Hypnosis, Hypnotizability and Treatment

Abstract

There is broad agreement that a phenomenon we call "hypnosis" exists. However, there is no generally accepted definition of hypnosis. A brief historical overview of the use of hypnosis in healing practices demonstrates how it evolved willy-nilly, and like Topsy, "just growed" into its current status in medicine, psychiatry, psychology and dentistry. The mechanisms underlying hypnosis and how hypnosis differs from other cognitive states are almost totally unknown. With the exceptions of suggestions for pain control, current concepts of high, medium, low or non-hypnotizability do not reliably predict clinical outcomes for most medical, psychiatric or dental disorders. We do know that it is relatively easy to reliably evaluate hypnotizability, but other than choosing volunteers or subjects who will or will not exhibit traditional hypnotic phenomena, we rarely know what to do with that evaluation with actual clinical patients. Four case studies, representative of many others, chosen retrospectively from a practice that spans 45 years, illustrate how traditional or modern hypnotizability assessment is irrelevant in the clinical setting. Although the four patients differed obviously and vastly in hypnotizability, they all benefited from the use of hypnosis.

A Response to an Open Letter to the Editor of the AmericanJournal of Clinical Hypnosis

“…In contrast, in Case 4 (the Case of Aphrodite discussed in Sutcher, 2008a;p. 64), the patient said she wanted to quit but (I believe) was really not motivated to do so (as she later admitted).…”

“…Lilith replied, "No, I usually smoke cigarettes down to the nub. Strange, I wonder why I did that (Sutcher, 2008a;p. 63)."…”

“…Second, as I emphasized in earlier papers (Sutcher, 2008a;2008b), with the exception of treatments for pain, hypnotizability is probably not a major determinant of successful outcome in any other treatment strategy that employs hypnosis. While hypnotizability significantly correlates with pain relief for both hypnotic and non-hypnotic pain interventions (Appel & Bleiberg, 2005;Frischholz, 2005;Hilgard & Hilgard, 1975;Katz, Kao, Spiegel, & Katz, 1974), at best, it accounts for only 20-30% of the outcome variance in such studies.…”

“…She was ready to stop and she stopped. After 3 months, she still had stopped smoking and in her own words "what is more amazing, I have not wanted to (Sutcher, 2008a;p. 63)."…”

To Assess or Not Assess Hypnotic Suggestibility? That is the Question

“…That is the question. Dr. Howard Sutcher (2008) reports four cases in which the patients he treated profited from treatment yet "differed vastly in their levels of hypnotizability" (p. 61). He uses this observation to support his position that hypnotic suggestibility scores can tell us very little about treatment outcome.…”