Leaving hypnosis behind?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Our consciousness and our practice of hypnosis co-evolve. From earliest civilizations to the present, we can think of the source of our abilities and knowledge, along with our self-awareness, as progressing from external and imperative to internal and autonomous. This perspective aligns with Jaynes’ thesis on the origin of consciousness and its trajectory from a bicameral mind, to increasing self-efficacy, and on toward higher consciousness. With the ongoing emergence of our subjective and narrative consciousness comes shifting and multiplying resources for rational, shared, compassionate, and creative self-determination. However, the formal practice of therapeutic hypnosis – especially within reductive and diagnosis-based biomedical and psychological models – has lagged behind the evolution of consciousness. Most of the history of hypnosis has adhered to the bicameral paradigm. We have reserved a place for the authority of an externalized, revered entity whom we credit nonconsciously with our innate and extraordinary abilities. The creative applications of hypnosis by Erickson and the expansion of that work by Rossi signaled a fundamental emergence from that paradigm that encourages self-authorization and moves hypnosis practice toward a more evocative, systematic, and numinous horizon.