"Analyticals"

Something that has really been getting at me recently is the way in which the term "analytical" is applied to a certain group of subjects by hypnotists. I think it is high time for me to challenge this expression and question exactly what it is supposed to mean.

It seems to me that the term "analytical" is generally used to describe subjects who are difficult to hypnotise; people who are at the opposite end of the scale to those somnambulistic subjects who are an absolute gift to any hypnotist. There are some well known supposed percentages to quote here; setting willingness aside, 20% of people are easily deeply hypnotised, 60% of people are capable of basic hypnosis, 20% are very difficult to hypnotise. It is this latter group that are usually branded as "analytical" subjects.

I have talked before about why I think some people, despite being equally willing to cooperate, are more hypnotisable than others. I think it comes down to being able to think in a certain way, in an uncritical way. Somnambulists can do this well; anti-somnambulists, if you'll pardon the expression, cannot do this or at least not very well in the right context.

The very term "analytical" is, I think, inappropriate when describing these hard-to-hypnotise individuals, because it carries with it a lot of implications that are in themselves quite misleading. The biggest red herring is the idea that a difficult subject is troublesome because they are analysing the suggestions they're being given, which is can lead to a profound misunderstanding of why the subject may be finding hypnosis difficult and how best to proceed with them.

Everybody is "analytical" if by that you mean they take in what's going on around them, including what the hypnotist is saying, and consider what they think about it. Something that I think illustrates this well is one of the better subjects I have worked with and what they said to me after the first induction I did on them. I was feeling confident so I went straight in with a hand drop induction, which actually induced fits of giggling but those soon melted from her face as I continued to deepen. Afterwards she told me that she remembers questioning whether that was really all there was to it, thinking how funny that the whole situation really was, then being surprised by how much she was relaxing because she never relaxed like she was in that moment, and then her memories of what happened next were a bit fuzzy.

Now it seems to me as though there's a general expectation that the word "sleep" is supposed to make something dramatic happen by both hypnotist and subject alike, like for example stop the subject thinking, knock them unconscious or shift them to a different astral plane. Something that is irritating for me is this pervasive received wisdom that the best way for a hypnotist to deal with an "analytical" subject is to use a shock, confusion, or overload induction. The subject might analyse your suggestions if you go slow, god forbid, so hit them hard and fast and knock them out before they have chance to start computing what you're doing. I really don't think that this does anybody any favours because this approach only serves to accentuate the above expectation, and for certainly the majority of people who experience hypnosis that isn't really what the experience is like for them at all.

There are hypnotists who claim to have zapped "analyticals" into somnambulism with a shock induction, who like patting themselves on the back for being so clever. I'm afraid my answer to this is that if the subject did go into a deep trance from those sorts of induction I cannot see how they can be one of these lower 20% anti-somnambulists, and thus described as an "analytical". To me the implication being made here is that if a subject does not know how to think uncritically telling to them to do so more suddenly will suddenly enlighten them; of course in practice that can't and doesn't work.

A lot of hypnotists subscribe to the view that the subject is either in hypnosis or out of it and that every induction is an instant induction because there is a specific point in time when a subject goes from not being hypnotised to being hypnotised. So, get the subject "there" and you're home and dry.

I like to see hypnosis differently. To me it's a more like a channel of communication that exists between the hypnotist and subject. This connection, rather than simply being on or off, is more akin to something that is ramped up in intensity along a continuous scale. The "sleep! you are now in a trance" model is still something that can be utilised of course, but as I have mentioned in previous posts it really isn't needed to achieve phenomena. The intensity of this state is of course characterised by the phenomena that one is able to achieve with the subject.

This is the point that I am trying to get to: I don't care how much my subject analyses what I am saying to them, because as far as I am concerned being "analytical" is not a problem. In fact, my best ever subject holds degree in chemistry from Oxford and is currently doing their Ph.D at Cambridge and I don't think I've ever met anyone more analytical.

No, a subject being "analytical" is not an issue whatsoever.

Or rather, to put it more precisely, it's not the issue. So what do hypnotists really mean when they say "analytical"?

Well, I think there are a number of words that better describe a willing but hypnotically unresponsive subject than "analytical". Such subjects could be described as "critical" or "challenging" for example, as in being naturally inclined to challenge what the hypnotist is saying and seeking to correlate it with outside evidence before they believe it. Perhaps "curious" is another word one could use; the subject having a desire to be fully aware so that they can watch hypnosis working on them.

Ultimately though I think that it is better to see an unresponsive subject not as someone who is doing something obstructive to hypnosis, but as someone who is simply not doing what they need to be doing for hypnosis to work. I still see the ability to go into a hypnotic trance as a skill which comes to some people more naturally than others, but is within the reach of anybody given the right guidance and enough practice. This is the premise that best fits my own experiences, and those of others that I have met.

My conclusion here is that I would like all hypnotists to cast off the misleading and inaccurate term "analytical" and refer to difficult subjects by an expression that conveys the impression that like everybody the subject has a latent ability to be hypnotised that, as a consequence of their natural way of thinking, merely remains undeveloped.

That's settled then. Until I find a better word I shall refer to these people as "undeveloped subjects"