2016 stands out already as a year that we have lost a number of well-loved and very popular figures. First Lemmy, then David Bowie and Alan Rickman followed this week by Terry Wogan. There have been others too.
On Facebook I saw someone mention that “God was just making his dream dinner party” which made me smile, and then someone else suggested that Terry Wogan was now interviewing Lemmy, Bowie and Rickman who were all on a couch laughing together and I loved that idea too.
A conversation ensued with a close colleague and friend of mine. I am in the process currently of recording more episodes for my popular podcast ‘Hypnosis Weekly’ and I’ve had some great people that I’ve been interviewing and I can’t wait until they start going public again in a couple of weeks time. In the conversation with my friend, I mentioned the idea of Terry Wogan sat beside a sofa with Lemmy, Bowie and Rickman on it all waxing lyrical about life and we progressed on to discussing who would be the dream people, past and present that I’d like to welcome on to hypnosis weekly as my guest.
Here are the dream guests I’d like to welcome on to the show:
1. James Braid.
This man essentially created our field, he coined the term hypnosis and began to depart from previous associated notions of woo. I’d want to ask him about his discoveries, his lectures and demonstrations conducted in front of groups of medical students and his use of self-hypnosis in overcoming some serious health challenges of his own.
2. Emile Coué.
A hero of mine. I’d want to enquire about his rejection of hetero-hypnosis and his initial thoughts regarding pioneering his autosuggestion method. I’d like to ask him about his transition away from the famous school of Nancy.
3. Theodore Barber.
I’d like to interview, not just because he was so prolific with his research, but he has so many major contributions to this field that still to this day flavour our evidence base and knowledge that I’d love to ask him about what he considers his most important contributions to the field of hypnosis. His work in the 60s and 70s in particular shaped the academic climate of the hypnosis field as it is today.
4. Graham Jamieson.
A modern one. I think he leads the way as far as exploring hypnosis via neuroscience goes and I’d basically treat the interview in highly self-indulgent fashion as an opportunity to learn as much as possible from him about what science tells us about the effects of hypnosis upon the brain. I’d also love to draw him on the question of hypnosis as a state or non state according to neuroscience.
I’d love to interview them individually, but would just as much love to have them on the couch for a Wogan-esque type of chat.
I know many people would say “where’s Ericsson?” but he’d probably just cause me to wander off into a stupor and not make for compelling listening, and most people who follow my work know that I do not always favour his approach in depth.
Other people close to making my final 4 are Clark Hull, Hypolyte Bernheim (both heroes of mine too for very different reasons), George Estabrooks (because I think he was off the wall and wrote about military uses of hypnosis – I just want to hear him try and convince me that the Manchurian Candidate could be real) and Irving Kirsch, I’d love to enquire more about the role of placebo in hypnosis with him.
There are so many more, but nailed down, those are the top of my wish list.
Do share your own top 4 list with me. I’d love to hear from you.
You have missed Milton Erickson! For me: Milton Erickson + Igor Ledochowski + John Overdurf + Richard Bandler + Anton Mesmer
Thanks Scott,
– I mentioned my reasons for not having Erickson there. I doubt I would make it to the end of the interview awake.
– You picked five and you’re only permitted a top 4.
😉
Good hearing from you, my very best wishes to you, Adam.
Depends at want point in his career that you are taking to Erickson.
Okay, I will get rid of Mesmer. I just want to see him do his passes.
For me the issue with Erickson is more fundamental regarding the entire approach regardless of the point in his career. Some of the points I’d raise feature on a thread here from a few years ago:
http://www.adamshypnosishub.com/topic/211/pros-and-cons-of-ericksons-approach
I would have:
Clark Hull – I’d like to ask how his opinion on the modern day study of hypnosis & the current level of academic study, research and evidence base. Has the field developed as he expected or hoped?
Kreskin – Why not! I’d love to chat and spot the suggestions worked into his conversation, ask about his work with the police and what he thought of the film “based” on his work.
Theodore Sarbin – Given his work in Role Theory I would be especially interested in discussing with him the current trend for ‘ being authentic’.
Someone who worked in a Greek or Egyptian Sleep Temple – Was it ‘just a job’, did they have specific training, did they realise that they could be doing something that people still talk about today?
That would be a fantastic interview group and probably a lot more fun than mine!! You have really made me smile here Lindsay, brilliant!
Best wishes to you, Adam
What a great article! I’d like to get Braid and John Elliotson in the same studio. Another is Charles Tebbet, who seems to have influenced people such as Ray Hunter. And last but not least, Anton Mesmer – what did he really believe was going on?
Elliotson does not sound like a very agreeable character from what I have read and so I’d only let him in if we have bouncers like they have on Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer. I think he’d be spoiling for a rumble at any opportunity.
As for Mesmer, by all accounts he wanted to do a lot of good and helped many people who could not afford him, I like his philanthropic side. However, I deeply dispute that Mesmerism is really anything much to do with hypnosis beyond it stimulating Braid to disprove it and in the process discovered and coined hypnosis. Plus, I suspect his continual passes would be highly distracting….. 😉
Thank you for your highly valued contribution as always, Adam.
My 4 dream interviewees would be:
1. Pietro D’Abano
A medical doctor from Padua, 400 hundred years before Mesmer, held the view that suggestion when practiced by a kind but authorities person had definite positive effects on mentally disturbed people.
He also had definite ideas about what constituted scientific knowledge, holding only sciences depending upon inductive and deductive reasoning to be worthy of the name.
I would like him to meet-
2. Irvine Kirsch, to discuss response expectancy theory, that suggests that hypnotic responses are initiated by the same mechanisms as voluntary responses, and that it is possible to increase responses to suggestions, potentially to quite a substantial degree
And also –
3. Theodore Barber whose extensive studies concluded that some people are superb subjects who are able to fantasize in a hallucinatory way, and the rest can respond to suggestions far more than hypnotists have realized if the suggestions are given firmly–and without the complexities of calling it hypnosis or administering a hypnotic-induction procedure.
The 4th I would like to bring to the table would be
4. John Kihlstrom, because he argued for hypnosis being an altered state of consciousness in which the subject responds to suggestions by the hypnotist for alterations in perception, memory, and the voluntary control of action, and now suggests that the stance for ‘state or non state’ should be abandoned, and construe hypnosis as
“Simultaneously as both a state of (sometimes) profound cognitive change, involving basic mechanisms of cognition and consciousness, and as a social interaction, in which hypnotist and subject come together for a specific purpose within a wider socio-cultural context.”
Thanks Linda, I love this answer!