Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 07:08:48 EDT
From:         MKLINE%VDH.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
Subject:      New Age in Schools #8

Subject: New Age in Schools #8

    New Age Views in Public Schools - John Ankerberg Show. 09/27/92

    Part 8 ------------------------------------------------------------->

    John: Now Craig just told us any psychiatrist wouldn't hesitate to
condemn guided imagery as a very powerful technique used in hypnosis.
Well to find out if this was true or not I contacted the very
psychiatrist that had evaluated these courses before a number of school
boards in different states. His name is Dr. George Twente, II. Dr. Twente, II
graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1967, then the University of
Mississippi of Medicine in 1971, and finished his residency in psychiatry
at the University of Florida in 1974. Since that time he's been in
private practice in psychiatry and his primary focus has been with
adolescencents and their families. Dr. Twente, II's currently the Medical
Director of the Decatur General Hospital Adolescent Unit and Chief of
Psychiatry at Decatur General Hospital in Alabama.

    Now I asked him, if he thought the courses DUSO the Dolphin and
Pumsey the Dragon contained powerful psycho-theraputic techniques such as
hypnosis and this is what he said.

    Dr. Twente: John, as a psychiatrist, with also 2 children in the
public school system, and I've been active in that system, I was asked by
the leaders in our school system to evaluate 2 programs that controversy
had come out from the citizens. Number 1 was Pumsey, Number 2 was DUSO.
I've studied these programs, I was given the curriculum to look over from
the school and I was appalled techniques being used that are powerful
pshcho-theraputic techniques, that can be mind altering, can be
confusing, and cause identifiable psychiatric illness.

    The technique that bothers me the most is that I've seen in Pumsey
and DUSO and quite a few other affective education programs are
techniques that basically use basic hypnosis. And I need to define, as a
psychiatrist what hypnosis is. If you would like an overview of hypnosis
from the 1981 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, the section on hypnosis
is excellent. What basically hypnosis is, number 1, you have an
established relationship with an authority figure. So when a child comes
to class, that person is accepted as an authority figure.

    Number 2, you have to put the person in a relaxed state of mind. So
the next thing you do, is you use a technique of helping them relax,
such as a breathing technique to slow them down, muscle tensing and
relaxing. And so the next stage is relaxation, and most commonly what
you'll see in these programs where they close their eyes and they'll
start to breath deep and slow and concentrate on different parts of their
body. The next thing you have to do is to distract the conscience mind,
and the classic way that you see in the movies is someone will have a
watch or something that goes before your eyes and your conscience mind is
distracted and the authority figure begins to talk to you in your
sub-conscience mind.

    Well, if you study in Encyclopedia Britannica you'll see the most
common technique that's used to distract the conscience mind is a use of
visual images where you are told to imagine a certain image to the point
that you're absorbed in that image. And then, a person starts to suggest
to you things that are beyond your normal comprehension or experience,
and you're in a suggestible, very suggestible state of mind without
discernment of what's healthy and what's not healthy. And basically
you're at the mercy of that person and what ever their intentions are at
the time, whether they be positive or negative, or manipulative or
helpful.

    John: Next, I asked Dr. Twente, II to choose a specific excerpt from
Pumsey the Dragon to show you how teachers who follow this curriculum are
unknowingly hypnotizing their students.

    Dr. Twente: As a psychiatrist who is very aware of the use of
hypnosis, as I studied the pumsey program, there is a section in each one
of these two called "Painting Mind Pictures" and in the letter I wrote
for the Quade County School Board in Quade County Florida I specifically
excerpted one specific exercise to illustrate this point. I will go
through the steps that are classical hypnosis with you. This is called
session 6. Now we're talking to a child who may be 6, 7, 8 or 9 years
old.

    Painting Mind Pictures, to be read aloud slowly, (This is from the
Teacher's Manual.)

    John: Let's take a moment to paint a mind picture. Relax and get
comfortable. Put both feet on the floor. Let your shoulders relax. Let
your arms and hands rest in a comfortable way. Let your head relax. You
can let it fall forward a little, if that helps you relax. Let your whole
body work like it was in slow motion. Close your eyes, but not tight.
Take slow, deep breaths. When you let your breath out, you might feel
like you could sink into your chair.

    Dr. Twente: Then there's a little section that says, "When the
children are relaxed, continue with the mind picture as follows." So we
have the second step. We have a relationship with an authority figure.
Now we have a relaxation technique. Now we're going to distract
conscience mind, and then give hypnotic suggestion.

    John: Imagine for a moment, that you are outdoors, sitting next to a
stream, with water slowly going by you. It is a beautiful day with the
sun dancing and sparkling on the stream in front of you. It is quiet
here, except for some of the nice outdoor sounds that you enjoy so much.
Maybe the sound of water as it trickles over rocks, and into little
pools. This is a good place. You may come when you want to feel good.

    Dr. Twente: So what we've done is that we've created a mind picture,
a hypnotic suggestion that does not exist. This is not something that
someone else has known. You have the person start to use a visual image
and then you add to it auditory sounds. So they go into a deeper
concentration, blocking out other realities, except for your voice and
your suggestions, if you were the teacher. And then we continue.

Maks
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU