Those hypnosis shows from the 90s-were they fake?

[Scotsmare77]

I’m flu ridden, did a sleep hypnosis this last night to try and get some sleep, it was a Paul McKenna one. I just found it really irritating. Made me think of that program he used to do with multiple people acting like chickens/toddlers/Irish dancers etc, all lined up on the stage in one go.

Id forgotten all about it. I used to think it was real, also thought WWF was real too though! Was it all bullshit? Were they actors or members of the public who were just up for a laugh?

lol, so unethical wasn’t it, if it was real. Probably fake though, a friend nearly went on Jeremy Kyle or similar with a made up story she’d been given but chickened out last minute.

I remember seeing a programme about how Paul McKenna manipulated his audience. Things like posters in the theatre and the music that was played started to influence people before they even were on stage.

Derren Brown (I think it's him) has a programme where he hypnotises people, then explains how he did it. Basically make suggestions in the run up to him appearing on stage, and his staff screen the audience to help him select the most suggestible people to participate.

I expect they choose people who want their 15 minutes of fame.

I find this fascinating

I think is a combination of pre filming suggestions & screening and 5 min of fame. Some people are so gullable.

It’s fairly easy to hypnotise most people. There’s ways of testing to see who will be the easiest to hypnotise. It’s very difficult/impossible to get people to do or say anything they don’t want to do or say under hypnosis at some level.

So yes, in the majority of situations it would have been the individuals were hypnotised. (And had probably been previously hypnotised back stage to get them to respond more quickly). They would probably have been the type of people who would have behaved with similar - “look at me” tendencies when drunk.

Stage hypnotism has its own regulatory requirements and is different to hypnotherapy. Paul McKenna is almost universally hated amongst hypnotherapists.

Trying to access hypnosis through a genetic podcast is not recommended esp if you haven’t had it before. There are several contraindications which mean hypnotherapy can be detrimental to you and a trained hypnotherapist would talk you through these..

Hypnotherspy, if done right can, in the right circumstances be the most useful therapy -either alone or in conjunction with other therapies/medical treatments.