Hypnotic Relationship Research Articles

Hypnotic susceptibility and previous relationship with the hypnotist.

Abstract It was hypothesized that previous acquaintance with the hypnotist would increase subjects' hypnotic susceptibility scores. Two matched groups were given the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, using a tape-recorded induction procedure. One group knew the recorded hypnotist as their classroom instructor, while the other was unfamiliar with him. Even when possibly resistant subjects were eliminated from the results for the second group, the group which knew the hypnotist had higher hypnotic susceptibility scores at between the .001 and .002 levels of significance.

Conditional reflexes as related to hypnosis and hypnotic techniques.

Hypnosis has never been adequately explained in terms of conceptual framework of most schools of psychotherapy. The psychoanalytic concept that it consists of submission and surrender of important ego functions to the therapist does not explain all observed facts. During my wartime studies and since, I have been impressed by the observation that the patient’s ego is by no means powerless and defenseless, even during a deep state of trance, i.e., in states of trance sufficiently deep to eliminate awareness of painful body injuries (1965). Erickson (1954) has shown on many occasions that in resistant subjects one of the best ways to induce trance is to encourage the patient to resist as much as he can. Haley (1963) has pointed out in detail that at the beginning of any hypnotic relationship there evolves a subtle battle for“one-upman-ship. ” These observations certainly show that surrender in the psychological sense is by no means an aspect of even the most successfully induced trance states.

Psychodynamics and Hypnosis

The concept of hypnosis as a therapeutic tool has undergone major revisions in recent years. Hypnotherapy today encompasses a variety of treatment approaches anchored in widely divergent theoretical orientations. Although hypnosis may be equally applicable in analytic and behavioral therapies, the nature of the hypnotic relationship brings modifications into the treatment structure which sets it off from nonhypnotic forms of therapy. Psychodynamics and Hypnosis presents the reader with a number of conceptual frameworks within which hypnotic techniques can constitute the chief modality of treatment. Each of the seven contributors to this slim but compact volume is well known in his field, and each approaches the therapeutic use of hypnosis from a somewhat different theoretical point of view. Nevertheless, throughout the book runs a unifying thread that ties the divergent orientations together. All seven authors emphasize in one way or another the basic unity of

An experimental indirect technique for the induction of hypnosis without awareness.

Abstract A procedure is described which has been used in an experimental setting as a method of indirectly inducing hypnosis without S's awareness. Ss are not told that hypnosis is involved in the procedure, but are told they will be taught how to relax. The aim of the indirect procedure is to create different expectations and preconceptions from those normally occurring in the special hypnotic relationship. Evidence from 3 studies (samples of 63, 63, 120) indicates that the procedure successfully induces hypnosis comparable in depth to other standard hypnotic procedures. About half of the Ss tested apparently do not recognize the procedure involves hypnosis. Approximately 30% of the 5s who receive the procedure, as well as 30% of the Ss in the control group who did not receive the procedure, but were tested with the same test suggestions, recognized that an attempt had been made to induce hypnosis. The perceptions about whether hypnosis was involved were unrelated to scores on typical hypnotic phenomena. It was concluded that the indirect induction technique successfully induces hypnosis and is a useful technique for manipulating 5-expectations in an experimental context.

Conditional reflexes as related to hypnosis and hypnotic techniques

Hypnosis has never been adequately explained in terms of conceptual framework of most schools of psychotherapy. The psychoanalytic concept that it consists of submission and surrender of important ego functions to the therapist does not explain all observed facts. During my wartime studies and since, I have been impressed by the observation that the patient’s ego is by no means powerless and defenseless, even during a deep state of trance, i.e., in states of trance sufficiently deep to eliminate awareness of painful body injuries (1965). Erickson (1954) has shown on many occasions that in resistant subjects one of the best ways to induce trance is to encourage the patient to resist as much as he can. Haley (1963) has pointed out in detail that at the beginning of any hypnotic relationship there evolves a subtle battle for“one-upman-ship. ” These observations certainly show that surrender in the psychological sense is by no means an aspect of even the most successfully induced trance states.By contrast to these excessively simple psychotherapeutic models, Pavlovian physiology (Pavlov, 1941) explains most of the variegated phenomena of the trance and of the particular psychological set which hypnotic psychotherapy provides. Pavlov (1941) concluded from his studies in the dog that“hypnosis can be produced by the continuation of one and the same stimulus, finally resulting in an inhibitory state” (p. 75) irrespective of the nature of this stimulus. In man it is quite obvious that it is the monotony and repetitiveness of the hypnotist’s discourse and the unchanging sameness of the setting and of the position of the patient which is the most convenient way to induce trance. Also Helge Lundholm’s method (1942) of deepening hypnosis by counting is explainable by this important and simple finding of Pavlov.

The Nature of Hypnotically Induced Behavior

Recent studies ( 1 ) have attempted to evaluate both the meaningfulness and the genuineness of behavior induced through hypnotic techniques. Utilizing a Reid Polygraph, studies have been undertaken in connection with a variety of hypnotic phenomena including age regression, inducing hallucinations, hypnotic anesthesia, and alterations in temporal and spacial orientation as well as induced variations in body image awareness ( 2 ) . The results have indicated that, with increasing involvement in the hypnotic relationship, as evidenced by rapidity with which changes in sensory and motor behavior may be induced, there appears to be an increasing acceptance uncritically, of the nature and the meaning of hypnotically induced behavior. In this respect, we find that polygraphic evidence from experimental Ss reveals their essential belief in the reality of subjective experience and response in the same way that they would accept on a non-hypnotic level a sense of belief in other conscious experiences such as dreaming, thinking and perceptual recognition. The acceptance of hypnotically induced behavior would appear psychodynamically to be consistent with the implication that hypnosis involves a degree of self-exclusion and the capacity to accept subjective responses without the necessity for critical evaluation by the self, allowing for the structuring of hypnotic perception through the ego involvement with the hypnotist and the focusing of attention upon that process. Current studies are attempting to compare the psychodynamic patterns of dreaming with the patterns of hypnotically induced behavior. As part of this study, nocturnal dreams are being smdied in connection with hypnotic dreams and other forms of perceptual alterations induced through hypnosis. It is hoped that further explorations of this sort will lead to some clarification of the regre:sive aspects of subjective responses as they occur in a variety of states of consciousness of which hypnosis is one.

On the psyche and warts. II. Hypnotic suggestion and warts.

Hypnosis was attempted in 62 patients with warts. Deep hypnosis was established in 15. Within a four-week period after the therapeutic suggestion was given, 8 of these 15 patients showed complete remission of their warts, in contrast to the occurrence of 2 cures in the 47 patients who could not be deeply hypnotized. The findings suggest that the hypnotic relationship may play a significant role in facilitating the curative process in certain patients with warts. The inability to cure some patients under the same or similar conditions, the occurrence of cures under other conditions, and the phenomena of so-called spontaneous cure indicate that factors other than those involved in the specific hypnotic procedure undoubtedly played a role. These factors urgently require further experimental clarification.

THE HYPNOTIC AND HYPNOTHERAPEUTIC CONTROL OF SEVERE PAIN

1. All experience has its origin in sensory data, but such data are elaborated and integrated through various levels of the central nervous system. According to Foerster(22), pain should be classified as feeling and emotion rather than as sensation and perception, but no biological or psychological phenomenon can be comprehended in terms of single cause and effect, and almost invariably pain must be considered both an emotional and sensory experience. Its source may be a stimulus in the periphery, or it may be central and cortical and projected to the periphery, as in the case of phantom limb pain or physical pain substituted for anxiety and guilt by the patient with, for instance, conversion hysteria. Treatment can therefore be designed: (a) to interrupt the passage of the sensory impulse: neuronectomy; cordotomy; sympathectomy; procaine nerve block; or even cervical, bulbar, and mesencephalic tractotomy, including bulbar trigeminal tractotomy; (b) to diminish or abolish the perception of the sensory impulse, even despite the fact that the end-organs continue functioning: chemical narcosis, hypæsthesia, and anæsthesia hypnotically induced; or (c) to attack the problem centrally in some other way: thalamotomy, bilateral frontal lobotomy, partial postcentral gyrectomy; psychological lobotomy by hypnosis, induction of deep sleep under hypnosis; psychotherapy of various types with both hypnotized and nonhypnotized patients. 2. Various techniques can be utilized for the hypnotic and hypnotherapeutic control of pain: (a) Deep "sleep" may be suggested (patient No. 2 with terminal carcinoma). (b) Direct suggestion can be given to the effect that the patient feels nothing. This is a relatively simple procedure, but can be dangerous for the patient if the pain result from deep-seated emotional needs. This symptom, like other conversion symptoms, may mask an underlying depression that can come to the fore, even in suicidal proportions, if the pain be suggested away without giving the patient something positive in its stead (patient No. 6). On the other hand, suggestion hypnosis has been used in dentistry, surgery, and obstetrics as an analgesic, sedative, narcotic, and anæsthetic—and the resultant anæsthesia is as profound as that produced by chemical anæsthetics. The advantages here are obvious. (c) Hostility may be abreacted—and the pain disappear (patients Nos. 4 and 5.) (d) The psychological equivalent of a lobotomy may be suggested. The patient is told that no stimulus, no matter how intense, can possibly disturb him. He then feels the same "pain" sensation, which nevertheless does not disturb, annoy, hurt, or "pain" him (patient No. 1, a primigravida who was delivered by this technique). This analogy with a lobotomy is, of course, superficial and holds only with respect to clinically observable reactions of patients toward painful stimuli. (e) The fantasies back of the pain may be acted out (patient No. 3 with the diagnosis of a ruptured disc for which she had already bad operative intervention). 3. Illustrative patients may be seen in almost every section of the hospital. If the emotional component is pronounced, their pain for the most part is poorly controlled by the more usual medical and surgical procedures. Of those patients whose protocols were utilized specifically for the preparation of this article, 5 were neurosurgical, 3 were orthopedic, 2 were surgical, and 1 was urological; 2 were obstetrical and 5 were medical. 4. During the discussion of that part of the clinical material that was utilized for illustrative purposes: (a) the technique of the psychological lobotomy was described; (b) specific dangers of treatment under hypnosis were emphasized; and (c) stress was placed upon the fact that pain, like other psychogenically based symptoms, is frequently utilized as justification and rationalization for drug habituation or addiction, or for the operative intervention for which some patients have so great a need in order to justify the continuance of their neurotic patterns of behavior (patient No. 7). 5. Although we believe that symptom disappearance by direct hypnotic suggestion constitutes an exceedingly superficial form of therapy and is not infrequently contra-indicated, selected patients can be treated to advantage under hypnosis by most of the more usual psychotherapeutic techniques and by some made possible only because of the hypnotic relationship itself. The superstition, however, is rampant, that work with hypnosis requires less background, less training, and less knowledge on the part of the therapist. For this reason, we have stressed the dangers involved. 6. Psychotherapy of any type can of course be exceedingly dangerous to the patient if its practitioner be incompetent. As Raginsky (23) states in his discussion of mental suggestion as an aid in anæsthesia, "One should be as careful with the psychologic scalpel as with the surgeon's scalpel and no less trained in the use of the psychologic microscope than in that of the bacteriologist or pathologist."