Lifting the Lid on Forensic Hypnosis - the Truth About This Practice and Why It’s So Controversial
Forensic hypnosis is defined as “the use of hypnosis in the investigative process and as evidence in court”. And you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that forensic hypnosis is actually illegal here in Australia.
In fact, it’s a pretty controversial practice around the world - yet it was very popular from the 1950s all the way through to the 1980s. After that, its popularity began to diminish, as the use and effectiveness of forensic hypnosis became a widely-debated issue.
So why is forensic hypnosis so controversial? Well, the main reason is that it involves the use of our memories to gather information about a particular scenario or activity. And the trouble with that is, that our memories are notoriously unreliable at the best of times.
At any given moment, your brain is only focusing on a small percentage of what’s actually happening around you. Essentially, we’re filtering out the parts that aren’t important and focusing (consciously or unconsciously on the bits that are a priority.
So, for example, you might not be sitting in a cafe and not even be aware that there’s a man in a red jumper reading a newspaper near you. The presence of this man doesn’t effect you in your current situation. So even though the man is real and was definitely there, he doesn’t form part of your memory. Can you see why our memories aren’t the most reliable pieces of evidence?!
More sinister still is the fact that our memories can be influenced by certain triggers or suggestions, meaning we might actually start to believe that we ‘remember’ something that never actually occurred. This makes delving into memories using forensic hypnosis a controversial practice that most hypnotists are glad isn’t recognised here in Australia.
So, now you’ve got a clearer idea of what forensic hypnosis is and why it’s a bit of a contentious issue, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at a couple of less controversial uses of forensic hypnosis and how they can be used.
Hypnosis for criminal investigation
The use of hypnosis in the context of criminal investigation is much less controversial than other applications of this practice and can be used as a tool to find independent evidence, which can then be used to assist in an investigation.
First, there needs to be certainty that the subject being hypnotised won’t be asked to testify later as a witness. Secondly, everything that’s explored with the subject while under hypnosis must be verified or disproved with independent evidence.
What’s crucial in this application of hypnosis is that none of the information from the hypnosis session is treated as factual - it’s simply designed to provide investigators with ideas, concepts and information to explore.
Hypnosis to evaluate state of mind
Another less controversial use of hypnosis is in the evaluation of an individual’s state of mind, in order to gain insights into a person’s sanity or criminal intent.
This type of hypnosis can be undertaken to explore the subject’s thoughts and behaviours and can be used in conjunction with other evidence, such as the findings of a psychiatrist, in order to build a picture of the subject’s state of mind.