Reddit reviews Behavior Modification (10th Edition)

I recently just finished reading Behavior Modification 10e ^1, and I learned so much about how Conditioning and learning is involved in so many things we do. I believe that learning and hypnosis are related, and that hypnosis cannot persist without learning, specifically through the use of operant conditioning. For example, think back to a time you had a good subject that at first had no idea what hypnosis was. The first induction was likely used to explain what hypnosis is and how they may experience it for themselves. In doing this, you may suggest to them what they may eventually feel, in short you are creating an expectation of trance (you are making them more sensitive to hypnotic phenomena, which is a result of learning) which when you have sufficiently paced the client, some hypnotic phenomena develops, which is in response to your suggestions. If you give them effective suggestions to maintain the trance, then what you are actually doing is pairing natural functions (like breathing or awareness of certain things) with relaxation or some other desirable outcome that serves as a backup reinforcer that allows the trance state to persist. As this is reinforced, and is itself reinforcing, it gives the subject the ability to self-perpetuate the trance. This allows you the ability to suggest other things so that you can accomplish what was set out from the beginning of the session initially. (This is why pre-talks are so important, as you are using this time to associate parts of trance with desirable responses!)

And while you don't need to look into conditioning and learning to use it in practice right now, your understanding of your practice only grows the more you learn about hypnosis and the way people learn.

Another example:
You may give them a trigger to feel a little deeper or to go into a trance when they hear x or y, and every time they do this, you and the client are experiencing operant conditioning, reinforcement towards the desired response (which is initiating the behaviors that lead to the hypnotic state). The auditory cue of the word, depending on how discriminate you make the condition, will make this trigger occur more frequently or less frequently.

Hypnotic phenomena has been shown to be more easily produced in some people more easily than others. What that means varies: Because hypnosis is fixating one's attention for the purpose of achieving a goal of some kind, then there's many ways to produce hypnotic responses. Usually this can be done by finding the things they REALLY enjoy such as positive reinforcers.
People can use these as coping mechanisms, which in themselves are very reinforcing, and can be paired with other things to create higher order conditioning; to associate with a cue that may increase pleasure or produce relaxation during trance. For people whom are effective at dissociating, or those who have a strong sensitization to suggestion (prone to fantasy, are able to visualize and experience senses strongly when suggested) they may have learned to pair more senses with the things they've learned, so there's a breadth of associations themselves to produce 'hypnotic behavior' such as when reading the following sentence feeling the sensation of sucking on a lemon and the juice seeping into the taste buds on your tongue. Its a byproduct of our ability to comprehend and produce language; some of those learned words become associated with other senses and experiences. That is one reason why hypnosis is easier for some than others, whether they intended to while growing up or not. They may simply have developed specific learning strategies that encourage trance phenomena. (This can also be learned, and that is what hypnotists can try to mirror in their posture, breathing, speaking, etc. so the subject can learn through observation)

The biggest takeaway from my examples here is that hypnosis and the phenomena produced are not just a particular kind of learning, it is a multidimensional process of learning. The reinforcers and stimuli for each subject will be individualized but the goal is to learn how to apply them in a way that both parties want so that it achieves the goal of influencing the subject towards a desired outcome or away from an undesirable one.

^1 https://www.amazon.com/Behavior-Modification-What-How-Do/dp/0205992102/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1527176363&sr=8-2&keywords=behavior+modification