#and btw should i come in for induction and if so when. please help. thanks’

[ellaenchanting]

Good evening. I've talked to 3 psychotherapists and nobody was able to give me an answer due to lack of experience and knowledge. Since you're a deeply integrated part of the hypno community on tumblr and in rl and since you seem to have lots of hypno experience, I was wondering if you have a piece of advice for someone who wants to try out hypnosis but has had a psychosis before. I "just" want to know if it's safe for me to do or whether I should rather stay away from it.

Hi!

So first of all, I’m going to make clear that this is my Kinky Hypnosis Blog and am going to be giving opinions/sharing ideas as a Kinky Hypnosis Blog Owner. I’m not acting here in any sort of professional mental health capacity- so please take that into account when considering my feedback.

 I did a quick stroll through some research yesterday and was actually a little surprised at what I saw. When I was first learning/reading about hypnotherapy, I remember seeing constant warnings against hypnotizing people with tendencies towards psychosis (and especially people diagnosed with schizophrenia) because hypnosis was seen as inherently dangerous for this population. I was expecting to see tons of modern, research-based warnings cautioning people away.

I did not really see warnings about hypnosis being dangerous for people with psychosis.  Instead, I  saw recommendations not to use it with psychotic patients because  hypnotherapy so far seems to be an ineffective treatment tool for psychosis (particularly for schizophrenia). I know there  are researchers out there right now still working on ways to utilize hypnosis for  treatment in this population,  but so far their results have not been good enough to make it a recommended tool. Results haven’t been catastrophic or dangerous, notably, just non-promising for the effectiveness of hypnosis as treatment.  

The American Society for Clinical Hypnosis (which is the big non-layperson hypnotherapy group in the States) DOES recommend against hypnotizing people experiencing psychosis- but explicitly more because patients experiencing psychosis  tend to have shorter attention spans. It’s less a “this is dangerous” warning than a “this may not work or be beneficial”. 

I can think of a few other places where the notion that you shouldn’t hypnotize people with psychosis came from. There was a famous case in the 90s of Paul McKenna hypnotizing a man in a stage show who started showing psychotic symptoms a few days later. The court ruled in favor or Mr. McKenna- backed by testimony by   the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis and other experts that stage hypnosis could not cause schizophrenia. Still- since this all was happening roughly around the time I was first really starting to learn hypnosis, this might have impacted why I heard so much of “don’t hypnotize schizophrenics”. This warning also appears in a few clinical articles but- mostly very very old ones and not ones that really represent current thought.

There are some seemingly strong links between what delusions and hallucinations look like in hypnosis vs. in regular psychosis. Hypnotic suggestion especially can kind of  mimic the thought processes that naturally go into delusional thinking by encouraging magical thinking/looser associations. There’s also been a vibrant field of study in the past several years using hypnosis to simulate certain psychotic delusions- erotomania, Capgras syndrome, mirror misidentification, delusions of possession etc.- as well as conversion disorder and then do a brain scan of the hypnotized person. This is done as an exploratory way to guess at how delusions are produced in the brain during psychosis (because it is often much easier to give a hypnotized person a brain scan than a person experiencing psychosis). So- at least some researchers feel like the suggested delusions and close enough to organic delusions to research one for clues in the other.  There has also been some suggestions that the decrease in reality monitoring in someone who is hypnotized and hallucinating/experiencing effects and someone experiencing psychosis and hallucinating  may come from the same neurological place (both show decreased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex- which seems to help with reality monitoring amongst lots of other things). So- neurologically hypnosis and psychosis may look pretty similar. That doesn’t mean there’s any sort of causative relationship at all or that one will spark the other but- they may not be entirely dissimilar mental states.

So- let’s talk practical. 

No one knows the mental long term effects of frequent hypnosis. There have been no studies on the long-term effects of doing kinky hypnosis on anyone, much less people who have experienced psychosis previously. Longitudinal non-kinky hypnosis research on subjects doesn’t help because 1. it’s rare 2. it’s not usually looking at psychological effects of doing hypnosis 3. those subjects are hypnotized WAY less frequently than kinky subjects are. 

Who knows what the mental health effects of long term frequently hypnosis are? Or of doing kinky hypnosis? When I walk around cons people seem mostly OK?

You indicate above that you’ve experienced psychosis before but it doesn’t seem to be a current or a long-term part of your mental health picture. I’m curious about what “psychosis” means in this situation and what contributed to it. Also how long ago this episode was and how long the psychotic symptoms lasted. Was it in the middle of a manic episode*? Did you have brief psychotic disorder? Was it drug induced? Did it  happen because of physical illness? 

 I’m curious because if your psychosis was pretty state-specific (during mania or depression, drug-induced, caused by extreme lack of sleep/food) it is less likely to pop up in situations where those conditions are not the same. So, for example, if you experienced paranoia when you were manic but haven’t experienced it again, you are unlikely to slip into paranoia again randomly when you aren’t manic*.  

I’m also curious if you had just a psychotic symptom and that’s it. Many people (potentially even most people) have or will experience some kind of perceptual hallucination in their life for some reason- but that doesn’t mean they were clinically psychotic or mentally ill. (If this is the case, you may have less to worry about?)

I’m having difficulty justifying telling you “Hey, you’ve had a psychotic episode before so you should never do hypnosis” based on information I’ve found. I would also have difficulty justifying the stance of “I’m not seeing a specific warning in the clinical literature so- go knock yourself out! Do all of the hypnosis!” I think I’m  going to default to Risk Aware Consensual Kink. Know that  you are doing a potentially risky thing and be cautious.  Talk lots with your partner about your history and what you are experiencing every time you do hypnosis. Monitor yourself before and afterwards- check in with how you feel. You likely want to go slooooow with doing new things with lots of check ins. Be willing to stop if you’re feeling off or like you are having negative mental health effects.

There may be different risks based on what activities you’re pursuing with hypnosis. What are you looking to get out of your experience? If it’s an induction with relaxation and maybe some sexy orgasm suggestions, that seems like it might not be so risky. It would probably behoove you to stay from suggestions that replicate the specific psychosis you experiences- so if you have heard voices you may stay away from a suggestion where you her your hypnotist’s voice in your head at all times. If you tend towards paranoia specifically, you likely want to stay away from a LOT of the mind control-flavored stuff that’s pretty prevalent in hypnokink. If your psychosis was tied to a particular state- like mania or depression- you should probably stop doing hypnosis for a bit if you notice yourself going into that state again until you become more regulated. Pay attention to yourself.

You could also not take the risk. Hypnosis is always a somewhat risky activity- for all of us, not just you- and it’s perfectly fair to not want to take that risk for a variety of legitimate reasons. You are probably less at risk of harm from hypnosis than the folks with dissociative disorders or DID- and I see those folks around the community and seemingly doing OK**. So it’s all about what risk are you comfortable with and how willing are you/your partner to communicate and self-monitor during exploration.

Thank you for this question anon! I hope I answered it in a way that makes sense and works for you. :)

Interesting article on hypnotizability and mania in bipolar I/II here btw: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5679347/

*Unless you’re dealing with schizoaffective disorder- but it doesn’t sound like you are.

**I think? Y’all- take care of yourself if you tend to be dissociative, ok? That’s especially true if you have a trauma history. It’s OK to stop if things get to be too much.