The power of 'suggestion': an ethnographic study of therapeutic vernacularisation, sociality, and governance in Indonesia's hypnosis boom

催眠疗法在印尼正成为一门大生意。自2002年印尼催眠治疗委员会成立以来，已有超过31,000名印尼人接受了“认证催眠师”的培训。更多的人在竞争对手的协会接受培训。它们的服务有多种用途。有些为寻求医疗、情感或个人问题治疗的客户提供服务。在其他地方，催眠术已经融入学校、工作场所和家庭，在那里它被用来教育、激励和确保印尼作为一个国家有一个更光明的未来。这个项目建立在PI的试点研究的基础上，将是有史以来第一个专门研究催眠疗法的人种学研究。结合对印度尼西亚三个城镇的催眠治疗现场的密集参与观察和对催眠治疗师及其客户的半结构化访谈，它将研究为什么这么多印度尼西亚人开始接受催眠疗法，为什么他们这样做，以及学习催眠疗法对他们日常生活的影响。我们还将花时间在马来西亚（印度尼西亚催眠治疗培训的主要出口市场）进行研究，并与英国催眠协会讨论数据，以便阐明和获得关键观点，催眠治疗的经验和实践可以通过特定的国家历史和文化传统来塑造。该项目涉及人类学的核心理论问题。医学人类学的首要任务是了解世界性的治疗形式在全球范围内被接受、拒绝或修改的方式和原因。本项目将阐明印尼人参与催眠治疗的动机，治疗师在试图在印尼环境中实施欧美环境中制定的原则和程序时遇到的挑战，以及他们采取的克服这些挑战的策略。因此，它将阐明治疗白话化是如何以及为什么发生的。但它也将通过揭示欧美催眠理论可能存在的局限性，以及在文化传统、后殖民历史和对个人全球处境的看法与世俗西方显著不同的背景下理解催眠相互作用的建议，对心理人类学做出贡献。该项目还将及时描绘在佐科维总统任期内出现的心理治理、主观性和社会性的形式，佐科维总统呼吁在印度尼西亚人民中进行“精神革命”。鉴于其作为世界第四大人口大国、按购买力平价计算的第十大经济体和主要新兴市场的地位，了解印尼社会正在进行的社会文化转型具有明显的战略利益。一项关于催眠疗法的人种学研究将阐明印尼人目前正在努力解决的问题和困难，这将引导他们首先接受催眠疗法。它还将批判性地审视“催眠疗法”的概念和实践——如前所述，它不仅局限于“临床”空间，而且越来越多地融入学校、工作场所和家庭的日常生活——是如何引导人们以新的方式与自己和他人建立联系的。除了学术成果外，该项目还将以英国为基地的展览和相关的会谈项目为高潮，向观众介绍催眠疗法及其跨文化表现，同时激励他们批判性地反思自己对特定形式治疗实践的承诺的价值观和历史。

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.