Dylan Morgan Principles of stage Hypnosis

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thought or both, and often in a very specific way.
By contrast the medical approach to such phobias is the rather general one of supplying the sufferer with
some form of drug which induces a generally more relaxed state. This may reduce the feeling of fear, and
the decreasing positive feedback loop may then work as above. However, the very thought, "It is so bad
that I had better take my pill," tends to increase rather than decrease the perception of the object as a
fearful thing, and after a while the activity of pill-taking can become involved in the whole process.
Initially we may have /{Pills} > \{Fear} > \{Worrying thoughts} > \{F}, which leads to the initial
decrease. But we also have the secondary effect /{Pills} > /{Worrying thoughts} which typically
becomes more and more important as the initial levels of fear drop a little. It practice then it is quite
common for the general level of activity of both fear and perception of fear to drop the first few times a
pill is taken and then to start to pick up again under the influence of /{Pills} > /{Worrying thoughts}. But
the old increasing feedback loop is still there waiting to take effect, so that the increase in the thought of
"This is fearful/bad" will again lead to an increase in the fear felt. Typically when this starts to take hold
again, the sufferer acts in one of two ways. One way is to say, "These pills do not work - I will give them
up." The problem then quickly returns to its previous level, or even a bit more because, "It must be bad if
the pills can't help." The alternative is to increase the dose. But all too often this simply leads to the same
process as before: an initial improvement followed by a subsequent rebound.
This example illustrates the care one needs to take in analysing the nature of the feedback loops involved
in a problem.
Some other examples of decreasing positive feedback loops are as follows. A person might, quite
naturally, grow out of a habit of nail-biting as a result of the loop \{biting} > /{satisfaction} > \{biting},
which will lead to the nail-biting activity dropping to zero. There is a good chance that when a
Hypnotherapist is asked to eliminate any activity, then a decreasing positive feedback loop for the
symptom will be instituted.
As another example, which illustrates that decreasing positive loops can also cause problems, consider a
poor student who has become trapped in the loop \{studying} > \{confidence in ability} > \{study},
which can cycle until he or she gives up studying altogether and loses all confidence in his or her ability
in that area.
This example underlines the fact that whether a positive feedback loop is increasing or decreasing is not
the most important thing. Indeed a positive loop can be increasing for one system involved and
decreasing for another, e.g.:
/A > \B > /A
is increasing for A but decreasing for B, so we should properly always use phrases like ".. is an
increasing positive feedback loop for A".
The ultimate reason for the distinction between increasing and decreasing as applied to loops is that the
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Principles of Hypnosis (11) Role of feedback loops -and vicious circles
activity of a system cannot drop below zero: there is therefore a strict limit to how far down the activity
can go. On the other hand there is no such strict limit on how high the activity can go: it may be limited
by resources, but that limit is often flexible and changeable. In principle the number of individuals in a
species (e.g. of domestic chickens) can be indefinitely large. On the other hand there is a definite and
final lower level: which the dodo has attained.
This remark is often very relevant to feedback loops involving organic systems, and distinguishes them
from feedback loops which often arise in inorganic systems, in which variables are more commonly
capable of taking negative as well as positive values. The other difference is that in inorganic systems the
effect of a reduction in the activity of a system is generally equal and opposite to the effect of an equal [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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