See Gemma Jones 4/6/10 article in the Australian paper, The Daily Telegraph to read about the Taronga Zoo’s innovative hypnosis program that helps patrons get over their fears.
Now, in an effort to overcome their fears, those afraid of reptiles are undergoing hypnotherapy, mind, and neuro linguistic training at the zoo.
One participant was so scared of blue tongues her neighbor had to check her yard for her before she could hang clothes on teh line.
Warrick Angus, manager of the zoo’s Australian Fauna Precinct, said the woman and the other course attendees who feared reptiles like Jub Jub, a 60cm green iguana, were all cured of their problem – called ophidiophobia. Read the rest of the article here.
When he shrieks hysterically for attention, there is no reasoning with our cockatiel, Spike. He doesn’t understand us when we explain that it’s not safe for him to be in the kitchen when there’s boiling water on the stove, and he doesn’t know what it means to “hold on” when we’re in the middle of typing an email, and he’s in the mood for a head scratch or a beak massage. And he has no idea how rude it is to screech in the background when someone is interviewing for a job over the phone. When Spike wants something, we have two choices—give into his demands, or put him in a trance state, i.e. roll his cage into the bathroom which is pitch dark when the light’s off.
“Why don’t you just hypnotize him?” A friend suggested when Spike insisted on joining us at the dinner table for his favorite meal—pesto.
The truth is that animals cannot be hypnotized—not like people. For a person to be hypnotized, he or she must be a willing, consenting participant and have an IQ of 70 or more. Being hypnotized takes desire and concentration.
What many people refer to as animal hypnosis is more accurately described as tonic immobility or the immobility reflex. Darwin described it as the death feint. Certain animals, as shown in the video below, will instinctually feign death so that a predator will lose interest or loosen its grip, therefore giving the prey a chance to escape. People have learned how to induce a state of tonic immobility in animals by simulating a threatening gesture. Scaring an animal into feigning death is hardly hypnosis as it applies to humans.
Susan Gold is a certified hypnotherapist through the National Guild of Hypnotists. She practices in San Mateo, CA, on the Peninsula of the San Francisco Bay Area. Please visit her website at susangold.net.
