by JackDrago » May 18th, 2018, 2:58 pm
@jackstock I have seen some BAD abreactions in my time, unfortunately psychological damage from hypnosis is totally possible. I have had to clean up after it and it's not pretty. The typical thing is an inept hypnotist who is trying to do something way beyond his skill, and / or a subject who failed to disclose a preexisting mental illness or piece of prior hypnosis that was incompatible.
Could it be done deliberately? Probably. You would need a very skilled hypnotist with an intimate knowledge of that particular subjects psychology and a subject who was vulnerable to such a thing. For it to stick the resulting insanity would have to be ecological for the subject, but there are many cases where that could be so; most notably the original poster's case of wanting to be insane. The hidden observer isn't going to protect a subject from a self chosen goal state.
My favorite example is Sgt Shaw (the brainwashed assassin in Manchurian Candidate): Ordinarily you couldn't hypnotize someone into being a killer, but Raymond Shaw as portrayed in the novel is an angry guy who subconsciously constantly wants to kill everyone. A subject who had the Sgt. Shaw ecology would fail to resist the suggestions to kill that 99% of subjects successfully resist precisely because it satisfies a preexisting subconscious need, and he only succeeds in killing someone other than the intended target because it's more ecological for him to kill his abusive mother (the true source of his rage) than it is to follow orders and kill yet another stranger.