Subject Agency Recap

We've reached the end of September and our specific focus on Subject Agency. Let's review the questions you were asked over the course of the month!

1. Personal Subject Agency
a. How do you personally define "subject agency"?
b. What do you think it means to use your skills as a subject to enhance your hypnotic experience?
c. What does the concept of "resistance" in regards to hypnosis mean to you?
c. Why is it important for someone to have strong subject agency?

2. Practical Subject Agency
a. How is "accept, reject, or adjust"? incorporated into your hypnotic life (if it is a part of your hypnotic life)?
b. What is the difference between hypnosis that is done TO you and hypnosis that is done WITH you?
c. Are "hypnosis is not mind control" and "hypnosis feels like mind control" conflicting statements? Why or why not?
d. How might a person with strong subject agency use their knowledge of how hypnosis works to have a more powerful hypnotic experience?

3. Philosophical Subject Agency
a. Give an example (if you have one and are comfortable sharing) from a specific experience or file where you knowingly made a decision to accept, reject, or adjust something.
b. Give an example of how you might be an active part of the hypnotic experience between you and your hypnotist.
c. Give an example of how a hypnotist might make an encounter feel like mind control, (from personal experience, if you have one.)
d. "All hypnosis is self-hypnosis" is a common saying in the hypnosis community that some believe is the absolute truth. What do you think, and why?

4. Active Homework
a. Choose one of my files from the "Accept, Reject, Adjust" Collection to listen to, practice listening mindfully, and report back on your experience.
b. Choose one of my files from the "Accept, Reject, Adjust" Collection to listen to with the intention of enhancing your experience somehow, and report back if you are comfortable doing so.
c. Choose and listen to one of my files from the "Accept, Reject, Adjust" Collection that you think might fall into the category from Question 3 and record your impressions, sharing publicly if you are comfortable with that.
d. Choose and listen to one of my files from the "Accept, Reject, Adjust" Collection and analyze, to the best of your ability, your physical and mental reactions to being hypnotized.

YOUR LAST ASSIGNMENT

Taking into account your answers from previous weeks and your experiences listening to files over the past month, please answer the following questions:

1. How has your personal definition of "subject agency" changed over the past 4 weeks?
2. How can you, as an hypnotic subject, increase your own suggestibility when it is safe and appropriate to do so?
3. What advice would you give to hypnotists on how to reinforce their subjects' personal agency in hypnosis?
4. Choose and listen to one of my files from the "Accept, Reject, Adjust" Collection that you've never listened to before, or one that you haven't listened to much, and don't drop into trance. Listen as a critical observer not an hypnotic subject, and report back if you are comfortable doing so.

Subject Agency and the ability to accept, reject, or adjust your hypnotic experience is a strength worth developing no matter your ultimate goal when using hypnosis. Trusting in your ability to guide and protect your own mind, and to consciously decide when you will give up control (and to whom!) will hopefully continue to be a part of your practice with hypnosis.

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