A few years back, I wrote a screenplay about a con man who, for a fee, offered you a glimpse of paradise. You would enter a solemn looking cave where you were seated at a thrown like chair. Part of the "magic" ritual involved drinking from an ominous looking chalice. As your eyesight got blurry, you would soon find yourself in a Grecian garden with lavish feasts and scantily clothed "angelic" beings. Your personal hosts would gather around you, indulging your every fantasy while feeding you fruit from the feast table. Just as you were about to go a little too far, you would again find yourself fading off into a trancelike state that ended you back in the cave.
The trick was to get people to believe they really had "journeyed to another world" and somehow convince them that with but a little more work, they could truly have an experience that would be well worth another hefty chunk out of their savings account.
Obviously the subjects were drugged. First by the drink and then by the fruit. The rest of the process simply involved carrying the mark out a back door to "paradise". What made the plot so easy to sell is the fact that deep down inside, we all dream of somehow being "taken" like this. We want to "go somewhere else". We want to live without limits. We want to "live the magic".
I often find myself staring at clients, as they talk, wondering what they really want. Am I really here to help them resolve those "lost 3 hours" during grad night, or are they simply trying to go back to a happier time in their life? How much of my practice is truly an objective digging for reality, and how much is subject to fantastic presuppositions? And as I skip back and forth across that thin line, how ethical is it to sell a client on a story I know is purely fantasy?
Just this past month I had a girl come in to try and find her real mother. She had been adopted at an early age, and had spent years trying to find out information about her birth parent. We talked for a few moments, and a several important "clues" emerged. First of all, she had seen my show. I always cringe when I'm doing regressions or other investigative therapy on someone who's seen my show. On stage I work hard at creating the illusion of being able to casually snap my finger and immediately control the inner thoughts of volunteers. It doesn't take long for most audiences to believe that a couple words from me and their innermost thoughts and dreams would immediately flush out to the surface. It's a great image on stage, but in an investigative therapy setting, it tends to create false hopes and expectations. And, unfortunately, more times than not, the anticipation of the session allows the client time to create fantasies they can flush out, on demand, to satisfy their presupposed expectations.
As I explained to the lady that she would be safe at all times, and that she would remember all that had happened, I could see her eyes starting to glaze over a bit. Already she was letting herself focus to the level of a very powerful rapport. I quickly moved up the pace and asked her to relax, close her eyes, and simply take a deep breath. Almost immediately she was out cold. I then explained that we were going to go back a couple days to last Saturday morning. What had happened? She immediately started pouring out the details, almost too many. She could answer any question correctly. She knew exactly how many grains of rice crispies had fallen on the ground. It was almost too good to be true. My gut feeling was that it wasn't. But what should I do? Should I wake her up and scold her for trusting me? Should I tell her to quit looking so closely, and instead to simply try to remember in vague generalities? How should I get her focussed on the right track?
As she continued, I quickly managed to take her from her High School Prom to her first date. From there it didn't take much to go back to her 12 birthday, at the last foster home she remembered living at. She easily saw the social worker that dropped her off, and was able to backtrack to the house she came from. Everything about the house. How many dishes were on the table, the color of the wall trim. Again, I felt like I was accessing a chain of memories she had created to produce on demand. From there she followed another social worker, who carried her from her car back when she was just 2 years old. We traced her back to another home, a run down trailer where she lived with her mother, an older brother and a baby in a crib. She easily described the pictures on the wall, and created an image that was eventually going to be quite easy for a sketch artist to recreate. Everything was perfect. And that was the problem. Most time regression cases take a bit of digging. It's not easy to remember all the details at first. It usually takes finding an anchor (staring at the social workers dress, going down to her shoes, describing what they looked like and what she's standing on. Then following the floor to the wall, up to the pictures, around to the furniture, and so forth). This lady described this trailer like she lived there now. What should I do? Should I leave her convinced she had discovered an incredible truth (which she would never be able to verify), or should I tell her the truth, that more than likely she had just wasted $150? Should I let her buy her fantasy, or should I slap her back down to reality?
As hypnotists we all face this dilemma, in one way or another, in at least half our cases. Let's face it. The fact that people believe we are all powerful helps us do our job better. But are we buying into the very fallacy we are so often accused of, exploiting a placebo effect? And if we are, how much damage are we really doing?
I remember regressing a rape victim once for the police. As she walked through all the traumatic details, I could tell it was allowing her to nurture a healing process. Seeing it wasn't her fault made her feel safe, untarnished. And yet, as I listened, I soon realized she was feeding me a story that fit together too well. It might have been therapeutic, but it was pure fantasy, and considering the police were paying for the session, and not her, I couldn't help but wonder if she was supposed to be the sacrificial lamb we'd offer up to "truth, justice and the American way". Should I force her to delve in areas she didn't want to go, just to help the cops out with their case?
At the risk of delving a bit too deeply into Philosophy 101, the real question here is, does the end, in fact, justify the means?
There was a time when perhaps I was a bit more compassionate than I am now. I wouldn't have even considered not allowing a person to delve into their fantasies. Heck, I was getting paid, and they were getting what they wanted, what could possibly be wrong? But then I remember a conference I was speaking at once where a doctor accused hypnotherapists of selling schizophrenia. I remember pondering on that one for a while, and realizing he wasn't far from right. When I let a person indulge their fantasies, these thoughts become a reality in their sub conscious mind. The lady seeking her birth mother would probably waste a lot of money visiting old trailer parks, and the rape victim would eventually realize that all she had actually done was bury the real truth deeper into her inner mind. And the very fact that I had given her a second reality to cover for the truth would make it even harder, up the road, to come to grips with the real reasons she hated men and felt "dirty". It's almost like creating an excessive compulsive instinct. By allowing a person to accept a lie as the truth, you give them the quick roller coaster ride that makes them think they're happy. But as soon as they get off, they find themselves not only exhausted from the ride, but too dazzled to be able to recognize the real monsters in their lives.
In the case of the adoptee, I did stop the session and quietly complement her on her incredible ability to be hypnotized. I then asked if she felt she might be adding a few of her own, imagined details to the picture. She thought about it for a while and then admitted that she wasn't actually seeing things until after she started to describe them. I cautioned that under hypnosis it's easy to create realities that don't exist, and asked that she accept the fact that digging that deep into her mind might take a little while, and plenty of focussing. I then asked that we try again, and that this time she look to actually see or accept the fact that she wasn't seeing, what was around her. We then started over, with an empowered subject, who was not only able to quickly reach a deeper Alpha level but soon worked her way through another series of not so glamorous pasts. It didn't take long for her to see the difference, and by the end of the session, we had some pretty concrete facts to go on. But most importantly, she now had an added respect for me and the whole hypnotherapeutic community. She also realized that although it might be fun to explore, what we finally ended up with was the truth, something she could afford to invest time and money investigating.
The rape victim was a bit harder. She was having so much fun working her way through this event without hurting. It almost broke my heart to stop her and tell her she was merely fantasizing. I explained that it was very common for rape victims to hang on to an imagined chain of events that would justify the end results without forcing them to face the pain and anguish of what really happened. I took some extra time to explain how it was important that she did work her way through what really happened, and that the real strength of hypnosis, was it's ability to spare her the pain. I explained that we could create a third party perspective that would allow her to come to grips with reality without having to suffer the humiliation again. It took a while to get her going the second time, but eventually she forged past her fear and opened the real door that lurked ominously in her memory. She walked in, felt his hand on her shoulder and then felt herself slowly "leaving her body". "It's like one of those movies where a person's ghost is floating over an operation watching." I explained, "you can see all the gory details, but you realize it's like watching some gross, x rated movie. It's a bit sickening, but there's no reason to feel pain or humiliation." We worked her through the entire scene, complete with her scratching him on the side of the neck, and her noticing a small scar on his hand, both facts that eventually helped the cops identify the suspect. They ended up with an arrest, but far more importantly, the lady was able to talk about the experience freely with me and a female cop after the session, not feeling disgraced or tarnished, but instead turning her aggravations towards the real culprit, the rapist.
Before writing this article, I tried to imagine a situation where allowing a client to believe a lie would be acceptable. I thought about past lives, a strange phenomenon that I believe depends almost entirely on this presupposed fantasy syndrome. I delve quite deeply into the dynamics of this phenomenon in my December, 1998 article, here on Hypnogenesis, "The Problem With Past Life Therapy." I thought about people wanting to hear a nice last word from a deceased parent or mate. I wondered about  people willing to accept false explanations for phobias, and thus "resolve" the issues at hand. Do any of them really benefit? Did we offer a service if all that happens is we help them bury the truth deeper into their inner mind, where it'll haunt them for the rest of their lives. Can I ethically accept payment from a person who I know is now walking around carrying a neurotic time bomb just waiting for a trigger? Personally, I could no more sell a fantasy than I could endorse a doctor who remedied a ruptured appendix by offering a steady supply of morphine to the patient. Of course, there is one exception:
A couple walked in who were having a serious problem achieving sexual satisfaction. They both seemed to be carrying a bunch of twisted moral luggage that told them that sex was dirty, even among married people. I tried to explain just how special a moment sex was, and how it was a pure culmination of the joining of two people who loved each other. I had them see themselves loving, wanting, and feeling free with their spouses. And then I created a fantasy for them to not only experience, but for them to accept as reality. I actually forced them to see each other as pure and desirable, but more importantly, I had them each feel empowered to let go, to enjoy. It's one of those rare moments when the fantasy is more desirable than reality, so I allowed them to indulge themselves. Of course, the question has to be raised here, whose fantasy did I sell? His, hers or mine?