Tony Quinn: The Piggy back method of Gibson Hypnotherapy

The video, like much of Quinn’s advertising material conceals much that should be revealed.  While appearing to show Quinn’s unique “mind” technique it conceals the fact that the whole exercise is pure and simple hypnosis, well-known to psychologists and psychiatrists.  The video does not mention that the patients were devotees* of Quinn and selected by him to show his “powers” in action.  One of the women in the video is especially well-known for promoting Quinn and his classes prior to and since these operations nearly 20 years ago.  Using long-term devotees would seriously undermine any use of this for research purposes.  
The fact that the patients were not chosen from the general population but were within the Quinn system and highly exposed to his conditioning and that all of this is not clarified is of major significance.  If the technique was promoted as standard hypnosis, which it clearly is from the procedures of induction and implanting of suggestions, then this would be honest and straightforward but to proclaim it as a unique system, an invention, called “unconscious attention” by Quinn, is also incorrect and misleading.  Of major importance also is the appearance, or almost non-appearance of the surgeon Dr. Jack Gibson in the video.  The editing of this video shows little of this man’s involvement who was one of the greatest authorities on hypnosis for pain control and healing in surgery and who carried out many thousands of surgeries using hypnosis.  His role is mentioned only in a technical manner as a supervisor and hugely downplayed.  There is more to be said on this aspect of things later.

• Note the issue of Copyright: This is an extract from The Late Late Show of 1994 an RTE Production. (c) We exercise the right of fair comment by only showing extracts from this show.
  
• Imelda Farrell, Colette Millea and Georgina Dolan.
  
• We would welcome corrections if we have named the wrong persons who were the guinea pigs for these operations.

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/more-of-the-history-of-quinn-the-false-messiah-comm2post/

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/the-sunday-times-article-on-steve-collins/

https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/the-tony-quinn-story-%E2%80%9Cfrom-butcher-to-oil-slick%E2%80%9D/

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/collins-learns-the-conquest-of-pain-1525392.html

One volunteer was his secretary, Colette Millea,* who decided to have her ears pinned back. “Often the people that you know are the hardest to work with,” says Quinn, a consultant to a chain of Irish health centres whose expertise in concentrating the mind has been sought by actors, politicians and businessmen.

So how does the “unconscious attention response” theory work? “If I asked you to give me your full attention, and I’m talking about something you’re not interested in, you may not bother giving me any attention at all. So I call that inattention. If you are studying a subject that you’re not really interested in, you can pay conscious attention, where you force yourself to pay attention, because you have to pay attention.

“Then there’s the third aspect, which is called unconscious attention, where you’re so totally involved in the subject that there’s no part of you left over that’s conscious that you’re paying attention, if that makes sense. It’s like being so totally involved in a good book that you don’t hear traffic sounds around you or a person speaking to you.

“A simple example of it was when I was working with Dr Jack Gibson, who supervised my research with the University of East London. Dr Gibson found that if he had to stitch the face of a person who had been in an accident, and they looked to him desperately in a state of fear to do something for them, that is a state of unconscious attention.

“The person’s whole mind is wrapped around the doctor at that point, and if the doctor says to them, ‘If you relax completely you’re not going to feel it, in fact it will feel very pleasant to you, you’ll actually enjoy it’, amazingly enough it actually seems to take place.

“Strictly speaking, I don’t see myself as a hypnotist. I don’t control anybody’s mind. I help them gain control of their own mind, to get it to do what they want it to do. I’m not a medical doctor, it’s very important to say that. I have a doctorate in clinical hypnotherapy and a masters degree in psychotherapy and I’m also doing a PhD in psychology. I also have qualifications as a PT instructor and in the area of nutrition. I won 12 national titles as a body-builder, so I know about weight-training, and I also have a background in martial arts.”