Clinical Behavior and Hypnotizability: Part III

Abstract

In pursuit of a broader understanding of the association between clinical behavior and hypnotizability, we turn now to an examination of patients with puzzling physical symptoms that are poorly explained in pathophysiological terms. Such clinical pictures are generally categorized as hysterical. With the use of that term we are immediately reminded of the conviction of Charcot and then Janet that experiences in hysteria and hypnosis are identical, apart from the former being spontaneous and the latter induced. As stated earlier, the critics in their enthusiasm appear to have rejected not only their interpretations but also their observations. Janet (1901, 1907) described, in great detail, the rapid response of hysterical patients to ideas of pain, discomfort, or disease, and compared their reactions to the marked suggestibility of the hypnotized subject. Even disagreeing with the full extent of Janet’s assertions, as one observes the ease and rapidity of the hypnotic response in individuals with marked trance capacity, one has difficulty believing that such a skill would fail to have important clinical consequences, much as would be the case with other unusual skills or deficits. For example, it is generally acknowledged that unusual intellectual skills or limited intellectual ability will both have an effect on how pathology manifests itself and on how it is most effectively modified.