Persistent Suggestions

When you give a persistent suggestion that involves alteration of emotion, that emotion has consequences. Strong emotions produce strong emotional reactions, and strong emotional behavior matching that reaction. It’s easy to underestimate how strong emotions can change a particular activity or behavior from harmless fun to critically important.

This applies especially to emotions of love, addiction, and craving. Tell someone to love something, and they love it. Then you decide that you don’t love that they love it, or they love it just a bit too much and decide you’re going to remove the suggestion. They…​ don’t like this idea. To them, the idea of removing the suggestion is as bad as losing the thing that they love.

Even if you don’t remove the suggestion, if you get bored with doing the thing and want to stop doing it, they will be very unhappy, possibly to the point of grief.

Agency and consent are considered sacrosant in recreational hypnosis. A suggestion to your partner to always follow suggestions is possibly the largest possible red flag to your partner. Likewise, a suggestion to your partner that their consent doesn’t matter is an instant dealbreaker. You just don’t do things to your partner against their will, even if you think it’s for their own good.

These rules still apply to your partner, even while persistent suggestions are still active. Their emotions and beliefs are real, even if they are the result of suggestion.

It is a mistake to think that your partner’s new beliefs, attitudes, or emotions are not "them" or are not "the real them" and therefore their agency and consent doesn’t matter. A violation of consent is still a violation of consent regardless of how justified you feel about it.

Things get even more problematic if you have been using agency altering suggestions, especially suggestions that involve alternate personalities "taking over" or corrupting your partner’s decision making abilities. The best thing you can do is let go of the reins and possibly take a break.

One common mistake in persistent suggestions is to make the suggestion without giving clear safety conditions, including termination conditions. As in post hypnotic suggestions, you can use the phrase "as appropriate" to cover the case where the relationship is no longer active, but some persistent suggestions may be relationship independent or may require the ability to transfer the suggestion.

Termination conditions are especially important in committed long-term relationships where some suggestions may have been active for years. Some people have even written and signed a formal suggestion termination letter to be opened on the ending of the relationship.

If you have given your partner a suggestion to believe or behave in a way that is inconsistent with their other beliefs or behaviors, they can suffer cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile the inconsistency. This can be stressful and unpleasant for your partner, and this can happen even if your partner fully consents to the suggestion.

For example, your partner may want a persistent suggestion to become atheist. You are not trying to "fix" your partner, and your partner wants the suggestion as they are in theory atheist but were raised religious and still find themselves praying in idle moments. The persistent suggestion works perfectly, but your partner discovers that there are many unconscious habits and behaviors that rely on that belief that are no longer active, and they are not able to function in society as a result.

For changes happening over a long period of time, there can be an interstitial period where your partner is between beliefs, and finds neither the new belief or the old belief very comfortable. Allowing your partner to wind down or take control over their own transition to the new beliefs can relieve some of the pressure involved in trying to entertain two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

Persistent suggestions that change beliefs can be anticlimatic for your partner. Changes often feel like "this was my idea anyway," even if your partner can remember a time where that was not the case. There is no epiphany or revelation associated with the change in belief unless you explicitly add one. You as the hypnotist may be astonished at the change in your partner’s beliefs, but to your partner it’s unremarkable.

There is also a problem in changing beliefs back. Your partner may have no motive to agree to changing their belief back, even if they don’t hold the new belief very strongly. If their old belief was one that they did hold very strongly, they may even find their previous investment in that belief ridiculous and overwrought.

Another insidious problem is that if the change in beliefs is done gradually and slowly, your partner may not even realize that their beliefs are changing over time. You may want your partner to keep a journal to preserve a snapshot of their thoughts at the time so that you can track change on a longer time scale.

Some persistent suggestions can leak outside of their intended context. Intrusive urges or thoughts can interfere with your partner’s daily life, especially if there is heavy use of conditioning or training to respond automatically. This can happen even if safety suggestions are given, as human brains are not computers and don’t always block out intrusive thoughts. Your partner may not act on these intrusive thoughts, but they can be uncomfortable or even frightening for your partner.

Whatever your relationship is with your partner, changing the way that they think, feel, or behave is a deeply intimate and personal experience. Your partner will be open and vulnerable to you in a way that they may have never experienced before, and you will be taking on a position of authority on a consistent basis to change them.

Your relationship will most likely change as the result of doing this, especially if this is the first time for either or both of you. Your partner may become more dependent on you or may find disagreeing with you or rejecting suggestions to feel unnatural, even outside of hypnosis. You should be prepared to talk honestly about your feelings and create space for your partner if they need it.

Before you start, it’s important to know under what conditions you should stop.

The first conditions are consentual: your partner should be able to halt or end the process at any point if they feel that it’s not right for them. At this point you may want to start deprogramming if your partner is uncomfortable.

The second condition is when goals are met: for example, your partner enjoys Marmite and habitually has Marmite as part of their breakfast without any intervention from you. At this point you should move to a maintainance phase.

The first thing to do is record and interview your partner. Ideally, use a video camera so you can see and hear your partner’s experience, as a good deal of communication is non-verbal and doesn’t come across in writing. Ask your partner about the thoughts and feelings they have in general, their feelings leading up to eating Marmite, the actual experience of the taste and smell, and the feelings afterwards.

Then record them eating some Marmite on toast, and have them describe their experience.

(Technically, you don’t have to do this, but memory is imperfect and things that seem trivial at the time can really stand out later, especially in facial expressions. Also, science.)

After the interview, go over the recording and note what phrases stand out, and where your partner’s strongest reactions were, to get an understanding of how your partner interacts with Marmite.

There are a number of different approaches that you can use to establish a love for Marmite. Some will be easier than others, but the best approach will be specific to your partner. This is not a comprehensive list, and everyone will have their own approaches. You can mix and match or use several approaches at once in service of the goal.

One thing to keep in mind is that all therapy — hypnotherapy in particular — is based around the concept that you can alter beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors on a persistent basis. This means that you can liberally steal techniques from any theraputic approach that looks applicable to your goals. There are a bunch of common factors between different techniques, so don’t worry about mixing and matching them too much.

You could go with a sensory approach: your partner will taste Marmite as bland, or even sweet. First, you reduce the aversion. You can give them suggestions that tell them that the taste appears milder, or that they don’t taste anything at all. Then, you can tell them that they taste a faint sweetness to Marmite.

You could go with a preference approach: your partner will not mind the taste of Marmite, and will even grow to appreciate it. You can give your partner suggestions to imagine their feelings about Marmite on a sliding scale from -10 to +10, and ask them to take it down a point at a time, gradually moving to a -5, and then a 0 where they have no strong feelings about Marmite, and then finally to a +5.

You could go with a conditioning approach: you associate the taste of Marmite with the reward of a pleasant experience, and tie the two together so that the actual taste is secondary to their overall happy feelings. (Works well with a habit tracking system with a points system.)

You could go with a behavioral approach: you have your partner behave as if they don’t mind the taste of Marmite, and eventually have them act like they really enjoy the experience. Suggestions that your partner act a certain way have the benefit that they can do it without actually changing their perceptions. Your partner will still hate the actual experience of Marmite, but they’ll eat it anyway. (Possibly needlessly cruel, but this approach has been used for autism related behavior for years in the form of applied behavior analysis.)

You could go with a memory approach: you alter your partner’s memories so that they remember enjoying the taste of Marmite, or gaslight your partner into believing that their experiences of disliking Marmite are fake. You could also remove the memory of Marmite entirely, so that your partner has no conscious expectation of their experience. (Inherently risky given that you can’t remove false memories, and even consentual gaslighting necessitates extensive negotiation and frequent check-ins.)

You could go with a parts therapy approach: you have your partner imagine a version of themselves that really enjoys and loves Marmite, and then integrate that part into themselves. (Possibly unsafe, see the risks section on personality changes.)

You could go with a funhouse mirror CBT approach: your partner has critical cognitive distortions — in this case, a maladaptive belief about Marmite — that must be addressed to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

You could go with a motivational interviewing approach to create a Marmite acceptance protocol. This would consist of an initial assessment phase with exploratory questions ("What are your thoughts when you see someone enjoying Marmite?"), past experience analysis ("Can you recall a time when you tried something you initially disliked but later enjoyed?" / "What helped you overcome food aversions in the past?"), values exploration ("Where does trying new foods fit into your personal growth?") and open questions ("How might your life be different if you enjoyed it?")

Persistent suggestions are applied persistently. While there are some people who are "high hypnotizables" who can take a single suggestion and run with it, it is an incremental process for many, if not most people.

With that in mind, recognize that making a persistent change in your partner is a project. There will be a regular routine or situated practice, and there will be habits that you get into. Every session, you will be repeatedly nudging your partner in the direction you want them to go, checking in, and ensuring that your partner is accepting and following suggestions. Consistent spaced repetition is the foundation of learning.

If this is the first time that you have done persistent suggestions with your partner, the same rules apply as in habit formation: start with a tiny habit, and grow the habit into a routine as you and your partner get more comfortable.

For example, you may start off with a ten minute daily session, consisting of a quick induction, the suggestion, and a wakeup. After each session, you start testing with gradual exposure: visual familiarization, aroma acceptance, micro-taste trials, and controlled application (making a hot crumpet, putting melted butter on it, and the thinnest possible spread of Marmite). Give your partner suggestions to always have toast at breakfast using your partner’s favorite bread, even if it doesn’t have Marmite on it.

Then you may want to grow that out to a 15 minute daily session, and suggest your partner try adding Marmite to their toast in the mornings and pairing with complimentary foods, such as cheddar cheese or a roast potato. Suggest your partner try small amounts of Marmite at breakfast, just to try it out and experiment.

To mix it up, you may record a file for your partner to listen at night. You may want to try out a conditioning session on the weekend, or give your partner homework to eat Marmite at lunch and write in their journal.

The important thing about regular practice is keeping it fun and interesting without doing so many things that it becomes overwhelming. Doing too much at once will lead to a sense of burden, or worse, burnout. The habit of consistent practice is more important than any individual suggestion, so take care of your routine and your own comfort first.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you are training your partner in a particular behavior, whenever they perform the behavior, are looking to you to tell them when they got it right. This is not just approval, but validation. Human brains hate uncertainty. If your partner does something and gets no feedback — good or bad — that can be more unsettling to them than letting them know they have to do it slightly differently. It’s your job to provide consistent feedback and encourage open communication, and your partner should be empowered to speak up if they feel they are not being seen.

As you continue in the process, you or your partner may feel like nothing is happening. Alternately, your partner may be very aware that they have new feelings and beliefs that they didn’t have before. It’s important to recognize progress, and also recognize that progress takes time. Progress can be small and incremental, but it will grow. Recognize successes and positive association, particularly voluntary consumption of Marmite outside of testing and increased willingness to experiment.

For example, if your partner has successfully gone from a -9 to a 3, going up a point every session, it may feel like they are stuck when they can’t go from a 3 to a 4. But you can reframe that by asking why it’s as high as a 3. Shouldn’t it be lower? By putting them in the position of defending their enjoyment of Marmite, they can own and argue the case for it and feel that 3 more strongly, and their arguments in favor can be used in suggestions later.

During this time, you will also want to set up a review. Your partner may keep a journal, or you may record your partner and interview them so you can track changes from one interview from the next.

For example, if you have a weekly review scheduled, interview your partner about the week’s sessions and how they have gone from their experience, and then describe their feelings of Marmite. Then record them eating Marmite on toast again, have them describe how that felt, and what felt different about that.

By keeping a consistent record, you’ll be able to track changes over time and see what suggestions are being picked up and echoed in your partner’s speech.

Once your partner is at a point that meets the goal, you can move to a maintenance phase and develop an plan that incorporates Marmite consumption into daily life, for example having Marmite added to the weekly shopping list and incorporating it into habit formation.

Sit down with your partner and watch the videos you did. Do a wrap up ceremony with a graduation present for your partner. Tell them they did great. They have a new identity now: from this point on, they are a Marmite lover.

One way to remove persistent suggestions is to add a contradictory suggestion that interferes with the first suggestion.

In the simple case, counterconditioning replaces one response with another response. This is a little trickier when it comes to cognitive beliefs, as counter beliefs may not involve a particular response, but a particular thought. You can ask your partner to remember or recall the beliefs they had before, and feel those beliefs growing stronger and pushing out the old beliefs, and have them watch the baseline videos.

Another way to remove persistent suggestions is to explicitly decondition the suggestion. This is simply saying that the previous suggestion has no effect, and is cancelled, rather than replacing it with something else.

Another option is to do nothing, and let the suggestion fade away on its own. In conditioning, this is known as extinction.

This is the easiest option, and the lack of attention paid to the suggestion may work more effectively than repeatedly bringing attention to the suggestion with more explicit forms of deconditioning.