Reply to Wagstaff: “Hypnosis and the Relationship between Trance, Suggestion, Expectancy, and Depth: Some Semantic and Conceptual Issues”

Abstract

Wagstaff (2010) reviews and comments on two recent papers by Pekala et al. (2010a, 2010b), concluding that “many of the problems relating to the definition and conceptualization of terms associated with hypnosis … may stem from insufficient attention to the role of suggestion and expectancies in producing hypnotic phenomena, and an over-reliance on the role of the procedures and mechanics of the induction process” (p. 47). Although I agree with his semantic and conceptual focus, I believe that a number of these problems are due to not operationally defining terms such as hypnosis, hypnotic state, or trance in a comprehensive phenomenological manner. By using the PCI (Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory) via retrospective phenomenological assessment, and using a phenomenological state instrument like the PCI-HAP (Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory - Hypnotic Assessment Procedure) to obtain a state measure of hypnotic responsiveness, a means is available to define and empirically address some of these issues in a way that can significantly further our understanding of the nature of hypnotism. Such an approach might also address Kallio and Revonsuo's (2005) admonition concerning the need to develop “an internally coherent and widely shared theoretical vocabulary” (p. 51) to better understand consciousness, altered states of consciousness, and related phenomena, such as hypnosis/hypnotism.