Commentary: Reversing Amnesia about Hypnosis

Abstract

All that Kirsch and colleagues are harping on is that a formal hypnotic induction is not needed to elicit hypnotic response among hypnotizable people. That is why results are often comparable when hypnotic suggestions are given with and without a formal induction. Furthermore, many of the so-called ‘nonstate’ studies do not take hypnotizability into account. Differences of any kind, with or without a hypnotic induction, are unlikely to emerge among people who are not at least somewhat hypnotizable. It may indeed be the case that many people are not aware of slipping in and out of hypnotic states because it is such a natural shift in consciousness among those with the capacity. People do so spontaneously during intense experiences of absorption (Tellegen and Atkinson, 1974; Tellegen, 1981), traumatic stress (Spiegel, 1991; Spiegel, 2001; Butler, Duran, et al., 1996), or ‘flow.’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991; Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Those with the ability may not identify it as particularly unusual because it is part of their routine cognitiveexperiential landscape. From the article: “When controlling for the effect of nonhypnotic suggestion, it is crucial that the exact same suggestion is given in both the hypnotic and nonhypnotic conditions. People can be remarkably sensitive to the wording of imaginative suggestions. If the wording is not the same in both conditions (e.g., Kosslyn, Thompson, et al., 2000; Iani, Ricci, et al., 2006), it can confound the nature of the induction of hypnosis and the nature of the suggestion. With such ambiguity, it is impossible to know whether differences in response are due to hypnosis or to differences in the wording of the suggestion.” Talk about ambiguity – I cannot make sense of the meaning of this paragraph, especially as a co-author of the Kosslyn et al. study. By definition, the