Expectations and hypnotherapy.

Abstract

The task in this chapter is to clarify the role that expectation plays in enhancing positive change and to demonstrate its use in hypnotic and suggestive techniques. Although hypnosis and suggestion are examples of where expectancy is used in psychotherapy, other therapeutic techniques could also be used as examples.The importance of expectations to the outcome of treatment has long been recognized. Similarities among healers from many persuasions, including witchdoctors and psychotherapists, have been pointed out (e.g., Torrey, 1972). The importance of expectations may in fact overshadow the effects of the specific treatments that one claims to have administered. Drugs, for example, appear at times to be no more effective than the patient's faith in the treatment. Such curative effects are often called "placebo" effects, meaning that they are not specific to the treatment effects or purposely created. They exist nevertheless, sometimes to a remarkable degree, and should therefore be considered in administering helping procedures. Torrey (1972) suggested that a patient's faith and motivation for improvement are determined by several factors: (a) the degree to which the therapist's ability to name the disease and its cause agrees with the views 73

Dissociation theories of hypnosis.

“…The person rests the elbow on the resting surface and holds the loose end of the thread between the thumb and forefinger; with the wrist bent at approximately a right angle. The person is given instructions to focus on the bob and to think of the bob doing different things, such as making circles or swinging back and forth in predetermined directions (Coe, 1993). The commonly reported experience is that the pendulum moves in conformity with the imagined or suggested movement but without awareness of intentional physical movements of the hand or arm.…”

Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy: A meta-analysis.

“…1 In contrast to this view, cognitive-behavioral theorists have rejected the hypothesis that there is a distinctly hypnotic state of consciousness (Barber, 1969;Kirsch, 1990;Sarbin & Coe, 1972;Spanos & Chaves, 1989). From a nonstate perspective, hypnosis has been hypothesized to augment therapy outcome through its effects on clients' beliefs and expectations (Barber, 1985;Coe, 1993;Fish, 1973;Kirsch, 1985Kirsch, , 1990. Thus, state theorists and cognitive-behavioral theorists agree that hypnosis can enhance treatment effects, albeit for different reasons.…”

Strategic Eclecticism in Hypnotherapy: Effectiveness Research Considerations

“…The ability to create reasonable novelty and raise hope is a robust factor significant to treatment. Expectancy, as perhaps the over-arching core process variable, has a role in any treatment, but perhaps more so in hypnosis (Coe, 1993;Council, 1999;Kirsch, 1999). These authors have opined that perhaps the single strongest prediction of hypnotic effect or change in a patient arises from expectancy.…”