Few terms in the psychological lexicon are so
thoroughly wrapped in mysticism and confusion. The problems arise from the
tendency that dates back to the discoverer, Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815), to
regard the process of hypnotism as one that transports the subject into a
separate "state of mind." Further complications emerged because the phenomenon
attracted a coterie of charlatans, faith healers and, more recently,
entertainers, who make unsubstantiated claims and show a singular reluctance to
use proper controls in their work. The present view is that a hypnotic "state"
does exist. It is somewhat less dramatic than often portrayed but does, in
general, display the following characteristics:
-
(a) although it superficially resembles a
sleep-like state (which is how it got its name), the EEG pattern does not
resemble any of the stages of sleep;
-
(b) normal planning functions are reduced -- a
hypnotized person tends to wait passively for instructions from the
hypnotist;
-
(c) attention becomes highly selective -- the
individual may hear only one person to the exclusion of others;
-
(d) role playing is readily accomplished, the
hypnotized person frequently becoming quite thoroughly immersed in a
suggested role; and
-
(e) post hypnotic suggestion is often observed,
frequently a specific amnesia in which the subject cannot recall things he
or she has been told to forget.
It should be noted that all of these effects are of
a kind in that they are also characteristic of a "normal" person who has
voluntarily given up conscious control, a person who evidences extreme
suggestibility. Not surprisingly, then, there is a school of thought that argues
that there is nothing at all special about this "state" but that it merely
represents an extreme pole on the scale
of normal
suggestibility.
