How Did I Know If I Was Hypnotized (an Anecdote)?

The previous blog advanced the idea that if you are not sure if you were hypnotized or not during a hypnotherapy appointment, that you can assume that you were hypnotized if you got the results that you desired. The following is an anecdote illustrating this idea.

One day at the Palo Alto School of Hypnotherapy, the director, Josie Hadley, was giving a class in hypnosis for weight reduction. She asked for a volunteer on whom an induction would be demonstrated, and several people responded with alacrity. The lady she chose, whom we’ll call Susie, came to the front of the room and stated that she was carrying an extra fifty pounds as a result of eating.

It seems that whenever her partner left town, she would be besieged by a horde of high quality chocolate-covered ice cream bars named after the bird of peace. When he returned, she could keep the ice cream bars at bay. However, the previous week, she had fallen prey not only to the chocolate-covered bars, but had suffered a skirmish with a key lime pie. The pie had prevailed and had joined itself to her entirely, with not a crumb to spare.

As Josie prepared to hypnotize Susie, I leaned forward, pen in hand, prepared to take down every word that Josie uttered. Although the world famous hypnotherapy textbook that Josie had co-authored, Hypnosis For Change, included instructions for a complete weight management induction, I had noticed that in person, Josie added many bells and whistles to her inductions, embedding subtle and sophisticated techniques to the basic format covered in the book.

Josie got to work with her soothing voice, describing the colorful beauty and satisfying delectability of vegetables both fresh and cooked, emphasizing the irresistibility of the green ones. I had grown up being allowed to avoid as many vegetables as I pleased, which eliminated all but broccoli, zucchini and potatoes, unless you count pumpkin pie. I meticulously wrote down everything she said, anyway. Josie also detailed the rejuvenating nature and pure joy of daily physical exercise.

After Susie was awakened, the class discussed the induction, then adjourned. I drove for more than an hour, taking Highway 17, a route that climbs and then descends a mountain. 17 is so often the scene of accidents that locally, there is a jet black bumper sticker that features a white skull and crossbones and the humorous text, “Safe and Serene 17.” Fortunately for me, I arrived home safely and didn’t try my luck with 17 again until the following week, when our class reconvened.

When we had all said our hellos, Josie asked Susie what kind of results she had gotten from the weight loss induction. Right away, Susie smiled that she had lost five pounds and had been eating a lot of vegetables. Then I realized it: I had also lost five pounds and had experienced unprecedented interest in green vegetables. looking back, except for the addition of anxiety caused by my white knuckled drive over 17, I had not felt much difference in my basic state of mind between the periods in which Josie was hypnotizing Susie and the drive.

However, now, one week later, five pounds had left effortlessly, and I liked vegetables. It didn’t stop there, either. Over time, I lost twenty pounds which have stayed off for over five years now. During those five years, I can’t count the times that I have ridden my bike in wintry rain to the grocery store, possessed by the demon spirit of physical fitness, and also the nature spirits of broccoli and zucchini. At times, I have even found myself in single-minded, bullet-like pursuit of ferally fibrous and strangely multicolored varieties of chard, including a boisterous plant called "dinosaur chard," of whose robust existence I had been previously unaware.