Graham Old - The Elman Induction

About these notes

I’m writing these notes skipping a heap of information I’ve gathered elsewhere. If you’re unfamiliar with the Elman induction, go watch a demonstration of the induction first on youtube, then come back to these notes.

The Pre-Talk

According to Elman, “Hypnosis is a state of mind in which the critical faculty of the human mind is bypassed, and selective thinking established.” Interestingly, Elman would avoid talk of hypnosis entirely in his pre-talk.

According to Elman, you’ll need the following to help the subject create trance:

• Consent
• Communication between the operator and subject
• Freedom from fear and reluctance, and trust in the operator

Getting consent for touch

During the pretalk, you can streamline asking for permission to touch them during the induction by saying you’ll touch them ‘here’ or ‘here’ as you touch their elbow or shoulders. Then get the OK. State that you’ll do this with a sense of professionalism and certainty.

Eye Closure

Eye closure on the first step is not ‘just’ to create eye catalepsy, but also to create buy-in to the process of hypnosis. This also has a built-in troubleshooting step - if the eyes open during this point, they don’t understand the chain of command you’ve provided them to keep their eyes open.

The Elman Handshake

1. Say you’ll shake their hand three times.
2. The first your eyes will get tired, let them.
3. The second they’ll want to close, let them.
4. The third they will lock and you won’t be able to open them. Want that to happen, and watch it happen.
5. Now, one.
6. Now two, now close your eyes.
7. Now three… say with authority: they are locked, they just won’t work, no matter how hard you try. The harder you try, the less they’ll work.
8. Test them, and you’ll find they won’t work at all.

Interestingly, in a technique Elman used with younger subjects, he’d directly suggest they should pretend they just can’t open them, testing them in the same way. I’ve always been a bit ‘hung up’ on the eye closure needing to be created through the inferred priority of thought, rather than to directly suggest they imagine it happening.

Priority of Thought is really this simple:

1. Place your hand on your thigh and DO NOT MOVE THAT HAND.
2. Now, while obeying the first instruction, try as hard as you can to move your hand up.

According to the book, if you make this too obvious, you will not bypass the critical faculty.

The first step of the Elman induction does not need to be eye closure, just small muscle catalepsy. Eye closure is just a good choice since it naturally leads to relaxation.

It is not necessary for your practice-partner to feel that you are a powerful hypnotist. As you progress through the process – particularly if you start with the relatively fail-proof Priority of Thought – your partner will discover that it is the process itself which is powerful. Or, perhaps, the real power resides in their mind and you are simply introducing them to a tool for tapping into that.

Old, Graham. The Elman Induction: Unpacking the Theory and Practice of One of the Most Popular Hypnotic Inductions in the World (The Inductions Masterclass Book 3) (p. 60). Plastic Spoon. Kindle Edition.

Tips from a more knowledgeable and experienced friend

An entry point to eye closure is doing some pre-talk and waking hypnosis by asking them to close and relax their hand, as described below. Apparently, this was pushed by Elman during his workshops, but didn’t end up in a lot of their writing.

“So what I want you to do for me is imagine taking your hand in your mind and squeezing it into a fist. Squeeze that hand into a fist so tight it couldn’t possibly get any tighter. (affirm this is done either intuitively or ask for confirmation. I like to use nods) Good! Now I want you to take that same hand and relax that hand, so much so until it couldn’t possibly get any more relaxed. (affirm again). Wonderful. Now I want you to hold that relaxation in your mind. In a moment I’m going to have you transfer that relaxation to the muscles around those eyes.” (Proceed with eye closure and feel free to integrate a bit more)

Deepening Naturally

Interestingly - you could define the suggestion that the subject send a wave of relaxation through their body as a very rapid deepener. Graham notes that the advantage of rapidly moving into the deepener is there’s less time to evaluate the depth.

A few examples of quick deepener components:

• Stop testing and allow that relaxation (etc.)
• Any sounds will remind you (etc.) allowing you to deepen (etc)
• And as you stop testing those eyelids, you can relax and feel great. And the better you feel, the deeper you’ll go. And the deeper you go, the better you feel.
• Every breath/word/beat will cause you to go deeper

[[Graham Old - Permissive Elman Induction]]

Fractionation

Fractionation vs Multiple Sessions

The text here insinuates that Elman thought that fractionating a subject could provide the same or similar effects of multiple inductions over several sessions across several days or weeks. I’m not sold. If this worked, we could help our low responders get deep and cozy in a few minutes of waving our hands in front of them.

Another gripe here with the text - suggesting that the subject goes “ten times deeper” is perfectly fine and easy to imagine. I hate this wording. I’ve been the recipient of this suggestion and felt “well, I feel 30 or 40 percent deeper” and lost some trust at that point when the hypnotist tried to jam the same button again. This will depend on the subject, sure, but man it sure kicks me out of my experience.

The Arm-Drop

Elman saw the arm drop as an indicator of following suggestion (as you suggest the arm’s catalepsy,) a convincer (as they try to bend their arm and find themselves unable to bend it,) and a deepener (with the kinesthetic elements of finally relaxing the arm like a wet cloth and letting it ‘drop’ into their laps, letting them drop even deeper.)

The Compounding of Suggestions

Compounding suggestions: Where you increase the perceived or experienced intensity of suggestion 1 through the experiences of suggestion 2. Bouncing from 1 to 2, 1 to 3, and 1 to 4.

Pyramiding Suggestions: Starting at a small suggestion and working up to a larger one. Pacing and leading in small steps.

Cascading Suggestions: Working ‘down’ the pyramid, instead of up. “Cascading” and layering suggestions, making them stronger, instead of moving laterally.

Losing the Numbers

A few tips on the suggested amnesia:

• It is insufficient to accept aphasia as ‘relaxing away the numbers’ if we’re trying to achieve amnesia. Ask explicitly if the numbers are gone.
• If you’re still uncertain, go through another amnesiac experience - such as spelling their name backwards and losing the numbers.

The Super Suggestion

This is a bit street-hypnosis like, and also reminds me of the ‘Simon Says’ suggestion. [[The Super Suggestion]]

The Esdaile Coma State

The biggest note from this part of the book is that you don’t need to use the Esdaile deepener to get into the Esdaile state. According to Elman, Esdaile shows the following signs:

• Anesthesia: At level C, Elman would go ham with towel clips or Allis clamps
• Moving an arm or a leg: Asking your subject should move should do nothing, as suggested.
• Opening eyes: Asking your subject to open their eyes should do nothing, as suggested.
• Catatonia: “Waxy like rigidity” when positioning limbs. [[Elman’s Esdaile]]

Troubleshooting and FAQ

They open their eyes

“Well done - you’ve demonstrated that you can open your eyes. As I’ve said, you remain in control at all times. Now, I want you to demonstrate that you can’t open your eyes. So, go ahead and close your eyes again and relax them so well that they are just too relaxed to open. And then demonstrate to yourself that you’ve relaxed them that well by keeping hold of that relaxation whilst you try in vain to open them.”

Another option is, stick a finger to a leg or a table and let them watch that it’s no big deal for it to be stuck, removing the fear.

Their arm is not heavy

If their arm is stiff, go ahead and make it stiff and cataleptic like a steel bar, then shake it loose, and go back to the dishcloth method.

If this happens a lot, ensure you’ve laid out how things will work.

The numbers won’t go

Check your language - maybe “letting them go” or “relaxing them away” is more tenable to your subject. Avoid saying the word ‘numbers.’ Use, “Are they gone?” Or “have they gone yet?”

Having them forget letters is also an option.

Elman’s Secret Sauce for Stubborn Number Eradication

Elman: [to doctors] Let me show you again the technique I use when the numbers don’t disappear. I lift his hand and say, “When I drop your hand the lights will go out and you won’t see any more numbers… There you are… The lights are out and all the numbers are gone…[52]

You can also try some visualization, like seeing the numbers on a tv getting smaller, or floating on a cloud going further away.

You may need to be direct, such as “the way that someone’s name can be on the tip of your tongue, but you just can’t find it…” or “Like when you know an actor’s name and you stumble around in your mind but you just cant’ grasp it. You know you know it, but right now it’s just out of your reach, on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite get it.”

(“Are the numbers gone is perfectly fine to say in most cases, since you’re not saying ‘is 87 gone?‘)

They suggest switching to the 8 word induction aka [[Graham Old - The Hand Drop]] if nothing else seems to work.