I was trained in autogenic training by Wolfgang Luthe, who insisted that it was not a form of hypnosis, as many of his present-day practitioners repeat. I am presently endeavouring to research the process of AT, but find little by way of neuroscientic evidence on the topic, unlike progress being made in the neuroscience of hypnosis.
Our article published in peer-reviewed Journal "Communicative & Integrative Biology". A few major points discussed in the paper:
(1) Brain is not the source of consciousness.
(2) Consciousness is ubiquitous in all living organisms, starting from bacteria to human beings.
(3) The individual cells in the multicellular organisms are also individually cognitive entities.
(4) Proposals like “artificial life”, “artificial intelligence”, “sentient machines” and so on are only fairytales because no designer can produce an artifact with the properties like internal teleology (Naturzweck) and formative force (bildende Kraft).
(5) The material origin of life and objective evolution are only misconceptions that biologists must overcome.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420889.2015.1085138
Thank you for your response to my question. I need to obtain your article, as it raises some seminal issues relating to consciousness and, thereby, to what processes underlie responses to autogenic training and to hypnotic experiences. Again, thank you.
You can download the paper from the link http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420889.2015.1085138 as the journal is open access. For your convenience I am uploading a copy as well.
As a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist and an Autogenic Therapist, I tend to agree with Luthe. AT is not hypnosis as hypnosis is commonly understood (state/trait).
Re Bahti Shanta's discussion, my doctoral work on Relaxation and Autogenic Training, whilst classical Glaserian GT analysis in approach and not neuroscientific, does find the body's voice to be critical and the somatosensory phenomena (visual, auditory, olfactory, kinaesthetic, etc) in and of themselves able to 'switch' consciousness without 'conscious lexical thought or analysis'.
Relating to Luthe's caveat, I found that the folk explanations people hold about how AT 'works' range from acting as a stress buffer and mood-regulator to restoring good sleep, to self-hypnosis and auto-suggestion, and more.
I am interested to know the direction of your research as it has progressed since you first asked your question.
Best wishes,
Ruth
Publication based on doctorate is in process. You can take a look at the doctorate here: http://create.canterbury.ac.uk/11661/
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