The Influence of Suggestion
Can the will of one person be controlled by that of another, through hypnotism or any similar practice? This question is often asked anxiously by those who fear that crime or misconduct willed by one person may be passively executed by another.
Hypnosis is a sleeplike and passive state that is nevertheless attentive and concentrated. It appears as if the subject were awake at just one point, namely at the point of relation with the hypnotizer. To stimuli from other sources, external or internal, he is inaccessible. His field of activity is narrowed down to a point, though at that point he may be intensely active.
The depth of the hypnotic state varies from shallow to profound. Comparatively few individuals can be deeply hypnotized, but many can be got into a mild receptive state, in which they accept the suggestions of the hypnotizer more readily than in the fully awaking state. The waking person is alert, suspicious, assertive, while the hypnotized subject is passive and submissive. The subject's coöperation is necessary, in general, in order to bring on the hypnotic state, whether shallow or deep.
The means of inducing hypnosis are many and varied, but they all consist in shoving aside extraneous thoughts and stimuli, and getting the subject into a quiet, receptive attitude, with attention sharply focussed upon the operator.
When the subject is in this state, the "suggestions" of the operator are accepted with less criticism and resistance than in the fully waking state. In deep hypnosis, gross illusions and even hallucinations can be produced. The operator hands the subject a bottle of ammonia, with the assurance that it is the perfume of roses, and the subject smells of it with every appearance of enjoyment. The operator points to what he says is a statue of Apollo in the corner, and the subject apparently sees one there.
Loss of sensation can also be suggested and accepted. Being assured that his hand has lost its sensation and cannot feel a pin prick, the subject allows his hand to be pricked with no sign of pain. Paralysis of the arm or leg can be similarly suggested and accepted.
Acts may be suggested and performed. The subject is handed a cardboard sword with the assurance that that is a sword, and directed to attack some person present, which he does with the appearance of serious intent.
Now, however, let the subject be given a real sword with the same command as before. Result--the subject wakes up! This suggestion was too much; it aroused dormant tendencies, broadened out the field of activity, and so produced the waking condition. A suggestion that runs counter to the subject's organized character and tendencies cannot get by without arousing them and so awakening the subject. Consequently, there does not seem to be much real danger of crimes being performed by innocent persons under hypnosis.
In mild hypnosis, the above striking phenomena are not produced, but suggestions of curative value may be conveyed, and so taken to heart that they produce real results. The drowsy state of a child just falling to sleep can be similarly utilized for implanting suggestions of value. One little boy had a nervous twitching of the face that was very annoying. His father, just as the child was dropping off to sleep, conveyed the suggestion that the child didn't like this twitching; and this suggestion, repeated night after night, in a few days caused the twitching almost wholly to disappear.
Suggestion often succeeds in a waking state. In a certain test for "suggestibility", the task is set of copying a series of lines. The first line is short, the second longer, the third longer still, the rest all of the same length, but the more suggestible individual keeps on making each succeeding line longer. There are, however, various tests for suggestibility, and an individual who succumbs to one does not necessarily succumb to another, so that it may be doubted whether we should baldly speak of one individual as more suggestible than another.
Suggestion may be exerted by a person, or by the circumstances. If by a person, the more "prestige" he enjoys in the estimation of the subject, the greater his power of suggestion. A prestige person is one to whom you are submissive. A child is so dependent on older people, and so much accustomed to "being told", that he is specially susceptible to prestige suggestion.
Suggestion exerted by the circumstances is about the same as what is often called "auto-suggestion" or "self-suggestion". A man falls and hurts his hip, and, finding his leg difficult to move, conceives that it is paralyzed, and may continue paralyzed for some time.
"Counter-suggestion" applies to cases where a suggestion produces the result contrary to what is suggested. You suggest to a person that he should do a certain thing, and immediately he is set against that act, though, left to himself, he would have performed it. Or, you advance a certain opinion and at once your hearer takes the other side of the question. Quite often skilful counter-suggestion can secure action, from children or adults, which could not be had by positive suggestion or direct command.
If suggestion succeeds by arousing the submissive tendency, counter-suggestion succeeds by arousing the assertive tendency. Suggestion works when it gets response without awakening the resistance which might be expected, and counter-suggestion when it arouses so much resistance that the suggestion itself does not have the influence which might be expected. In terms of stimulus and response, suggestion works when a particular stimulus (what is suggested) arouses response without other stimuli being able to contribute to the response; and counter-suggestion works when a stimulus (what is suggested, again) is itself prevented from contributing to the response. In counter-suggestion, response to the suggestion itself is inhibited, and in positive [{550}] suggestion response to other stimuli is inhibited. Both involve narrowness of response, and are opposed to what we commonly speak of as "good judgment", the taking of all relevant stimuli into account, and letting the response be aroused by the combination.