Head-to-Toe Hypnosis

The words sounded for all the world like the stage directions for an old-fashioned vaudeville demonstration of hypnosis: "You are going to relax, and the feeling of relaxation will start in your scalp. When you feel this, one of your fingers will feel like lifting. That will be your 'Yes' finger. Then your eyes will feel relaxed, your mouth and lips will feel soft, and your 'Yes' finger will lift." The speaker works downward in a sort of hyp tease, through jaw, neck and shoulders, arms, chest, and abdomen, thighs, legs and feet. "When you feel relaxation in your toes, your 'No' finger will feel like lifting. Whichever finger it is, let it lift."

Whatever it sounds like, this is not a stage show. The hypnotist uses no eye fixation in the manner of the traditional mesmerist, and the performance is in the office of a reputable San Francisco psychiatrist, who is convinced that it speeds treatment even for seriously disturbed patients.

Lowering the Barriers. Once he has his patient hypnotized, Psychiatrist Richard A. Kunin, 31, works with the system of "ideomotor responses" (finger signals to indicate answers and reactions) developed by Obstetrician David B. Cheek, a fellow San Franciscan. Dr. Cheek finds that a mere nod or shake of the head during hypnosis is a relatively conscious effort that can cloud what the subject is recalling; finger signals, sometimes so slight that the psychiatrist can perceive them only as the tensing of a tendon on the back of the hand, work at a deep, subconscious level, and do not interfere with communication.

Dr. Kunin's first session is devoted to getting the patient relaxed, and suggesting to him while he is still hypnotized that he will be able to relax in the same manner any time he chooses. At the next session, Dr. Kunin says: "Turn your thoughts to a pleasant scene--a mountain, a beach or a woodland--and picture it to yourself. See yourself there. When this is in your mind, let your 'Yes' finger lift."

The important thing is for the patient to visualize the scene. Dr. Kunin feels that too many people do not "see with the mind's eye," but think about things in near-abstract terms, which are not good enough for psychotherapy. When the patient has pictured the pleasant scene of his choice, Dr. Kunin asks him to recall a previous occasion when he was in a similar situation, and to describe it, along with his feelings about it. If the therapist interrupts with questions, the finger lifts are sufficient answers, and they do not break the chain of the patient's associations.

Later, the patient is asked to picture a future situation that he dreads, and to rehearse what he will do to draw its sting. "If we ask an alcoholic to project himself into a picture where he is in a drinking situation," says Dr. Kunin, "he can link his 'No' response with all his visual images of self-deterioration." The simple finger-lifting device then becomes a means by which the patient can call up such images himself in time of need. The maneuver, says Dr. Kunin, can give him aid and support, so that he can refuse the drinks that an oversolicitous host is pressing him to accept, while further talk-it-out therapy helps him to resolve his underlying emotional problems.

Respectable Decade. Dr. Kunin believes that all psychotherapy makes use of the power of suggestion, but that hypnosis makes the most direct and efficient use of it. It helps the patient to concentrate, and with the added advantage of ideomotor signals it markedly improves communications between therapist and patient.

Although hypnosis has become medically respectable in the past decade, after having been all but ignored for 50 years, there are still only a few hundred psychiatrists using it in the U.S.* It is impossible to get precise figures to show just how much it actually speeds up therapy. But optimistic hypnotists believe that even in difficult cases they can get a cure or a marked improvement in nine out of ten patients with once-a-week treatment, and that usually they can get it in less than a year. And the patient who cannot be hypnotized, they say, is the exception.

* More psychiatrists, as well as other physicians and dentists, may be moved to try it, now that Hypnosis in Modern Medicine (Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Ill.; $12.75) has been issued in an updated, completely revised edition, with a 13-man, four-nation team of contributors, and New York City's Dr. Jerome M. Schneck as editor.

A Better Bite for Father Head-to-Toe Hypnosis

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