Behind the Pendulum: Stories of a Hypnotherapist

By Cristóbal Schilling Fuenzalida

The renowned psychologist and specialist in hypnotherapy Cristóbal Schilling collects in this
book seventeen years of professional experiences transmitting here, in an accessible tone,
stories of patients who come to his consultation in search of a last option to solve their problems.
It is the human's moment in his most personal and intimate facet.
The author demystifies hypnosis showing how this technique is able to help patients with panic
attacks, depression, sexual dysfunctions and phobias, among many other dysfunctions.
They are stories with different characteristics helping us to understand the true capacity the
hypnosis option has and the benefit it can bring the human being.
"In many occasions, people have asked me about stories have occurred during my work with patients.
People are interested in, and intrigued by the theme. At last, through a common thread and
preserving my patients' identity I have compiled some of these stories in this book aimed to
serve others." Cristóbal Schilling

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cristóbal Schilling
• Release date: Jul 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835885382

Book preview

off.

--Okay, now you will begin to experience a very odd, but pleasant sensation. Feel how your body is so relaxed that your mind and body are in deep communication. Your mind tells your body: you are so relaxed that your eyelids want to rest. Feel how your eyelids are glued, just like when you are very tired, very sleepy. In a few more moments I will instruct you to open them, but your unconscious mind will not want to. Then your conscious mind will not be able to open them--I say in a firm voice.

---Now open your eyelids, try to open them, but you will not be able to.

--Open your eyes, open your eyes, come on, open your eyes!

The man tries, without being able to open them.

--I cannot, they're stuck -- he says as the guests laugh enthusiastically.

--You have done it very well; your mind is in a deep inner dialogue.

I add:

--Now you'll perform a different experience. I will raise your arms and hands and I will leave them parallel to each other, at the height of your shoulders. --I take his hands and put them in position.

--In a few moments, you'll have the feeling that your hands have magnets. They are in the palms of your hands. Your palms become odd; you will feel a force of attraction ever more strongly. Then slight movements of his arms are observed.

Slowly the palms of his hands began to join, while his eyes remained closed.

I generally apply this type of suggestion with my patients with the purpose of having them go through the trance experience. In addition, delving into this, allows you to understand the difference between the real trance and the trance of your beliefs.

—-It´s good. Can you do something more fun? -Whispers the homeowner.

At that time, my favorite exercise in those meetings was to generate, attacks of laughter of the hypnotized person when she merely looked at another guest.

I guess that after a couple of tricks the homeowner was satisfied with the hypnotic show.

Nowadays my vision is different, perhaps because I am older now and I have a more mature look at the exposure of the hypnotic technique. At birthdays or meetings, I'm not sensationalistic and maybe I am more boring. I speak of clinical hypnosis only when the subject warrants it and I don't hypnotize anyone socially. Perhaps, after so many years, I experience a doctor's reluctance when at a party someone comes to tell him something about an illness.

Although a part of the hypnosis contains those aspects, so striking, so spectacular, the truth is I consider myself a fan of this tool, and as such I reserve the right to show hypnosis with the seriousness and depth it deserves. As a professional, I am aware of its misuse, of the frauds people carry out calling themselves hypnotherapists without preparation other than the mere knowledge of trance induction.

On the other hand, when performing a hypnotic show or simply a trance, it may happen that unconscious themes of the hypnotized person be triggered off and these can be treated in a private therapy but not in front of a party´s audience.

I resume my telephone conversation.

-I'm sorry Andrés, I'm grateful that the television program where you work had considered me, but I'm devoted to clinical hypnosis. My point of view is different, the approach is different. I know how to do the dynamics you ask of me, I understand what you are looking for, but I honestly would prefer you choose someone else. If at another time they should decide to add to the program the topic of treatments that benefit from the use of hypnosis, count on me.

--I understand-- he said, and there was a small silence. --What if we show some of your patients on camera and hypnotize them at the studio? How about that? That would be great --he insisted.

-In addition to being impossible out of respect for my patients, I prefer not to participate, thank you very much anyway.

After a few more words, he said goodbye and hung up.

--Who was calling you? -Asked Ivan, with half a pilpil chicken in his mouth.

--From a television channel, to go and perform a show with hypnosis," I replied rather disappointed, placing my fork on another piece of chicken overflowing with juice.

--And you told them not to! -What an asshole! Cried Milenko, after drinking the wine with added strawberry he used to take every Thursday night at the Liguria bar.

Our meetings had become a weekly ritual. Milenko, music teacher, critical about everything and a cinema-art lover, always with a black handkerchief on his shaven head which, along with his goatee and his mustache, gave him the perfect look of the pirate of a story.

I had met Ivan at the University when he was studying law; he left his studies and now he is involved in the production of audiovisual material, he remains a good reader and questioner, even of things unquestionable, a loyal, and great friend. The last to join the group was Rodolfo, who always arrives late, manager of a real estate company. He enjoys every Thursdays meeting, laughing all the time, participating more as a spectator, and giving us at each meeting a more mundane, commercial and economic vision. There we were for the moment the three of us, like every Thursday, sitting at our favorite table in Liguria. Ivan brings me back to earth:

-Don´t you remain silent! Why did you say no?

---You're crazy; I would never do a hypnosis show. The presentation of hypnosis as a television show confuses the public. Many people believe hypnosis is just that and not a therapeutic tool.

This is the reason why most people are full of misconceptions and myths about hypnosis, some of them absurd. For example, they usually bring recorders to my office to register the session. They fear losing will and consciousness under trance, although I insist that the experience is similar to being in the state between asleep and awake, the so-called QEM status (that is what it is called because the patients have Quick Eye Movement), and that they will remember everything they experienced. Even so, they insist: You see something different on television.

On one occasion a person asked me very seriously what would happen if I died in the middle of the session, fearing that being in a trance he might stay like that forever.

Many times I have been told I have a special power. In fact, I remember one of my grateful patients saying to me, You don't know how much I admire you for this gift you have.

I go back to the table.

--It's precisely why television programs show the spectacular aspect of hypnosis. A gift? It is simply a technique that anyone can learn. Besides, the one who really has the power of trance is just the patient.

--Come on, Schilling. Are you going to tell me you have no power? I've always been left with a doubt: Can you tell a guy to go out, steal a bank, and bring you the money? Doesn’t it work? --laughs Milenko. Ivan interrupts him:

--Or a woman who does those little things, ---they both laugh.

-Do you see? This conversation is going to hell. Under hypnotic trance people do nothing that goes against their principles and morals. Precisely because of this myth, often patients, usually women, request permission to be accompanied during the session by a family member or friend.

--I would not let my daughter go alone--I´d go with her too.-- admitted Ivan.

--In truth, I'm not against it. Even so, my patient might finally find it uncomfortable showing his internal problems and unveiling them in front of other people, despite how close their friends and relatives are. I think it´s because of the supposed fear of losing consciousness and self-control why some people do not access this tool that can be so useful for them. And they do not know that clinical hypnosis seeks precisely that the patient in trance always be conscious and remember everything he experienced.

Today, by recording the sessions, I'm providing the security and privacy the patient is looking for. They can request the records at any time. When checking the video, they verify that what happens in the session is remembered.

-Hey stop at this point for a second-- I have seen TV several times showing how some guys just by hearing a click of fingers fall down like chickens in trance. Tell me if that's not power.

--Yes, Ivan. But remember there is a lot of show in all this. Don´t believe everything, it´s possible to do that but only a very small percentage of people enter what is called a state of somnambulism that is people who respond as sleep-walkers. Even so, they are previously prepared for it. Let me explain. Induction of a state of trance usually takes some five to twenty minutes of previous preparation, the actual time depending on the particular person. What the hypnotizer finally does in a show is an anchoring, that is he associates the finger snapping stimulus to the state of trance the person is experimenting at that moment. In this way, on awaking that anchoring will be active. On hearing the finger click, that person´s mind will associate it to the trance experience, and will enter that state almost