The Unlearning of Automatic Behaviors Through Hypnosis

The Unlearning of Automatic Behaviors through Hypnosis

Tanisha Smith

University of Phoenix

The Unlearning of Automatic Behaviors through Hypnosis

        “Reading is a skill that once learned becomes automatic,” according to the narrator of Psychology Media Suite. Just like the skill of reading after being learned is automatic so are many other things that a person may do such as what we consider bad habits, or even just a learned routine that is done day in and day out. Many people in this world hear many times that it is habit and it is hard to be broken but one researcher set out to show that a learned behavior can be unlearned through hypnosis.

        Amir Raz, PhD, is the Research Chair in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention at the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and the SMBD Jewish General Hospital both located in Canada, was that researcher to do such. His new study was of an old technique of “hypnotic suggestion” that believed that the brain can override what has been learned that many believed was difficult due to the skill/habit being “ingrained and automatic” according to Cornell Chronicle. He studied this by taking a skill that is very common amongst all, reading. He tested a total of sixteen people, eight we susceptible to hypnosis and the other eight were not. He confused them by having words of colors but being printed in another color. He did this in hopes to “erase confusion in a brain region that deals with conflict, called the cingulate cortex” (Psychology Media Suite, 2008). The study resulted that the eight people under hypnosis saw the words as foreign and only saw the color. The results were better in this test group as well as the anterior cingulate cortex did not light up the brain scans. Raz believed that if it is possible under hypnosis to alter an automatic processed skill such as reading then it may be possible in some to undo other automatic behaviors such as smoking.  Not only did Raz study provide amazing evidence that an automatic process can be unlearned it also shows how powerful of a tool hypnotic suggestion can be for brain research now and in the future.

        Even though he initially studied on the automatic learned skill of reading, his research and studies can be applied to many different occurring situations in the world. It can grow from some of the simplest things to the grandest.  For example a person who smokes or drinks and they have made the decision to quit, Raz research has opened up another option for people to free themselves of a habit in which they no longer want to do, his research has added to other solutions for these problems such as: therapy, gum, and many more options that are around in order to delete these habits. This can also assist with people who may have a fear of something rather it be a bug or small spaces, if it is learned Raz believes through hypnotic suggestion that it will be unlearned. With this initial research and more to be added I believe that some people may have found a way to get over many learned habits as well as maybe in time showing the mind that if it can be unlearned then it can be learned through hypnosis with people who have certain mental disabilities.