A relevant subject if you've ever dealt with a narcissist...
At the end of my commentary I'll be providing a link to an interesting article on what is going on in your brain during hypnosis. Scientists have come to recognize and respect that hypnosis is something real. Real in the sense that it is possible to affect how someone may think or act by applying certain techniques. This article explains how hypnosis is about how the brain interprets sensory input...the brain is wired in such a way that it is quite easy for it to suppress outside input and create an alternate reality. A certain percentage of the population is considered "highly suggestible"...a small percentage are impervious to hypnotic technique. Children before the age of 12 are extremely vulnerable to hypnosis because of the immature wiring of the brain.
How is this relevant to the topic of narcissism? I am convinced that the narcissist has learned intuitively how to hypnotize people. I am also convinced, due to my personal experience and through observation, that narcissistic parents employ their hypnotic suggestions to their very young children before those children have any hope of resisting. I believe this is why it takes so long for adult children of narcissists to break free from their evil N parent(s). On average, an ACON will likely be around the age of 40 before they seem to be able to break free mentally from all the early programming of their N parent. It is a painful, difficult process to shrug off what feels like the absolute underpinings of the universe that have been programmed into your very DNA before you were able to rationally override hypnotic suggestion.
Hypnosis is not magic. It is not supernatural. It is really quite simply a process that takes advantage of how our brains naturally work. It is potentially a very powerful tool of mind control and is therefore a dangerous tool. I think it is wrong to assume control of another person's mind for any reason. Humanity is too morally weak to always be benevolent with this type of power. But I am convinced that it is imperative to understand how hypnosis works because we've all been affected by it at some time or other. The narcissist's primary weapon of choice is that of hypnotic suggestion. Your best defense is to know yourself. Know how to recognize when someone is trying to hypnotize you by seeing the signs in your own reactions. For the easiest and best handbook on how to recognize when hypnosis is coming at you I will again highly recommend the book, "Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry" by Albert J. Bernstein, Ph.D. He takes all the mystery out of hypnosis and gives practical advice on how to evade it.
Here is the link to the article This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis.
After my last N I did so much reading on NLP, Brainwashing, Seduction (http://www.seducersworld.com - click on CHAPTERS!) and even read a bunch of those SLIMELY "how to seduce women" sites.
ReplyDeleteWHAM!! It was all there. What my Nmom and all my other Ns did. Whether they studied this or just did it intuitively - I was PROGRAMMED.
My trauma counselors later told me I needed to be DEPROGRAMMED. It all made sense.
EXCELLENT POST!!
You are really stretching to make claims for something that isn't even proven to exist. Have YOU ever experienced hypnosis yourself? Lots of people claim to have been hypnotized but many admit after a while that they knew it wasn't real.
ReplyDelete"If you think you can't be hypnotized, you probably are already."
ReplyDeleteAlbert J. Bernstein, Ph.D., Emotional Vampires, pg. 32.
Believe what you want. If a hypnotist gets you to squawk like a chicken, it matters not that you don't think it is real. Fact is, you squawked. Therefore, it worked.
I have read that you can't be hypnotized without your own permission, no one can hypnotize you without you knowing it. I think that is true. However, I do think people can use repetition and verbal manipulation in many ways and this may work the same way as hypnosis.
ReplyDeleteI stopped smoking through hypnosis, so I know it works, but I also know what it is like, and you can open your eyes anytime and come out of it anytime you want. Getting habituated to someone is another story, it's more like an addiction and then once they start behaving badly you still crave what you had before, and start putting up with a lot of stuff you never would have at the beginning.