Although it's been a while since the last post, I am going to write about the same theme - perception!
What is prompting me is a recent conversation about whether the impact a particular programme has on participants is effectively a form of hypnosis, ie it is the programme leader's planted suggestion that creates particiapants' reactions.
What that set me thinking is that, as a coach, I am often carrying out what I could call reverse hypnosis. I am undoing the self-hypnosis that causes people to see things that are not actually there, but are simply creations of their own mind (ie their own particular psyche).
Because these illusiory creations are what stop people changing in practice. Their inability to do things differently is a perfectly rational (and sensible) response to what is sometimes to a completely irrational (false) perception. Once we have found a way to break their irrational perception, they have relatively little difficulty in doing things differently.
It's like if a stage hypnotist creates a suggestion to someone that an object is red hot, they will not touch it - in fact it would be insanely irrational for them to touch it. You would be reckless (and probably unsuccessful) if you tried to help someone overcome their reluctance to touching things they thought were red hot!
In the same way, if someone's psyche creates the illusion that a particular situation or person is highly dangerous, you would be reckless (and probably unsuccessful) if you tried to persuade them to ignore the obvious threat they can see. What you have to do is help them break the illusions of their self-hypnosis, so that that they no longer see self-suggested threats only genuine ones.
If you can do this, a different reaction seems so obvious that sometimes people are not even aware they have changed their behaviour. In their mind they continue simply to respond rationally to each situatioin or person that faces them.
But what has fundamentally changed is that they are now seeing reality rather than an illusion.
