Forensic Hypnosis

This is a very specialized field of hypnosis. The little I know about it is from Inspector Marx Howell, BS (Ret.) who has developed a great nonverbal induction. I have taken a few different classes from him at conferences and highly recommend him.

Taking a class from Marx is great fun. He has such a wonderful contagious smile and attitude.

The following is a paraphrasing of information from Inspector Howell's web site:

  1. In order to use hypnotically derived memory for arrest and inducement you need other confirming evidence.
  2. When hypnosis is used to help remember events, you may get correct information, incorrect information, or a combination of both. Therefore corroboration is needed to support the truth of any information obtained through hypnosis.
  3. Receiving wrong information from a witness/victim is not an issue for hypnosis alone since police officers using standard interview techniques may get incorrect information from witnesses who may be confused and no hypnosis is involved.

There are four reasons where the use of hypnosis with a witness /victim has been thrown out of court . They are:

  1. The person (police officer and/or mental health individual) was incompetent in the proper procedures of the Forensic application of hypnosis.
  2. The use of hypnosis in a case where it was not warranted based on the circumstances.
  3. The blatant use of unacceptable questioning techniques, such as leading the witness/victim.
  4. The prosecution didn’t put on rebuttal witnesses to the defense expert.