The Tortoise - Dan Jones Hypnosis & Psychology
The Tortoise - Dan Jones Hypnosis & Psychology
The Tortoise is a KZread channel which shares interesting, helpful and educational information. Topics include: autism, hypnosis, psychology and neurology among others. The goal of the channel is to help psychological therapists have greater therapeutic success with clients.
I share over 25 years of knowledge and experience of working in mental health, parenting and hypnosis, as well as my experiences of being autistic. I have written over 35 books on mental health, autism, hypnosis and wellbeing and hold talks, workshops and courses on these topics. From 2007-2019 I also ran an accredited hypnotherapy & psychotherapy clinical practitioner diploma.
If you have anything you would like me to talk about, feel free to mention it in the comments.
(Advice I give doesn't replace any medical treatment or advice, it is for information only. Always consult your medical practitioner for advice and guidance)
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So bloody important.
Fascinating
Great interview.
Interesting never heard of this before.
Outstanding ,thank you very much from Argentina.
Thank you for making these videos I have been learning a lot from you 😊
Good. Easy too
Have you ever had someone keep pace with you longer than you expected?
No, people have always quickly become confused, in seconds or a minute at most, technically, even if they did keep pace, which may mean they aren't focusing on going faster etc., because they are too busy making sure to follow the reversing, then it would still be a surprise when grabbing their hands and saying sleep, so they are likely to still respond well. However, if it did seem they needed to go longer and faster and adding in more reversing, I would do this and maybe add some extra bits in to make it harder to keep following...
This is a good one😆
Oh yes
Interesting never had this before.
This video is kind of scary because I keep feeling hypnotized while I listen to it. Meditation techniques, asmr, nsdr, body scans, it's all hypnosis??
Hypnosis is the process of focusing attention and increasing responsiveness. The first hypnosis most people learn is playing Simon Says, where you focus attention on listening to you speaking, initially saying 'Simon Says...' and with most people, at some point you have gained responsiveness and so when you just say to do something people do it. Line "Simon says sit down, Simon says lift your left arm, Simon says not your head, put your arm down' Most people have focused on what was being said, followed along and so become responsive, so when you give the suggestion without saying Simon Says they do it. You are being hypnotised if you read any book or watch any film or TV programme that engages you enough to then have you be responsive to it, like getting nervous while watching a horror, or laughing at a comedy, or crying at a sad film. You know it is across, it is fake, yet you have engaged with it enough that you are now responsive to what ideas are being suggested and you may even experience post hypnotic suggestion where even after the film etc has ended you are still responding to the ideas from it, like watching a horror and turning on all the lights in your home so that you aren't walking around in the dark, even though the film may have been decades old and it is actors etc and no supernatural or actual threat has increased towards you any more than it was before you watched the film, you are only doing these behaviours because of the film. If someone asks you questions this can be doing hypnosis is it is focusing your attention and increasing responsiveness. For example, if I asked you what makes you happy and then followed this up along for more details and then you started following my line of questioning by feeling happier, then you have engaged in being hypnotised. In meditation people often talk about doing body scan meditations and hypnotists talk about doing body scan hypnotic inductions. The scripts in books for both are identical apart from one classing it as meditation, the other classing it as hypnosis. ASMR also focuses attention, although often no-one leads to something, so you maybe more responsive but it usually only comes out more line anticipatory responsiveness, where you see or hear something is about to happen and start experiencing it before it happens. The ASMR experience as described is what people who are hypnojunkies would describe having when hypnotised. There is no feeling to hypnosis as it is just the process of focusing attention and increasing responsiveness. So you could fall that you are paying attention and absorbed in what I'm saying. This is a big sign of being hypnotised that you feel like your attention was absorbed, like if you are in love or enjoying a good book, film or lecture or song, or conversation with a friend etc. Any feelings beyond this would be dependant on what is being encouraged, so if you are hypnotised and encouraged to feel relaxed, you should feel relaxed, if you are encouraged to feel confident you should feel confident, if you are encouraged to feel excited this is what you should experience, etc. What I find is often when I talk people say they felt hypnotised, when actually I was talking calmly and so they felt relaxed because they were focused on what I was saying and how I was communicating calmness.
It'a great hearing these stores abt dr. Erickson. Where did hear them? What an obaervant person!
I have everything by Erickson and a lot more, including dozens of hours of videos of him teaching and demonstrating and probably over 100 hours of audio of his lectures, interviews and demonstrations, as well as books he wrote when others and his direct students wrote with transcripts of his work and lots of books by others about his work. He wrote hundreds of papers one of them was about subliminal auditory stimulation.
Great interview.
this is lovely! what are some examples of deepeners you use? do you have any favourites? i usually do descending down 10 steps, drawing / rubbing out coloured numbers from 10 to 1. or a couple of arm drops and then following the alphabet or their phone number backwards, while drifting / fading out / turning volume to zeros or moving through a few nested gardens.
I rarely use deepeners, generally whatever I'm doing is deepening the experience. So my personal favourite way of doing hypnosis is just asking the person to close their eyes, perhaps suggesting they can get comfortable and relaxed as I talk with them, then I just do whatever it is that we are doing. So usually this will be mental rehearsal, so I will guide them through the process of having a sense of a comfortable chair somewhere in their mind, relaxing down into this chair and having a sense of a screen in front of them and a sense of whatever it is they will be mentally rehearsing playing out on that screen and then having a sense of restarting that, only this time, step into the you on the screen so that they can see what they would see, hear what they would hear, feel what they would feel, have the inner dialogue they would have, as they now experience that mental rehearsal as a first person experience. Depending on what we are working on they may mentally rehearse some past things going differently, practice something in the present and mentally rehearse specific future situations going differently. I may sometimes then follow this up with suggesting they can now drift back to that chair and relax as I talk in the background, and then I may share some of the metaphors they came up with during the session, so if they said they just wish they could gain perspective I may share about someone flying like an Eagle over a forest, if they said they feel like they are at a fork in the road and don't know which path to take, then I will create a brief therapeutic metaphor around this idea. If they said they feel like they are drifting through life with no purpose, I may create a metaphor of being on a boat drifting along but then seeing the river part and navigating onto one of the paths. I will also often present back some of the therapeutic ideas we have discussed. I won't do any other deepening, as the whole process is focusing and guiding attention, and in terms of what someone might call an induction, I may only say 'okay, just take a moment to close your eyes and get comfortable' and that will be it. I would also often not do any form of eyes closed section. Normally I'm only likely to do this if they will be doing mental rehearsal in a very structured way like this. In most of my work I would just be conversing with the person and the conversation is focusing their attention, so there is no need for a formal induction, and when things like mental rehearsal will be conversational, like me asking 'so, how will you respond differently in the future?' and then they start answering (meaning they are mentally rehearsing) and I will direct this by asking about sensory details, like what will they see, hear, feel, say to themselves, what will others notice - see, hear, etc. And I will be using presuppositions so that this is also all setting up post-hypnotic suggestions - so 'when you do things in this way in the future, how will things go differently?' and then they give themselves self-suggestions by responding essentially saying 'I will be doing this different in the future'. The only time I might use a formal deepener, is if I am specifically encouraging relaxation or sleep, where in some cases I might use a full body scan or countdown, or mix both, or use rooms of nothingness, or a lift, or whatever it happens to be that drags the process of focusing on relaxation out, as they aren't focusing on anything therapeutic specifically, the goal is relaxation or sleep. But even then in most cases I'll just say something like 'so, just take a moment to allow your eyes to close and allow yourself to begin to relax, and as you begin to relax, I'm going to talk in the background, and I don't know whether you will drift deeper relax/fall asleep faster to the sound of my voice or the spaces between my words' and then I will just say what I need to say relating to this person relaxing, or in the case of sleep, I may say that I will tell as story as they drift asleep, etc. When I started out back in the early 1990's I used to think that long inductions and deepeners were needed to 'get deep hypnosis' so that it is more effective, but within a few years had gained enough knowledge about hypnosis to know that this isn't the case, these are just other ways of focusing and directing attention and if the person keeps following what you are doing then they are being responsive, which is what you are trying to achieve, and you can do this without formal inductions or deepeners, just have the person paying attention to you and following along with what you are saying. Just asking a question like 'how will you know when things have improved?' is a perfectly effective induction. The person focuses on the question, on imagining the answer so that they can describe it, and then the deepening would be your follow up questions about what they will see, hear, feel, say to themselves, what others will notice, how that will make a difference, etc. And asking these questions in a tone of voice that keeps the person's focus where it is, not jolting them out of that focus to you talking. You are supporting and guiding their focus from that first question and holding it through all the questions, like you would when doing hypnosis, not having them finish answering the first question, reorienting to pay attention to you directly again, and then asking them the next question and they have to go inside their mind again for the second question etc. They are listening but focused internally on experiencing and answering the first question. Then before they reorient away from focusing inwardly, you softly ask them the second question etc. Most of what I do is done in this way, not using any of the inductions I teach here on this channel and not using any formal deepeners, although I think it is helpful to learn lots of inductions because they can help to teach a wide variety of different ways attention can be focused, from rapid inductions using shock or confusion triggering the orientation response, to active and effortful focusing, like on a spot or counting etc., and in different senses, like via words, touch, visual etc., to using the imagination for focusing.
@@DanTheTortoise oh i love this, thanks!!!
These are unlisted on one of my other channels where I used to teach hypnosis, mental health content and about autism. Now the other channel is a storytelling channel, but these might be of interest as they show how I do hypnosis in the context of doing full demonstrations, not just demonstrating inductions, so these sessions are therapy demonstrations done in front of an audience of students on training courses of mine... Examples of me doing hypnotherapy: Personal Growth and Time Distortion kzread.info/dash/bejne/d4eYzaaSqpayZ6Q.html (the induction is a couple of minutes in, before that is gathering information about what the client wants) Helping Someone With Mindset kzread.info/dash/bejne/pZhm08GAis-6eLQ.html (The 'induction' is at about 6m20s, before that is gathering information and answering some student questions)
@@DanTheTortoise amazing thank you 🙏🏼 🙏🏼🙏🏼
Encouraging video. Thank you.
Great short.
I had never heard this particular Dr. Erickson story before and found the whole topic fascinating.
Most of this information is from the paper Erickson wrote about subliminal auditory stimulation. He would often include a lot of personal example experiences in his papers when making points or sharing the history and origin of his thinking, learning or understanding...
Great short.
Great video and series.
I can see this works well - but what and why does saying "that's right, deeper and deeper" do?
It helps us fall deeper into hypnosis
That's right or that's it etc acknowledges the person is doing something correct and helps encourage them to keep doing that. So if I see the person relax their shoulders and I'm encouraging relaxation then I'll say that's it when I see the shoulders relaxing to acknowledge the relaxation. Or may say that's it as they breathe out, or if I notice some twitching in their hands etc. So that's it/that's right is just acknowledging to the person that they are doing something right and to keep doing it. Deeper and deeper is just presenting the idea to the person to continue to be more/deeper absorbed in the experience. It is also a phrase people often understand to mean to relax more...
@@DanTheTortoise Thank you for the reply - I find your hypnosis videos the best on youtube.
Thank you...
Inspiring and so happy to watch so clear to follow
I can tell you’re well experienced in the art. I feel secure that you’re the best on KZread to explain in layman’s words.
This is the one I use to help myself fall asleep every night, ever since I found your old video of this technique. It's great, thanks!
I can control empathy at will. I feel like a god
How to unhypnotise yourself? Asking for a friend... Or maybe that's me .. I'm lost 😬
Hypnosis is just the process of focusing attention, so to unhypnotise yourself you can ignore the presented ideas and focus on something else instead. Part of it is being aware that you can decide to do this. For example, it is common as a demonstration of hypnosis to have people forget their name. They only continue to forget their name as long as they decide to engage in the idea of forgetting their name. If they believe they can't remember their name then they don't. If they get distracted by something more important this can be enough for the person to stop engaging with the idea and so they can now recall their name despite not being told they can. Or the person can be uncomfortable with the experience and decide they don't want to follow the presented ideas. Doing hypnosis is like the experience you have watching a film. You could be watching a horror film and the film will present ideas to you about how to behave, like increasing anxiety and paranoia etc, and just like with hypnosis, if you decide you don't want to follow the presented ideas, perhaps they are making you feel too anxious, then you can decide not to, you can turn off the film or walk away from it, or turn the sound off etc, just like you can decide not to continue engaging with the ideas a hypnotist is presenting, you can walk away from them etc, and if you watch to the end, maybe you are experiencing post hypnotic suggestions from the film (post hypnotic suggestions are ideas presented during hypnosis that influence your experience after hypnosis), like jumping at your own reflection in the window, feeling paranoid that someone could be watching you through the window in the darkness that you can't see, or paranoid about turning the lights off in your home or walking through dark parts of your house as if there are threats in the home or spirits/ghosts etc, even though you consciously know all of this is illogical and untrue and that it is just the result of watching the film. The film was perhaps recorded years earlier, it was actors, not ghosts or real killers etc, and none of it really relates or has influence on what is going on in your home right now. Just because you watched a scary film hasn't increased the chances of having an intruder or ghost, but you are responding post hypnotically as if it does. You can reduce this and unhypnotise yourself by perhaps watching a comedy or distracting yourself with something else, or giving a little time distance so that you can think more clearly about it or be distracted by something more important, like maybe a friend calls needing help with something. As long as you buy in to the experience as being real and something you have no control over them you stay in that state, but when you take control and decide to do something different and think something different, then that is what you can think Just like with this film example, it can sometimes be difficult to think of what you can think about. For example it is common for some religious people to be stuck in their hypnosis and no matter what people say to them about how they are stuck in a religious hypnosis, where they have been told certain beliefs they should hold about themselves or the world, they can be presented with the facts and will ignore them, almost being hypnotically blind to them, and they may not believe that there is an alternative perspective on reality outside of their hypnotic perspective, and so it can sometimes take a while to become aware that they are in control of how they are perceiving and experiencing the world and they are in control of changing this by changing their focus of attention...
Thank you for your response, I want to help people with hypnotherapy
I think that the first “structured induction” does not seem realistic at all due to the fact the man’d facial muscles never relaxed.. please tell me more and explain this if it is to be true Thank you
Everyone responds in their own unique way. Hypnosis isn't about relaxation, so although in most cases when I do that specific induction people slump and become relaxed because that is what they expect to happen it is also very common that their responding leads to them smiling and finding the experience curious. When doing hypnosis you are observing for responsiveness, not relaxation. Although when I was looking for volunteers to be filmed for my eCourses I asked for anyone interested to get in touch, I only had 2 people reply, both unfortunately highly responsive. They both respond so fast that they were normally responding to my tone of voice before I even started the inductions. I wanted a collection of over 100 inductions demonstrated, so filmed the inductions back to back, doing about 20-30 in a single sitting. This also meant that fractionation played a part. They were responding quicker and easier each new induction. Ideally I would have liked about 10 volunteers and would have done about 10 inductions per person. So this constantly responding and it happening quicker each time meant that with both people they would smile and laugh as they noticed themselves responding again. For example I did this induction with both people and the other person, once he put his hand on mine and I said to look at me, he laughed, said sorry, moved his hands and rubbed his hands and then looked back at me and said okay, as he tried to focus on engaging in the specific induction I was demonstrating rather than responding just to the sound of my voice. I've got no interest in how someone responds, as long as it is a positive experience for them, only in whether they are responding. I treat how they respond as it being the right way for them in that moment...
@@DanTheTortoise thank you for this:) I have looked into it more I just had to say what I was thinking you know? I just am one of those people that needs to know. I have checked out your fb as well.
@@DanTheTortoise I appreciate this and would love to ask you more questions one on one but understand that you are busy. I don’t want to put my contact out there just as you don’t but i would love some advice in my life about this and also just about the autism spectrum. I’m still young but not the most keen in technology lol.
Yes! I used to think I had that lack of empathy gene becasue I would sometimes just freeze up and not react to certain things that I felt I should be emotional about. This explains a lot
thank you very much for all the videos you put out for free with so much info and lots of knowledge making it so clear and easy to understand , big thank you from Argentina.
Hi thx for making this very explanative video that is really good ! But there is certain part that left me some questions. One of them is the cues to know if soleone is in hypnosis. If I understood correctly the video, one of the big cues was the eye flickering and the body twitching a little. But is there more cues that can be distinguishable ? Sorry for my bad english, i am not very good at it 😅
You are looking for signs of responsiveness when observing to see if someone is hypnotised. So are they responding to you. In relation to things like eyes flickering or body twitching this would be only relevant if it is relevant. So if you are encouraging someone to focus internally but are perhaps frustrating this by keeping their focus external then a sign they are responding is that their eyes will often flicker as they want to close but they don't feel they have been given permission to close them so they don't want to do the wrong thing and close them when they haven't been asked, so they are responding well to the idea being presented for focusing internally, but also to the fact that you haven't specifically told them to do this yet. With twitching, if you are encouraging this then it would be a sign of responding, but it also happens naturally and so most of the time it isn't a sign someone is hypnotised but rather an unconscious thing that is happening naturally that you can then acknowledge and engage with and connect with inner work etc making it feel to the person more like it happening is because of the interaction with you and link it happening with an outcome, like "that's it, and each time those hands twitch you can drift deeper into hypnosis", so the hands twitching are then just something you are using because it is non-conscious and automatic and turning this into a response. You can obviously do this with anything "that's it, with each breath you can drift deeper into hypnosis" "that's it, with each blink you can drift deeper into hypnosis", "that's it, each time your mind wanders you can drift deeper into hypnosis" "that's it, as you continue to think about that you can drift deeper into hypnosis", "that's it, as you keep moving your hands in that way you can drift deeper into hypnosis", "that's it, as you continue to listen to me you can drift deeper into hypnosis" etc...
@@DanTheTortoise thanks for this long answer !
This is the best ever video about hypnosis. I'm already helping friends with my pets (I've a master for it), and I want to help my cousin to manage her anxiety
Hi. great videos fantastic work thank you from Argentina .
Thank you...
You nailed it...I visualise all the words first then vocalise them. I also need images of words so I can visualise the image to obtain the words... Bloody hard work.
Excellent videos. Already subscribed. If may ask, where in the UK are you based. I would like to get in touch
I do my best to never interact with people, although I do feel I have to at times... I live on the south coast of England between Brighton and Portsmouth...
Thank you Dan for your detailed and well thought out expertise in this video! I feel empowered by your knowledge and you explain things easily, step by step and I feel like I can easily apply your techniques with continued repetition. Thank you once again Don. Please continue making videos like this one for continued advancement. I'm a beginner and you make it easy to understand and start applying and you make things practical. 😊
Wow! This is so true for any type of an addiction!
Hi again, I’m so happy I discovered you Dan! Thank you for all you do and for offering a wealth of information to us-I plan to incorporate these techniques into my work with clients asap. You are a treasure-now that’s a compliment you can use for this technique 😆 Cheers🦋 Candace T.
Thimerosal Adjuvants, because your Mercury level's just aren't high enough to help workout Pink Sweaters equations: CO2 = PxSxExC Great Work on the mind, not keen on the awareness of what is happening outside of it though ;-/
My main focus, being autistic and working most of my professional life in the field, is raising awareness and understanding about autism and neurodiversity, and addressing myths and misunderstandings, of which the vaccine myth seems to be most persistent, despite being one of the most studied areas of autism research (with some studies involving millions of people and comparisons made with countries which don't use vaccine's or vaccine combinations claimed to cause autism to check rates of autism between those countries without the vaccines and with the vaccines, etc) and one area we can be most confident about it not being a cause of autism. It is also one of the most harmful myths because it has a high chance of discouraging vaccine use through fear, putting people at risk of harm from treatable and controllable illnesses, especially young children, and increasing the risk of harm to those who can't take the various vaccines. To me, it is significantly more important to be raising awareness and understanding about autism and neurodiversity and addressing myths and misconceptions than about topics like hypnosis, of which I also focus on clarifying myths often picked up from how it is portrayed on TV and in films, as well as how it has been portrayed by some stage/street hypnotists and how it unfortunately is still often even taught with outdated or totally incorrect information, like it being the 'alpha state' or putting people into a 'trance' or accessing a 'subconscious' or 'unconscious' mind etc., but this has always been secondary to me. My main focus and passion is to help people better understand people like me to hopefully reduce discrimination, bullying, stigma, to notice the strengths we have, and help make it easier for us to thrive in society/work/education etc., and help other autistic people not to feel alone, etc... To help people understand that autistic people are born autistic, will live autistic their whole lives and will die autistic. That we have different brain structure and wiring and so process the world differently, but this is just who we are, making us different, not less or more than anyone else, and some aspects of ourselves we can work on and make changes and other aspects are literally built into our neurology, so won't change never mind how much we or others may want them to change.
Thank you Dan💜
Great interview thanks.
How does one get past groups/individuals that claim you've agreed to circumstances/performed actions you know _for certain_ that you wouldn't but utilized hypnosis to frame things in such a way that you might due to being unconscious/having your wits truncated basically? That have literally stolen chunks of time from your life by having you in trance during these moments you *never* consented to? Is it possible to recall these moments they've suggested you forget through an ethical practitioner? Plus the most salient question is - how to bolster one's self against unwanted induction?
Will circle back to watch this but by the title and comments I can tell you're debunking the much-propagated idea that hypnosis is strictly beneficial and helps people with their bad habits and weaknesses - which I'm sure it can but there are reports OF it being used maliciously. Thanks in advance. One TEDTalk orator showed a practitioner having his passenger film him hypnotizing a visibly upset police officer out of giving him a definitive ticket for blowing past a stop sign/red light. The guy is well-known too. If he's willing to show himself doing that to a law officer, what else is he doing in private? Hypnosis has been utilized as a gateway to heinous crimes, violating rights, is/was illegal in certain locations and should be unilaterally _unless_ the subject specifically asks for the procedure, visits the advertised business for the purpose and records the session for their records and posterity. Hypnosis is deemed as innocuous as the practitioner's motives.
Hi Dan, I’m a licensed psychotherapist in the US and I’m wondering if once the client does this five finger exercise, do they need to be doing anything more before coming out of the hypnosis? For instance, practicing a behavioral change technique? Or is the five finger technique the behavioral/emotional change in and of itself? Thank you for your time, Candace T.
Hi Candace, In the various research studies they were just looking at the effects of using the technique, so the technique is the only thing used. They aren't doing anything else. For example, the five finger technique isn't being done followed by mental rehearsal of doing things different in the future and then guiding themselves back from the experience, they are just doing the technique, in the same way that the CBT variation of Betty Erickson's hypnotic induction (the 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique) is usually just done on its own, not getting to one and then doing some inner work before reorienting back from the experience, or someone doing 7-11 calm breathing. In the research it seems to be done just as a technique in and of itself. In reality a therapist isn't bound by following a specific research protocol, you can mix it into your work. I often teach simple self hypnosis techniques, like the Betty Erickson Three Things Induction or the Eyes Open/Eyes Closed Induction so that the client can use it as a standalone technique when they need to calm anxiety, reduce pain or help with sleep, etc. But also they can then use it to work on their problems themselves by adding in mental rehearsal and other therapeutic techniques. So, with this, you can teach it to clients and they can use it on its own, but in sessions you might use it as the induction process before doing some therapeutic work with the client, so that you are remaining consistent and teaching them this single way of being hypnotised, so that it matches what they are trying to learn, and you may fit it into broader therapy where you are obviously properly exploring the problem, identifying changes the person can make, setting therapeutic tasks, etc. And the five finger hypnosis is just a small part of the wider intervention with the client, something that will help to reduce anxiety or pain and improve sleep, but also can be used by the client to help them focus before doing their own inner work and is done to complement other work you are doing with them.
Dan I really appreciate your comprehensive response! Thank you so much. I’m getting a lot out of watching your videos and plan to incorporate many of the techniques into my work once I hypnotize myself to have the confidence to do them🥲 Thank you again🦋 C.
Great meditation.
Very informative thanks.💚🤍
This was super helpful! Thank you so much.
Do you think mental rehearsal will work with not being nervous around a coworker who I have feelings for?
It could do. There are also ways to reduce feelings of attraction, but you might not want to do that. You can work out how you would like to react and mentally rehearse reacting in that way. I would also use implementation intentions, telling yourself an if (or 'when') then statement and do this frequently, giving it plenty of attention while you are doing this. Something like "when I see them, then I will feel/respond etc in this way". These types of self suggestions trigger automatic future responses so that you respond in the preferred way in the future without having to give much thought...
@DanTheTortoise ok, I will try it, but you have me curious now with "how would I be able to reduce my feelings for someone?" Didn't think that was even an option.
you would be an incredible facilitator for me. our consciousness is non-local, and when I guide someone through other lives or realities, I guide their consciousness that is one with all
Great interview thanks.
So glad i found this channel! This is suchba blessing to me!