Hypnosis introduced the act of psychoanalysis into our culture.

‘Anything that starts so many interesting things and gets so roundly rejected had to be worth looking into’ - Dr David Spiegel

Hypnotism: everyone is interested in it but no one wants to be seen in public with it

First conception of a modern form of psychotherapy - the first time a talking approach could have a therapeutic benefit

This came about during a time where physics was the leading form of science.

Hypnosis is a treatment approach that is useful in a variety of medical and psychiatric and psychological settings.

Hypnosis can be understood as having 3 main components:

• Absorption - you see with great detail, but are less aware of the content

• Like being in a movie wherein you enter into the imagined world

• Believed in imagination - you don’t judge it you just experience it

• People who are more hypnotisable find it easy to get caught up in reading books, watching movies or sunsets

• Hypnosis - non-judgemental awareness

• Dissociation - putting outside of conscious awareness things that would normally be within consciousness

SUGGESTIBILITY

ATTENTION DIFFUSION + ABSORPTION

DISSOCIATION

Suggestibility - a tendency to respond relatively automatically to instructions

• In hypnosis people are less likely to critically judge what you are asking the clients to do

• It is crucial for the therapist to be wise and careful in what clients are advised to do

• You can bypass peoples usual unwillingness to engage in what is beneficial to them and allow change for the better

• Your ability to focus attention means you don’t have to critically judge what is going on - people do this automatically all the time

• All hypnosis is self hypnosis - I help people to evaluate what they already have the ability to do

Olympians practise the run by visualising how it will go within a state of self hypnosis, prior to the real thing

Allowing a full sense of focus, away from the usual worries and judgements

Brain anatomy and function can be seen in an FNMRI scan

Deoxygenation of blood happens when blood is flowing to more actions of the brain

Able to measure function as well as structure

Functional connectivity:

Salience network - anxiety scores after the trail making task

Default mode - rest

Executive control - cognitive demands of the trailmaking task

Connection between the anterior singular cortex network - area in the middle front of the brain - a context detector that helps us to decipher what to pay attention to - and what to ignore

It’s part of the worry system - the salience network

Activity in the ACC is correlated with activity in the dorsal material prefrontal cortex - part of the executive control network

Highly hypnotisable subjects experience these two networks working together - when one of these areas is up, the other is up

When we are concentrating intently - we tend not to be worrying about what else is going on because those two activities are coordinated

There is a biological signature of people who are highly hypnotisable that that distinguishes them from people who are not highly hypnotisable - there is a substantial and statistically markable difference between highly and not highly hypnotisable

HYPNOSIS AND DOPAMINE:

Evidence that hypnotisability is correlated with the activity of dopamine - one of the major neurotransmitters in the brain - basal gangular [motor regions] and in the frontal cortex

Neurotransmitter when people develop Parkinson’s

Dopamine is a big part of active thought and cognition

Significant correlation between levels of a metabolite of dopamine - homogenolic acid - and hypnotisability

GENETIC CONNECTION

People who have a particular variant of the COMT gene - a gene that’s involved in dopamine metabolism - this lot are more hypnotisable that those who have a different variant / polymorphism of that gene. Guess what COMT is also linked to: ADHD, Autism and PMDD. Let’s go.

HYPNOTIC INDUCTION PROFILE

Aka ‘how well can someone respond to a standard hypnotic induction?’

ACC - anterior cingulate cortex - part of the pain network - helps decide ‘yes this is an uncomfortable stimulus’

VLPFC - ventrolateral prefrontal cortex - inhibitory processes

Highly hypnotisable:

Reduced activity in the salience network (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex)

The more it reduces, the more hypnotised subjects think that they are.

Higher connectivity within the executive control region - and the insula - area that regulates blood pressure, heart rate - helps us to interpret and understand pain

This shows how connected we are to the part of our brain that regulates how the body is working and feeling

Inversed connectivity between the executive control region and a deep structure in the brain called the default mode network - when we are sat reflecting, not particularly involved in a task - this network is engaged

Hypnotic tasks turn off self reflection - reduces worry towards what new things mean towards themselves or others if they are engaged in a new activity.

Hypnosis is a mental state where - rather than just reacting to events that come in from the world - you can manipulate responses.

Frontal area of the brain - used to control the world - used to speak, communicate, plan,

Back part of the brain - the receptor brain - where we respond to sounds, visual input, somatosensory input

We react with the back

We act with the front

We can use hypnosis to control our ability to perceive the environment, and change our perceptions

POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY: blood flow in regions of the brain associated with looking at colour.

Hypnotic Alternation of Perception Experiment:

10 shocks to the wrist of electromagnetic current

Using event related potentials - measured electro activity on the scalp

Red line - normal reaction

Yellow line - reaction post-being hypnotised to believe that they have been numbed to the response

Changing the way people process pain signals - indicating potential for powerful clinical effects

The words you use change the part of the brain that give you analgesia

So, say ‘your hand is cool,  tingling and numb, filters the hurt out the sensation’ - pain relief came from the somatsensory cortex [back of the brain] where we process somatic sensations

When clients were told ‘the pain is there but it won’t bother you as much’ which is what people report when they take opiates - the change was in the anteror singular cortex

SO you can turn on or off parts of the brain depending on what we tell people in hypnosis

This is a technique that allows us to use very specific brain regions to obtain very specific results