Visions of hypnosis future.

Clark Hull’s statement which Kirsch et al (in press) quote that “an increase in suggestibility takes place upon entering the hypnotic trance,“ is one few of us would dispute. However, they interpret Hull’s work and that of Hilgard and Tart quite idiosyncratically. Hull thought of hypnosis as a state. When Kirsch et al paraphrase Hull, the “increase in suggestibility” becomes “a relatively small increase” and it gives it an opposite emphasis from Hull’s. Similarly Hilgard and Tart (1966; Hilgard, 1965) did study non-hypnotic experiences related to hypnotic ones—but they did not conclude that hypnosis was synonymous with suggestion. The Kirsch et al article has a rather idiosyncratic summary of what constituted “hypnosis past”—and of what moving beyond it would consist. Hypnosis began as quite authoritarian. It was indeed often measured by compliance with suggestions such as postural sway to which the Kirsch et al article devotes so much space. But this has evolved. I want to discuss two lines of hypnosis research which don’t fit the model of hypnosis=suggestion: subjective assessment and differentiation of sub-types of hypnotizability. Other than stage hypnosis, there’s no hypnotic application in which it’s desirable for a person to sway or hold their arm stiff. Clinicians tend to ask clients whether they are hypnotized or where on a continuum they place their state. Researchers gradually adopted these subjective measures for use alongside compliance with suggestions. Kirch et al (in press) allude to the simplest of these when they mention that 32% of Hilgard & Tart’s subjects reported feeling hypnotized after an induction but only 1% felt themselves to be so after non-hypnotic suggestions. Kirch et al don’t explore this enough, however, to arrive at how it contradicts their simple hypnosis=suggestion model. Laurence & Nadon (1986) reviewed the extensive research on subjective measures, including their application