. Surely in part to spend more time with his own ideas and psychoanalysis. I could also imagine that in part he also didn't like being close to clients and maybe even touch them, since one aspect with psychoanalysis is precisely that of keeping distance and interfering as little as possible.

If I had to write more detailed, I could write a book and would have to look up things more after all. For now this should be enough with the people mentioned to start with. Should hypnotists, hypnotherapists or hypnosis-enthusiasts read this post, I'd be happy to read your additional names and comments.

Until next blog,

sarah