Ethnographic Research Data on Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy in Indonesia, 2020–2025

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Hypnotherapy is very popular in contemporary Indonesia, where it is used to address medical and emotional problems, but also penetrates many aspects of everyday life. Hypnoteaching and hypnomotivation are becoming widespread in Indonesian schools; ever more families are experimenting with hypnoparenting; employers uses hypnotherapy to help manage their workforce. In the process, Indonesian citizens are being asked to understand, relate to, and govern themselves in new ways informed by psycho-therapeutic discourses of hypnosis and suggestion. Such developments raise three broad sets of questions: 1) Empirical questions regarding the modes of hypnotherapeutic practice that are gaining ground in Indonesia, and the forms of subjectivity, sociality, and governance that are emerging as a consequence; 2) Analytical questions regarding how and why these regimes of practice—and their associated modes of subjectivity, sociality, and governance—have come about, and are being transformed or maintained; 3) Broader theoretical questions regarding the ways that Indonesian hypnotherapy practices might shed new light on what Blackman (2007) has termed the ‘suggestive realm’ of human experience. This project sought to contribute to all three of these fields of enquiry via an ethnographic study of the Indonesian hypnotherapy circuit and its socio-cultural ramifications. Semi-structured interviewing of therapists generated rich qualitative accounts of how and why their practice and understanding of hypnotherapy has evolved over time. I collected life stories of 150 therapists with a view to documenting the full range of experiences prompted by encounters with hypnotherapeutic discourse. Interviews were relaxed and exploratory, focusing on identifying key stages and turning points in their training and professional practice, their life experiences prior to training, their experience of their family life and social relations, and their broader aspirations for their town, province, and country.

Hypnotherapy is becoming big business in Indonesia. Over 31,000 Indonesians have trained as 'certified hypnotists' with the Indonesian Board of Hypnotherapy since it was founded in 2002. Many more have trained with rival associations. Their services are used in various ways. Some treat clients seeking therapy for medical, emotional or personal issues. Elsewhere, hypnosis has become embedded within schools, workplaces and the family home, where it is used to educate, motivate, and secure a brighter future for Indonesia as a nation. This project, which builds on pilot research by the PI, will be the first ever dedicated ethnographic study of hypnotherapy. Combining intensive participant observation of the hypnotherapy scene in three Indonesian towns with semi-structured interviews of hypnotherapists and their clients, it will examine why so many people in Indonesia have come to embrace hypnotherapy, why they practice it as they do, and the influence that learning about hypnotherapy has had on their everyday lives. Time will also be spent conducting research in Malaysia (Indonesia's primary export market for hypnotherapy training) and discussing the data with British hypnosis associations, so as to illuminate, and gain critical perspectives on, the ways that the experience and practice of hypnotherapy can be shaped by specific national histories and cultural traditions. The project addresses core theoretical issues in anthropology. A priority for medical anthropology is to understand how and why cosmopolitan therapeutic forms are embraced, rejected, or modified as they move around the globe. This project will illuminate Indonesians' motivations for engaging with hypnotherapy, the challenges therapists encounter as they attempt to implement principles and procedures devised in Euro-American settings within the Indonesian context, and the strategies they adopt to overcome these. It will thus shed light on how and why therapeutic vernacularisation occurs. But it will also make a contribution to psychological anthropology by revealing the possible limitations of Euro-American theories of hypnosis and suggestion for understanding hypnotic interactions in a setting where cultural traditions, postcolonial histories and perspectives on one's global situation differ markedly from those in the secular West. The project will also offer a timely portrait of the forms of psychological governance, subjectivity and sociality that are emerging under the Jokowi Presidency, which has called for a 'Mental Revolution' amongst Indonesia's population. Given its standing as the world's fourth most populous nation, tenth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, and a major emerging market, there are clear strategic interests in understanding the socio-cultural transformations underway in Indonesian society. An ethnographic study of hypnotherapy will illuminate the problems and difficulties with which Indonesians are currently grappling, leading them to undertake hypnotherapy in the first place. It will also critically examine how exposure to the concept and practice of 'hypnotherapy'--which, as noted earlier, is not confined to 'clinical' spaces but becoming increasingly embedded in the everyday routines of schools, workplaces and family homes--is leading to new ways of relating to oneself and others. Besides scholarly outputs, the project will culminate in a UK-based exhibition and associated programme of talks, informing audiences about hypnotherapy and its cross-cultural manifestations whilst spurring them to reflect critically on the values and histories underpinning their own commitments to particular forms of therapeutic practice.