Hypnosis is finding a place in modern society in a wide variety of places and situations. One of the more unusual applications is called forensic hypnosis. Simply put, forensic hypnosis is hypnosis used to get witnesses or victims of crimes to remember things they may have forgotten or repressed.
We all tend to forget the less important details of what goes on in our lives and around us. Often even important things are forgotten, especially if they are traumatic or otherwise disturbing. Sometimes it is better to just forget certain things. But it is generally acknowledged that just about everything you see, hear, and experience is in your mind hidden there somewhere.
By heightening your awareness hypnosis can help bring out those hidden memories. Over the last 40 to 50 years forensic hypnosis has proven invaluable in helping to solve countless crimes that otherwise might have gone unsolved. It does not work every single time but it has helped often enough to gain a solid position as a crime-fighting tool. But despite some success the judicial courts of the world have often frowned on forensic hypnosis. In some cases they have even made forensic hypnosis illegal.
The problem is hypnosis does not always bring out the truth. Sometimes what we think happened and what really happened is not the same thing. Hypnosis only brings out what we think we saw. The lawyers call this confabulation, which simply means memory distortion. As a result, information obtained during forensic hypnosis is not allowed as cold hard evidence in a court of law. Hypnosis statements can be used in the investigation but must always be supported by independent evidence.
Another problem is the power the hypnotist holds over the person hypnotized. The hypnotist can’t make the witness tell the truth. So it can’t be used like a truth serum on a suspect or uncooperative witness. But the power the hypnotist holds over the witness cannot be underestimated. If the hypnotist suggests that he would like a certain answer the person hypnotized is very likely to say or do whatever pleases the hypnotist. The witness has to be fully cooperative in the hypnosis or it won’t work. But it can easily go too far and the witness says whatever the hypnotist wants to hear. As a result of these problems courts and crime fighting organizations around the world have established extremely strict procedures to be followed whenever forensic hypnosis is used.
For example, only the court can conduct forensic hypnosis. Prosecutors, defense attorneys and even crime investigators are not allowed to do their own forensic hypnosis. It is crucial that the hypnotist be totally unbiased in his approach and questioning. In the past, prosecutors have hired hypnotists and biased the witness’s statements in their favor. Current procedures carefully guard against this.
It is also standard practice to record all forensic hypnosis sessions from beginning to end. Even the witness interviews before and after the hypnosis have to be recorded. The hypnosis sessions are generally divided up into 3 parts: the pre-hypnosis interview, the hypnosis induction itself and the post-hypnosis interview. The pre-hypnosis interview is the first time the hypnotist gets to talk with the witness. Stories have a way of changing over time so it is important to get the witness’s story just before and after the hypnosis session.
Forensic hypnosis is radically different compared to clinical hypnosis. In clinical hypnosis the patient wants to change something. Either to stop smoking, lose weight or something like that. In forensic hypnosis it is crucial that nothing get changed. The courts simply want unbiased, unmodified information for the investigation.
There is still a lot to be learned about forensic hypnosis. The exact future of hypnosis in the legal courts is not clear but forensic hypnosis definitely has proven to be a valuable crime-solving tool.
