European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 27, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                F what is hypnosis by Daniel Golem an new York times fierce scientific Atiao & focusing on whether hypnosis involves a special stale of awareness or As challengers Conini. Is simply one person seeking to please another by cooperating Wilh suggestions Mado to him .-.-. White his Battle has Boon Lough Lor decades us implications Are growing More serious As the use of hypnosis As a clinical loot flourishes As never before. Tho debate has reached a now level of scientific Geophis Localton the origins of hypnosis go Bax to religious Healing rituals and France Stales according to Barry Brilliant a historian or hypnosis. The modern practice began with fran Anion Mesmer an .1 bin cent try viennese physician. Its usefulness As a therapy has been medically acknowledged. Hypnosis generally begins when f he hypnotist directs the subject to narrowly focus attention on a particular object or sound. This seems o cause the subjects to become susceptible to suggestion. Most experts agree that hypnosis is an altered stale of consciousness involving highly focused attention and heightened absorption and imagery increased Susce Libity to suggestion and closer Contact Wilh Iho unconscious said Erika Fromm a psychologist at the University of Chicago and an expert on the clinical uses of hypnosis. The challengers question hat View. I prefer o took at hypnosis As a person attuned to the demands of a situation who wants to please he hypnotist by having the experiences suggested to him or seeming to have them said Nicholas Spanos a psychologist Al Carleton University in Olla a lha chief critic of the prevailing views. He is joined in his critical stance by a handful of persistent t let influential critics who have produced a Stream of papers to refute the prevailing View. For example Theodore Sarbin at tha University of California at Berkeley argues thai me hypnotic subject is not in a trance but is merely playing a Rols. Because Spanos has conducted dozens of experiments to test the origins of hypnotic effects his attack is the strongest scientific Challenge to Date. It Tances up he thread at an earlier Challenge mounted by Theodore x. Barber. Spanola Mentor and one of the first modern psychologists to argue thai everything thai happened under hypnosis could go on without any hypnotic induction Good hypnotic subjects frequently behave As if hey have lost control Over heir behaviour according to Spanos. He said they act that Way because ii us their preconceptions about what in Means to be hypnotized. In the latest round of the Battle Spanos challenged Tzib three Phenomena most Olton cited As proof that hypnosis invokes a unique mental condition hypnotically induced amnesia pain reduction and trance logic an obliviousness o the logical contradictions of what a person does under hypnosis. Spanos writing in the current Issue of the behavioural and brain sciences reviewed dozens of studies including Many of his own that seam to show that All Erma Bombeck a hypnotized woman undergoes a brain Wava Tea Tat Tow University of Wisconsin three of these effects can be explained in terms of social factors including role playing and reactions to Subtle dues from the hypnotist. But despite the evidence in support of Spanola charges major figures in hypnosis research who responded in the journal said they were not persuaded by his arguments. It seems implausible to assume that a person who has hypnosis As the Only aesthetic for major surgery childbirth extensive dental work or other major operations reports Little or no pain merely to meet the demands of the situation hat is to fool or to please the hypnotist wrote Martin Orne a psychiatrist Al the University of Pennsylvania with two colleagues. Before the 19th Century ail major surgery was done without aesthetics said Spanos. Anecdotes suggest that you can get the seme effects without hypnosis. Physicians sometimes found they could reduce pain with simple suggestions such As you la Lee no pain. And there is less pain in surgery than most people think most organs Are insensitive to  not everyone can be hypnotized Many researchers consider  to be a sort of psychological Talent one which combines the ability to become deeply absorbed with an Active imagination. The most vivid hypnotic phenomenon such As trance logic and hallucinations Are found Only in those most susceptible to hypnosis about 97 percent of people can be hypnotized to some extent said Fror rim. And about 8 percent of people Are extremely talented Al it Spanos though sees Talent Al hypnosis As being Little More than a sharpened sensitivity to Subtle cues and an openness to suggestion. Spanos said that hypnotists typically do not ask outright thai the subject do something but rather suggest indirectly that it should happen. For instance instead of saying imagine there is a cat in your Lap the hypnotist suggests it by saying there is a cat in the person s Lap. Implying that he should perceive it. The subtlety of these cues Spanola argues accounts Lor the variation in the extent to which people Are susceptible to hypnosis. Many people miss the hidden command and so fail said Spanos. Ii the hypnotist suggests Ihler Arm is rising they just wait for h to Rise instead of having it  nearly 30 years ago Orne one of the major experts on hypnosis introduced the concept of trance logic which he described As the tendency to fuse everyday reality with imaginary perceptions in a manner that ignores everyday logic. In his original research Orne had highly suggestible hypnotic subjects took at a chair in which a person had been Bitting and see the person still sitting there. He also asked another group of people to pretend they had bean hypnotized and simulate the same experience. When instructed to look at the actual person who was standing behind them some of those who had been hypnotized reported an Odd Ellel they could look Back and Forth at the real person standing there and his image in tha chair. Those who were pretending in be hypnotized on the other hand often pretended that the actual person was somebody else or was not there at All Orne said. These findings suggest thai there is something about the Way people think under hypnosis hat is different from Normal thought he said. Bui Spanos based on his own and other research on trance logic draws a different conclusion. He has found thai when people who Ere no hypnotized Are asked to imagine an image with their eyes open they find it quite difficult 10 evoke a Crisp solid image. If they can Call to mind an image ii typically is transparent. His interpretation is that this is just what happened in Orne s trance logic Experiment the people who were hypnotized reported to images the transparent imaginary one and the real person because of Subtle cues suggesting hat is what they should do cues Hose who simulated hypnosis did nil have because hey did not receive the same implicit cues. I have always been led to believe that advertising agencies Devole their corporate lives to finding out the demographics of who buys their products. If the product is Beer they direct it toward men with gusto ii it s a Taxa Iva. There s a sweat Little old lady waking up to Sunshine. Ii it s a toy you la see the commercials on a saturday morning Between the cartoons so How come in teen agers spent $70.5 billion last year doing the grocery shopping for the family we still see women killing themselves Over a mop to see their reflections in the Kitchen floor i know it s hard to believe but since there Are go Many mothers who. Work outside the Home teen agers Are making purchases in record numbers and he number of Young shoppers increases every Day they in not Only deciding what laundry soap will a Page 16 the stars and stripes used they re influencing decisions on vacation plans and whal magazines come into the House. In a word. The financial giants Aren t giants anymore. They re kids. This july the first kids Bank is scheduled to open in Denver catering to clients 10 to 22 years old. It will offer full service checking and savings accounts business Loans and even credit cards investors Are Frank to admit they re after the girl scout cookie Revenue. Add to Hal the steady Stream of mile people coming up to underside Zellef windows Wilh weekly allowances checks from the tools fairy for 14 Leola the paper routes Yard work baby sitting and the High Cost of breathing increases and you re talking Mim magnates. My question is. Whan is the advertising Industry going to catch up to the people who really control Iho purse strings to this courtly no wonder children Don t monday april 27,19b7 feel any responsibility for the chores around Home. They think they re buying All lha detergent and those Coffee filters As go Fly to make Mother Happy. I d like to see Kiefs on television being fussy about the Peanut Butler they feed their family Young people mopping up major spills with their favorite absorbent towels and sending their parents off in the mornings with a breakfast Cereal Rich in fiber. Think of the Impact of having Tom cruise hustling his favorite tub and tile Cleanser or Molly Ringwald buying a garbage bag she can Amsl to lug to the curb without breaking it s just a matter of or. Betty Crocker did in for us Why not Lei ally shoddy do it for you think How a Mother s heart would quicken if a child said i borrowed your Broom worn and mom gave it Back and said you bought in. H s  c uni Ang bet Lmh Eye Dew