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This week's edition of Adam Up is really focusing on people with an interest in hypnosis and it's applications. 

This week, I also wrote about a subject matter that I have touched upon a few years ago; the subject of using hypnotherapy to 'cure' homosexuality. 

I first wrote on this topic back in 2010 and you can read that article here, it was in response to someone asking me if hypnotherapy could be used to 'cure' hypnotherapy

This week, as well as building upon what I wrote then, I responded to a story making news headlines currently about a man in China who is suing a hypnosis clinic who failed to turn him straight. It is a curious case. 

I feel unqualified to fully enter the debate on sexuality issues, but my central point is that conversion treatments have been shown to do more harm than good and there is no credible evidence to advocate the use of hypnosis for this application

Those of you that have attended my trainings, seen me speak at events, read my books, followed my blog or encountered me in some other way, may well know my thoughts on the use of regression in hypnotherapy.

If you need any further clarification, go listen to my podcasts on the subject, google my name and regression or you can read a couple of previous entries from this blog here that are relevant:

- Questioning the use of regression in hypnotherapy 

- Should hypnosis be used to recover memories

Today I do not want to go over old ground, instead show how the debates presented in some of my own blog entries have been around in all manner of guises in the last century.


Way back in 1948 Gidro-Frank and Bowersbuch conducted a piece of research whereby six selected subjects were hypnotised and it was suggested that they return to being just four months old. 

This seems like a very specific age to regress to, doesn't it? They had a particular reason for using this age and it was due to the fact that textbooks of the day clearly stated that, when a four-month-old baby is stimulated on the sole of the foot, the baby responds with what was known as the Babinski reflex. 

The Babinski reflex is where the large toe moves backward and the other toes on that foot all spread out. Those very same textbooks also mentioned that once the same baby reached six months old, from then onwards, will react in the normal way whereby the toes move forward. That is what is meant by the Babinski reflex. 

So our hypnosis experiment conducted by Gidro-Frank and Bowersbuch attempted to see whether that same physiological Babinski reflex response would happen when hypnosis was used to regress the subjects back to the age of four months. 

Following the research experiment, it was reported that half of the test subjects did actually regress to the age of four months old and responded psychophysiologically to the stimulation given to the foot. That is, they showed the Babinski response.

There was the evidence needed to show hypnosis being a special state whereby people could go back and recreate the same state within themselves with accuracy, of a much younger age; the therapeutic applications would be enormous! Bear in mind also the Freud's work was still fresh at the time of this experiment and at that time Freud had only just passed away (just under 10 years previously). 

A victory for regression proponents and special state theorists all round then? 

Well, the celebrations (if there were actually any at all) were not long lived, and today most professionals within the hypnosis and hypnotherapy field are unaware of this experiment. As Theodore Barber and colleagues Spanos and Chaves later pointed out, the findings of this experiment were invalid.  

It was later shown that the textbooks referred to earlier were incorrect. The Babinski response is not actually characteristic of four month old babies. Even as far back as the 1921, the author Burr showed real wide variations in the response of 69 infants and as a result, concluded that,

 "no specific movements of the toes could be considered as characteristic of the infantile response to stimulation on the sole of the foot." 

Then again in 1930, Wolff showed that only 13 of 389 four month old babies actually responded with the defined Babinski response. 

It would seem that the basis of the research experiment was undermined by basing it on textbooks that had not actually used any proper evidence to support their claims. The Babinski response was not a characteristic response of four month old babies at all. 

Well, some people may still be asking the reasons for three of the six grown-up subjects in the Gidro-Frank and Bowersbuch experiment showing a Babinski response. 

In 1956, Theodore Sarbin suggested that the subjects may have become aware of the purpose of the experiment and may have voluntarily performed the Babinski response. Thus, they knowingly moved their large toe backwards while spreading their toes out. For the record, I seem to have an inability to do this as I have been trying to do so in my office this very morning. 

We could speculate and discuss a wide variety of reasons for the responses in the experiment, but most nonstate theorists and those not supporting regression in the field of hypnosis tend to agree that what was important was that the Gidro-Frank and Bowersbuch experiment did not successfully show a special effect that is unique to four month old babies. 

So it is argued that there is no real evidence as a result of this experiment to suggest that the subjects were in a special state and truly re-experiencing that age due to hypnosis. 

You see? These debates have been around since my grandparents were youngsters! 

Joke Of The Week

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman: 

"Where's the self-help section?"

She said: "If I told you, it would defeat the purpose."

Hahaha, I lenjoyed that one.  Thank you to everybody who continues to contribute to the jokes in the Hub and those who email me jokes every week. I love getting them.

Articles Of The Week

Here are a selection of topical articles that I enjoyed reading this week, often related to the fields of hypnosis, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and other forms of personal development. Some may have just amused me or made me smile. My personal comments about them are in brackets and just because we feature an article here, it does not mean they represent my own views - most often, they do not! If you ever come across any related articles that you think may feature well, then get in touch with me and we can share them here:

- Crowthorne hypnotherapist says she will cure arachnophobia for free if there is demand

- Self-hypnosis can ease labor pains in childbirth

- Use self-hypnosis to satisfy cravings, eat less and lose weight

- Finally, I thought I'd mention a very good article written by my friend Gary Turner entitled: Need to lose weight ASAP

If you want to train to be a hypnotherapist, there has never been a better time, we are thriving in this economic climate! 

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I'll be back next week ... I thank you for reading...  Goodbye for now.

Bulooo!

Adam.