Ideomotor response is a subconscious reaction directly from the central nervous system. It occurs when the thought of a movement produces slight tension in the muscles that would be used to carry out that movement, thus actually producing the imagined movement without conscious or voluntary effort. In the arm-raising test, for ex- ample, with the suggestion, your arm is lifting, up, up, higher and
higher, the muscles become more tense and movement takes place,
even though the subject is unaware of conscious participation. You can utilize this automatic reaction in hypnosis (or even the waking state), by telling the subject that you are going to ask him a question or series of questions, which will go directly to his subcon- scious mind. From this, you expect a subconscious answer, free of any conscious interference. Explain to the client that the movement of his right index finger will indicate a negative response and the movement of his left index finger will mean a positive response. When you ask a question, the finger involved will lift automatically, giving the answer that his subconscious relates. These signals come directly through the central nervous system, without critical analysis of the conscious mind.
The same subconscious responses can be achieved with a crys- tal ball, a pendulum, or any weighted object tied to a string. The
subject sits in a chair with his elbow on the table in a comfortable, but steady, position, with his arm at a 45-degree angle. He holds the string between his index finger and thumb. You instruct him to think Yes and concentrate on that one word only. Soon, the crystal ball will begin rotating. This particular rotational direction indicates
Yes to this subject. Establish the No in a similar fashion. The mean-
ings of different rotations differ from subject to subject, depending on whether they have right or left dominance. With all subjects, there will be slight, involuntary movements of the fingers, as the pendulum rotates. Once you have established the Yes and No responses, whether by the finger-lift or the pendulum, check them out, by ask- ing questions to which the subject already knows the answers. You might ask such questions as: Is your name John? Is today Mon-
day? Are you 25 years of age? and so on.
It is important that the subject concentrate his attention on the question itself, not on the answer; otherwise, he might influence the response by his conscious desire for one particular answer. Word all your questions so that they can be answered Yes or No. If more than one question is needed, use a narrowing-down method. If, for instance, the subject has a fear of flying, you might ask him the fol- lowing series of questions:
1. Do you have a fear of flying?
2. Have you had this fear for one year? Two years? Three years?
3. Have you had this fear long enough? 4. Do you want this fear?
5. When you become more relaxed, will this fear begin to leave you?
6. Can you relax with hypnosis?
The negative conditions of the fear entered the subconscious mind at a time when the individual experience created a highly neg- ative suggestible state. Now, by creating a highly positive sug- gestible state through hypnosis, the fear can be neutralized by implanting positive ideas, even while you are still engaged in ideo- motor questioning (Questions 5 and 6 begin this process). The sub- conscious mind has received impressions since the day we were born and, possibly, ever since we were in the womb. It has recorded and stored the most minute details of feelings and events that our
conscious mind has long-since forgotten. In theory, the mind re- sembles a computer. During ideomotor response, it draws on infor- mation that it has accumulated, regarding all the conditions of the past that relate to the question being asked, and then it produces an answer. It functions much like a mathematician, who takes a proj- ect, adds all the known factors, computes them, and comes up with an answer.
When ideas and images that the mind holds are stimulated and organized by a question, impulses travel through the nervous system and can be seen as physical reactions. Most often, these responses can be observed only through electrical devices, such as the poly- graph. Through the ideomotor response technique, however, these responses from the subconscious mind via the nervous system can be detected with a minimum of effort, since the subconscious mind, not only accumulates and holds memories of all the events of our lives, but also controls bodily movements of which we are not even aware.
One of the greatest advantages of the use of ideomotor response is to identify any negative traits, conditions, ideas, fears, or causes of behavior that might be hindering the client, but which might be consciously inaccessible. The ideomotor questioning technique can be used with questions on any topic, and you can achieve results with it, as long as the answer is in the subject’s mind. Ideomotor questioning cannot tell you what is in someone else’s mind.
The mind is remarkably accurate in its answers because of the accumulation of the countless bits of information that it has stored throughout the subject’s lifetime. Also, it is interesting to note that, if this experiment is properly done, even if the subject feels that the answer should be No, the subconscious mind will relate Yes, indi- cating true subconscious response. This also substantiates the the- ory that most of our emotional problems are created by conflicts between the conscious and subconscious minds. It must be noted, however, that the answers obtained through ideomotor response should not be construed as absolute truths. They should be instead viewed as the client’s subconscious beliefs on the subject. A client, for example, who provides information through ideomotor response, that the cause of his or her problem is rooted in a childhood trauma, provides the hypnotherapist only the confirmation that the client’s subconscious believes that to be true, not that it is an absolute fact.
Biofeedback (GSR)
There are four different areas in which biofeedback can be very helpful, when used in conjunction with hypnosis. They are:
1. Testing suggestibility
2. Testing for Hypersuggestibility 3. Identifying traumas
4. Aiding in self-hypnosis
The biofeedback instrument that the Hypnosis Motivation Insti- tute has found to be the most effective is the GSR meter – a small, battery-powered, solid-state unit, which measures galvanic skin re- sponse (GSR), and which is acutely sensitive to emotional or phys- ical stress or excitement. It has two electrodes, which are attached firmly around two fingers of the same hand, and the meter has set- tings, ranging from one to nine. A larger unit, called a biosonome-
ter, also has a meter for gauging feedback visually so that the
speaker tone may be switched off and the visual feedback meter used alone.
The threshold tone of the GSR meter determines the body’s state of relaxation, and the tone changes in pitch, in relation to the changes in skin resistance. The signal change indicates the activ- ity of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, and this feedback allows you to observe your subject’s reaction (or your own) to emotional stimuli. If you turn the knob of the GSR meter slightly to the right, you will hear a rhythmic, ticking beat, and as you continue to turn it, it will become a steady tone. The tone will vary in pitch. A higher pitch indicates activity or stress; a lower pitch in- dicates relaxation. There is usually a one- to three-second delay between the time the stimulus occurs and the time the tone rises in response.
The setting that produces a normal tone will vary with each sub- ject. There are no absolutes. Approximations, to be used only as guidelines from which to begin, are as follows: 1.5 to 1.9 for the physical subject, 2.5 and up for the emotional subject, and 2.0 to 2.2 for the balanced subject.
The GSR meter clearly distinguishes between Physical and Emo- tional suggestibility, and can be used as an aid to testing sug-
gestibility. The Emotionally suggestible subject, who enters hypno- sis through expectation and inference, will rapidly bring the tone down to a very low ticking, or even to no sound at all, as he becomes more suggestible or receptive in the hypnotic state; and he will be able to maintain this low ticking during the entire induction. The Physical subject, on the other hand, enters hypnosis as a result of anxiety, fear, or any physical feeling that stimulates excitation; so the tone will increase at first, indicating activity, and then decrease or normalize, as relaxation takes over.
Once the induction has ended and the subject is in the hypnotic state, the tendency is for the GSR resistance to go down for, both, the Physical and the Emotional subject. For the Emotional, it may drop all the way to zero; with the Physical, it may go down to one or two. It is relative to the level the meter registered during the induc- tion.
Emotional and Physical subjects differ in the awakening proce- dure, as well. When you awaken the Emotional subject, the tone generally begins to rise and then returns to normal. This indicates how long it takes the subject to come out of the hypnotic state. The normal awakening time is one to three minutes. As you begin to awaken the Physically suggestible subject, the meter may drop con- siderably; but as he awakens, it will go very high and then level off. If the tone has not returned to normal after three minutes, the sub- ject may be trying to escape back into hypnosis, and you must use a jarring method to awaken him completely.
The biofeedback approach works especially well during the first session; but, once a subject is accustomed to using it as a gauge to enter hypnosis, the meter will not react as strongly in either direction. The hypnotist should always explain the results of the responses to the client, after he has come out of the hypnosis, in order to further reinforce its effect.
Another important way that biofeedback can aid the hypnotist is by revealing Hypersuggestibility in a client. A hypersuggestible in- dividual is in a waking trance-state and can easily be affected by negative influences in his environment. Both Physical and Emotional subjects, who are in this state, will respond to the GSR meter by very rapidly lowering the tone and maintaining it without change. If this occurs, follow the Dehypnotization process (outlined in Chapter Seven) until the meter gives a normal tone for that person.
Another use of the biofeedback is to help identify traumas or trau-
matic experiences. To do this, set the gauge at the level that gives a fairly rhythmic beeping – about two beeps per second. While the subject is in a conscious state, tell him that you are going to ask him a series of questions dealing with the symptoms he is reflecting. In- struct him not to think of the answer, but to concentrate on the ques- tion itself. When you find the cause, with either an Emotional or Physical subject, the emotional response will be recorded by the tone of the meter. The more severe the trauma, the greater the rise in tone. This will continue, until the individual’s trauma has been dis- sipated. When the alternatives to the cause are given consciously, the Emotional subject is more likely to bring the GSR reading down than the Physical, but it will increase measurably in both cases.
Once you have located the cause, place the subject in a light state of hypnosis and give him positive alternative suggestions, until the gauge ceases to raise the level of the meter. This indicates that the mind has accepted the alternative and that the cause is dimin- ishing in power. An alternative to this approach would be to give positive, literal suggestions, directed at removing the cause.
The biofeedback meter is also an effective aid to self-hypnosis. In essence, it becomes a tool for creating the suggestible state of total relaxation, where self-awareness and self-control begin to in- crease, causing a greater degree of suggestibility to oneself. As an individual achieves relaxation in self-hypnosis, the tone will decrease and eventually cease, in proportion to the degree of relaxation. If he practices bringing the meter down at all different ranges, he will de- velop greater control of his body and, through the Law of Associa- tion, greater control of his emotions. He should practice obtaining and sustaining this control in self-hypnosis, by giving himself sug- gestions of calmness, relaxation, and self-confidence, while using the GSR meter to measure his progress.
The main difference between the smaller GSR meter and the larger biosonometer is that the smaller one is much more sensitive. Even a change in the operator’s tone of voice may alter its tone. It is most valuable as a gauge for determining the subject’s sug- gestibility, as he is entering the hypnotic state. The larger unit is used mostly in the conscious state, to seek out traumatic events in the subject’s life. Once you become proficient with the smaller unit, you should switch over to the larger one exclusively because it is less sensitive and, thus, easier to monitor.