The Law of Reversed Effect in Hypnosis: How to Use the Hypnotic Challenge
September 30, 2009
As you learn more and more things about the art of hypnosis, you will see that using Stealth Tactics you can easily move forward and bypass the critical factor in the subject’s mind. Stealth Tactics are great because most of the times the subject doesn’t understand what is happening.
The tactics are disguising what you do and only in this way you are able to move pass the critical factor and bypass the resistance. You must exercise your skills as moving pass the critical factor is not as easy as it seems. One of the first Stealth Tactic we will deal with is the Law of Reversed Effect. This tactic explains the use of what is named the Hypnotic Challenge.
The Law of Reversed Effect means that the harder you try to accomplish your goal, the likelier is that you will not succeed. You must not confuse this with mere persistence. The tactic has a reason for failure. Failure will happen because the mind is complex. The unconscious mind works with the things we decide to do and after that it works out how to do those things. When you are reading a book you decided to read the unconscious will be the one to decipher the read words and add them feelings and emotions.
Understanding that is highly important as that is the basis of the Law of Reversed Effect. The law ultimately works because the mind is doing something that usually the unconscious mind would do. Only when the conscious mind starts interfering with the territory of the unconscious mind that failure happens. That is when the conscious mind interferes with the fluid motions of the unconscious. And here is how we get to the Law of Imagination, one more reason for failure. Here is an example: when we want things, the simple taste of them brings us joy and more pleasant experiences.
There are also good feelings related to trying to avoid things. For example you know you should not have a certain thing but only the thought of it will bring joy to your heart. In the end, you are overwhelmed with positive images and feelings coming from your unconscious mind.
However, how about the Hypnotic Challenge? In the Hypnotic Challenge you are setting the subject on failure by using the Law of Imagination and also the Law of Reversed Effect. In this way you ask the subject to fulfill a suggestion and then watch them fail to do it.
You can accomplish this using suggestibility tests. The test consists in the challenge and also in the failure to do a certain thing and end the test. When a person sets of on a challenge and they do not do it, they will then start to think that resistance is not what they have towards that thing. In this way, they are giving up at the resistance. And, as long as the subject thinks the resistance is not in his means, then the hypnotist will have an easier task to reach his unconscious and get pass the critical filter.
In this instance the reversed effect comes in and shows the person that they are not resisting. They only failed because they took a wrong way. In this way you will have the power to avoid failure and bypassing the critical filter.
Using linguistic tricks is the best form of using this law. For example use the “try” word. This implies failure and each failure will make the odds lean towards you, the hypnotist.
