What is the Source of Hypnotic Responses?

ABSTRACT

The author proposes that hypnosis is a culture-bound concept that has misattributed – to suggestion and hypnosis – the functioning of a natural, freestanding, human ability to alter personal experience. The 18th-century attribution of these phenomena (to the suggestions of a magnetizer) continues today because science and Western culture still do not explicitly acknowledge that humans possess a natural capacity to intentionally alter their own experiences. Like every other human ability (e.g. athletic, artistic, musical, mathematical, etc.), utilization of the natural human ability to intentionally alter one’s personal experience does not require suggestion, trance, or hypnotic induction. This ability has been studied for over 200 years under the conceptual aegis of suggestibility and hypnosis. As a consequence, the phenomena of this freestanding ability have been veiled and conflated with hypnosis, suggestion, suggestibility, and hypnotizability. One serious consequence of this conflation is an underdeveloped, nomological network of hypnosis-centric concepts that has impeded the integration of hypnosis with the rest of science.

Was ist die Quelle der hypnotischen Reaktionen?

Paul Dell

Zusammenfssung: Der Autor vertritt die These, dass Hypnose ein kulturgebundenes Konzept ist, das der Suggestion und der Hypnose fälschlicherweise die Funktion einer natürlichen, eigenständigen menschlichen Fähigkeit zur Veränderung persönlicher Erfahrungen zugeschrieben hat. Die Zuschreibung dieser Phänomene (an die Suggestionen eines Magnetiseurs) aus dem 18. Jahrhundert hat sich bis heute gehalten, weil die Wissenschaft und die westliche Kultur noch immer nicht ausdrücklich anerkennen, dass der Mensch über eine natürliche Fähigkeit verfügt, seine eigenen Erfahrungen absichtlich zu verändern. Wie jede andere menschliche Fähigkeit (z. B. sportliche, künstlerische, musikalische, mathematische usw.) erfordert auch die Nutzung der natürlichen menschlichen Fähigkeit, die eigene Erfahrung absichtlich zu verändern, keine Suggestion, Trance oder hypnotische Induktion. Diese Fähigkeit wird seit über 200 Jahren unter den Begriffen Suggestibilität und Hypnose untersucht. Infolgedessen wurden die Phänomene dieser eigenständigen Fähigkeit verschleiert und mit Hypnose, Suggestion, Suggestibilität und Hypnotisierbarkeit vermengt. Eine schwerwiegende Folge dieser Vermischung ist ein unterentwickeltes, nomologisches Netzwerk von hypnosezentrierten Konzepten, das die Integration der Hypnose in die übrige Wissenschaft behindert hat.

Quelle est la source des réponses hypnotiques ?

Paul Dell

Résumé: L’auteur propose que l’hypnose soit un concept lié à la culture qui a mal attribué à la suggestion et à l’hypnose le fonctionnement d’une capacité humaine naturelle et autonome à modifier l’expérience personnelle. L’attribution de ces phénomènes au XVIIIe siècle (aux suggestions d’un magnétiseur) se poursuit aujourd’hui parce que la science et la culture occidentale ne reconnaissent toujours pas explicitement que les êtres humains possèdent une capacité naturelle à modifier intentionnellement leurs propres expériences. Comme toutes les autres capacités humaines (athlétiques, artistiques, musicales, mathématiques, etc.), l’utilisation de la capacité naturelle de l’être humain à modifier intentionnellement son expérience personnelle ne nécessite pas de suggestion, de transe ou d’induction hypnotique. Cette capacité a été étudiée pendant plus de 200 ans sous l’égide conceptuelle de la suggestibilité et de l’hypnose. En conséquence, le phénomène de cette capacité autonome a été voilé et confondu avec l’hypnose, la suggestion, la suggestibilité et l’hypnotisabilité. Une conséquence sérieuse de cette confusion est un réseau nomologique sous-développé de concepts centrés sur l’hypnose qui a empêché l’intégration de l’hypnose dans le reste de la science.

¿Cuál es el origen de las respuestas hipnóticas?

Paul Dell

Resumen: El autor propone que la hipnosis es un concepto ligado a la cultura que ha atribuido erróneamente a la sugestión y la hipnosis el funcionamiento de una capacidad humana natural y autónoma para alterar la experiencia personal. La atribución de estos fenómenos en el siglo XVIII (a las sugestiones de un magnetizador) continúa hoy en día porque la ciencia y la cultura occidental siguen sin reconocer explícitamente que los seres humanos poseen una capacidad natural para alterar intencionadamente sus propias experiencias. Como cualquier otra capacidad humana (por ejemplo, atlética, artística, musical, matemática, etc.), la utilización de la capacidad humana natural de alterar intencionadamente la propia experiencia personal no requiere sugestión, trance o inducción hipnótica. Esta capacidad se ha estudiado durante más de 200 años bajo la égida conceptual de la sugestionabilidad y la hipnosis. Como consecuencia, los fenómenos de esta capacidad autónoma han sido velados y confundidos con la hipnosis, la sugestión, la sugestionabilidad y la hipnotizabilidad. Una consecuencia grave de esta confusión es una red nomológica subdesarrollada de conceptos centrados en la hipnosis que ha impedido la integración de la hipnosis con el resto de la ciencia.

Translation acknowledgments: The Spanish, French, and German translations were conducted using DeepL Translator (www.deepl.com/translator).

KEYWORDS:

• Ability
• cross-cultural
• hypnosis
• hypnotizability
• suggestibility
• suggestion

Introduction

When Hull completed his five-year research project on hypnosis, he concluded that “[the] essence of hypnosis lies in the fact of change in suggestibility” (Hull, 1933, pp. 391–392). Although occasionally challenged (e.g., Barber, 1979; Spanos, 1982), a hypnosis-induced increase in suggestibility is widely accepted. The 2014 definition of hypnosis by Division 30 of the American Psychological Association states that hypnosis is “characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion” (Elkins et al., 2015, p. 382). The present article contests this view of hypnosis and examines Hull’s seldom-discussed assertion that heightened suggestibility is the last surviving feature that marks hypnosis as an important scientific phenomenon (Hull, 1933).

Hypnosis and Hypnotic Phenomena

Dramatic phenomena, that would eventually be called “hypnotic” by Braid (1843), were observed in 1784 by the Marquis de Puységur. A devotee of animal magnetism, Puységur considered these phenomena to be a “waking sleep” during which individuals transcend (i.e., exceed) their normal abilities. The waking sleep soon became known as artificial somnambulism to which were ascribed many, unusual features (Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Gauld, 1992; Laurence & Perry, 1988).

According to Puységur, during the waking sleep, a magnetized individual (a) sleeps, but retains the ability to talk; (b) irresistibly carries out the will of the magnetizer; (c) can hear and respond only to the magnetizer; (d) exhibits an alteration in personality; (e) displays a superior intellectual ability; (f) manifests a superior ability of the five senses; (g) displays a sixth sense (i.e., the ability to see the interior of his/her own body, the ability to diagnose and prescribe for self and others, and the ability to predict, to the day, the future course of an illness); and (h) undergoes a spontaneous, post-magnetic amnesia (Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Gauld, 1992; Laurence & Perry, 1988; Puységur, 1784; Reid, 2016). Bertrand (1823) identified four additional magnetic features: spontaneous anesthesia, improved ability to recall, thought transmission, and mental inertia.

As shown by the previous paragraph, artificial somnambulism was an amalgam of paranormal (Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Gauld, 1992; Harrington, 2016; Laurence & Perry, 1988; Puységur, 1784) and transcendent (Hull, 1933; Spanos & Gottlieb, 1979; Sutcliffe, 1961) phenomena. During the first six decades of the 19^th century, magnetized individuals displayed the waking sleep (some with a full complement of Puységur’s and Bertrand’s paranormal/transcendent phenomena) rather than Mesmer’s seizure-like crisis (Pattie, 1994). Controversy increased when magnetized persons “discovered” additional, wondrous features (e.g., catalepsy; clairvoyance; vision with the eyes covered; and “transposition of the senses” whereby the stomach was able to see, hear, smell, etc.; Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Gauld, 1992; Laurence & Perry, 1988).

Ridding Hypnosis of Its Paranormal/Transcendent Attributes

Hull (1929, 1933) considered the effort to rid hypnosis of its fantastical attributes to be the principal project of the entire history of hypnosis (Gauld, 1992; Orne, 1959; Spanos & Gottlieb, 1979; Sutcliffe, 1961; White, 1941). “All sciences,” Hull said, “have descended from magic and superstition, but none has been so slow as hypnosis in shaking off the … associations of its origin” (Hull, 1929, p. 160).

In the mid-1800s, Braid proposed three notable changes: (1) that artificial somnambulism be renamed neuro-hypnotism (Braid, 1843); (2) that neuro-hypnotism should be shorn of its most outrageous attributes (Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Gauld, 1992; Kihlstrom, 2013); and (3) that hypnotic phenomena be given a neuropsychological explanation (i.e., concentrated attention and monoideism; Braid, 1843, 1855/1970). Braid (1855/1970) considered the hypnotic state to be a doubling of consciousness that generates a spontaneous, posthypnotic amnesia.

Braid reported that “perhaps not more than one in ten” individuals (Braid, 1855/1970, p. 370) displayed spontaneous, posthypnotic amnesia and double consciousness. This assertion shows that Braid defined high hypnotizability. Braid’s narrow concept of hypnosis is echoed by later scholars who recommended “working with subjects of the highest possible suggestibility” (Weitzenhoffer, 1989, p. 395) and studying the altered state of consciousness of highs (Kallio & Revonsuo, 2003). Relatedly, Laurence et al. (2008) asserted that “[i]f it was not for these [highly hypnotizable] subjects, hypnosis would have faded from the clinical armamentarium and the research laboratory a long time ago” (p. 225).

Braid psychologized the hypnotic attribute of involuntariness; he said that individuals have an irresistible response to their monoideic focus on the ideas that are suggested by the hypnotist. This advance was promptly negated by Liébault (1866) and Bernheim (1886/1947) who, although followers of Braid, considered involuntariness to be a near-paranormal compulsion (i.e., an automaton-like obedience to the hypnotist). Their claim precipitated a legal controversy about “hypnotic crimes” (Laurence & Perry, 1988).

In agreement with Hull’s (1929, 1933) assertion that the principal project of hypnosis has been to discard its paranormal and transcendent features, I propose that the history of hypnosis has been characterized by repeated encounters with variations of a single question: Is hypnosis a special state that allows humans to transcend their normal abilities and undergo remarkable experiences? Remarkable experiences include involuntary, automaton-like obedience to the operator, spontaneous catalepsy, increased intelligence, acquisition of a sixth sense (i.e., the ability to diagnose and prescribe), increased sensory abilities, spontaneous anesthesia, spontaneous posthypnotic amnesia, a rapport that allows the sleeping person to read the mind of the magnetizer, transposition of the senses (i.e., being able to hear, see, etc. with the stomach), an inability to tell lies, hypermnesia, increased strength and endurance such as becoming a human plank, and dramatically increased suggestibility. See also Spanos’ (1982) discussion (and rejection) of the idea that hypnosis is a special process.

Hull’s Concern About the Scientific Status of Hypnosis

Hull’s experimental work was both preceded and followed by efforts to identify the invariant (i.e., essential) aspects and manifestations of hypnosis (Braid, 1846; Gauld, 1992; Orne, 1959; White, 1941; Young, 1927). When Hull published his book on hypnosis in 1933, many invariant attributes of hypnosis had already been discarded. Each invariant served an important function: each invariant seemed to prove that the hypnotic state is truly different from the waking state. Hull was acutely aware of this, as was White:

Hull: we have discarded as non-characteristic, one after another of the phenomena once supposed to be distinctive of hypnosis … We have now before us perhaps the most important claimant for this distinction. … that the hypnotic state is … a state of heightened susceptibility to suggestion. (Hull, 1933, p. 309)

White: The trend of research has … been to denude the hypnotic state of its once extensive vesture of distinguishing characteristics. What remains of its former majesty? (White, 1941, p. 494)

These issues constitute the heart of the state-nonstate debate. In other words, “Is hypnosis special/different or not?” (e.g., Spanos, 1982). I suggest that the fundamental question (and argument) about hypnosis has always been, “What is the nature of hypnosis?” Or, more precisely, “Is hypnosis special or different from the waking state?”

Since the 1960s, if not since Bernheim in 1897 and 1917 (see Pintar & Lynn, 2008), debates about hypnosis (e.g., Barber, 1979; Spanos, 1982; Sutcliffe, 1961) have challenged the contention that, during hypnosis, the suggestibility of individuals transcends (i.e., exceeds) their waking capacity.¹ Transcendent change contradicts both modern science and the empirical literature on hypnosis (Dell, 1985, 2019; Maturana, 1990). Transcendent change has a more colloquial name—magic. Oddly, Western observers of hypnotic phenomena often react with surprise, awe, and delight, as if hypnotized persons dramatically transcend their everyday waking level of suggestibility (Dell, 2021; James, 1890; Mohl, 2013).

Empirical Research on Hypnotic Suggestibility

To his apparent surprise, Hull concluded that hypnotic suggestibility is “far less than the classical hypnotists would have supposed” (Hull, 1933, p. 298). He issued his conclusion in a blandly worded statement: “The essence of hypnosis lies in the fact of change in suggestibility.” A more full-bodied pronouncement came 30 pages later: “The fundamental question of hypnotic hypersuggestibility still lies in an extremely unsettled condition” (p. 332). In other words, Hull had found a modest hypnotic increase in suggestibility, but no hypersuggestibility.

As noted above, Hull was concerned about the evidence for hypnotic hypersuggestibility. He and his graduate students had tested the widely held, culture-bound belief that hypnosis produces “supernormal powers” (Hull, 1933, p. 224) of muscular power, resistance to fatigue, and sensory acuity. They had found no evidence in support of supernormal muscular power, or supernormal resistance to fatigue, and only questionable evidence in support of supernormal sensory acuity. Hull (1933) considered hypersuggestibility to be “the most important [remaining] claimant” (p. 309) of supernormal functioning in hypnosis – the last man standing, so to speak. He said that if hypnotic hypersuggestibility were to be disproven, “we should be forced by logical necessity to abandon the concept of hypnosis as a significant entity” (Hull, 1933, p. 309).²

Despite his stated conviction that hypnotic hypersuggestibility must not be disproven, Hull did not insist that we should “abandon the concept of hypnosis as a significant entity” (Hull, 1933, p. 309). Instead, he called for more research: “Rich returns are likely to follow vigorous experimental pursuit of the numerous clues now available” (Hull, 1933, p. 332).

Researchers have routinely replicated Hull’s finding that the hypnotic increase in suggestibility appears to be surprisingly modest (Barber, 1965; Barber & Calverley, 1963a, 1963b, 1968; Barber & Glass, 1962; Braffman & Kirsch, 1999; Green et al., 2005; Hilgard & Tart, 1966; Hull, 1933; Kirsch et al., 2007, 2008; Meyer & Lynn, 2011; Milling et al., 2010; Weitzenhoffer & Sjöberg, 1961). These investigators found hypnotic suggestibility to be (1) slightly but significantly greater than waking suggestibility (Barber, 1965; Barber & Calverley, 1963a, 1963b; Braffman & Kirsch, 1999; Hilgard & Tart, 1966; Hull, 1933; Weitzenhoffer & Sjoberg, 1961), (2) slightly but nonsignificantly greater than waking suggestibility (Barber & Calverley, 1962; Barber & Glass, 1962), and (3) about the same as waking suggestibility (Meyer & Lynn, 2011; Milling et al., 2010).

When individual research subjects are examined (i.e., the combined data from five of these studies: N = 618 subjects; Barber & Glass, [1962]; Braffman & Kirsch, [1999]; Meyer & Lynn, [2011]; Milling et al., [2010]; Weitzenhoffer & Sjoberg [1961]), the results are mixed, with some subjects showing decreased suggestibility, some showing unchanged suggestibility, and others showing increased suggestibility. After the hypnotic induction, 0% to 68% (Mode = 25%) of subjects exhibited decreased suggestibility; 12% to 57% (Mode = 30%) of subjects exhibited equal suggestibility; and 21% to 50% (Mode = 43%) of subjects exhibited increased suggestibility. Thus, only a minority of the 618 subjects evidenced an increase in suggestibility (Barber, 2000; Holroyd, 2003). In summary, these investigators found modest and inconsistent changes in suggestibility, but no hypersuggestibility. Even Erickson (1932), in a sample of 300, was unable to evoke hypersuggestibility.

What Causes the (Modest) Increase in Hypnotic Suggestibility?

Questions about hypnotic suggestibility have a long history. Bernheim lit the fuse a century ago when he implicitly denied the existence of a hypnotic increase in suggestibility; Bernheim rejected the existence of hypnosis because waking suggestion was, in his view, as effective as hypnotic suggestion (see Bernheim, 1917; Pintar & Lynn, 2008; Pintar, 2010).³

A full-blown, empirical debate about increased suggestibility was launched in 1961 when Weitzenhoffer and Sjöberg reported that hypnotized research subjects performed significantly better than waking research subjects. Their findings were successfully replicated by Barber and Glass (1962), whereupon Barber promptly challenged his own findings (Barber & Glass, 1962), and those of Weitzenhoffer and Sjöberg (1961), on the grounds that five factors gave trance-induction subjects an advantage over waking subjects: (1) the situation was defined as “hypnosis;” (2) hypnotists explicitly try to motivate their subjects; (3) trance-induction subjects were immobile during 15 to 20 minutes of trance suggestions and had monotonous sensory experience; (4) the intonation of the hypnotist’s voice rewarded subjects for appropriate responses to the induction; and (5) the subject was explicitly or tacitly rewarded for performing objectively unusual experimental behavior (e.g., behaving in a drowsy or lethargic manner; Barber & Calverley, 1962).

Barber’s challenge to traditional hypnosis evoked strong push-back. Opponents claimed that Barber’s task-motivated research subjects were not honest in their hypnotic performance (Bowers, 1966; Zamansky et al., 1964) and that that they simply conformed to the pressure of Barber’s task-motivation instructions (e.g., Bowers, 1967; Wagstaff, 1981, 1986). Hilgard and Tart (1966) and Tart and Hilgard (1966) challenged Barber and Calverley’s (1962) findings by insisting that waking research subjects “spontaneously enter hypnosis” (Tart & Hilgard, 1966, p. 247).

In 1968, Barber and Calverley proposed that hypnotic research subjects’ modest advantage in suggestibility was due to their cultural knowledge and expectations about hypnosis. This is a consequential idea because Western culture’s portrayal of hypnosis transmits a set of conceptions and expectations that shape a person’s response to hypnosis (Baker & Kirsch, 1993; Barber, 1965; Barber & Calverley, 1963b; Council et al., 1983; Gandhi & Oakley, 2005; Glass & Barber, 1961). Hull (1933) called this the “social suggestion hypothesis”:

It is an almost universal belief … that once a subject has yielded to hypnosis … he is completely within the power of the hypnotist, and that so long as the trance persists he cannot resist any suggestions that the latter may choose to give … The [social suggestion] hypothesis assumes that this widespread belief itself … is quite sufficient to produce, after a trance has been induced by ordinary suggestions, a marked facilitation of response to further suggestions. (Hull, 1933, pp. 310–311)

Hull (1933) was unable to discount this hypothesis.

Introducing the idea of hypnosis into an experiment significantly alters a person’s behavior (Baker & Kirsch, 1993; Barber, 1965; Barber & Calverley, 1963b; Council et al., 1983; Gandhi & Oakley, 2005; Glass & Barber, 1961). Sarbin’s (1950) role-playing view of hypnotic behavior is based on an individuals’ knowledge about hypnosis (how else could they play their roles?). So, too, is Zamansky’s “holding back” phenomenon: participants in within-subjects-design studies of waking and hypnotic performance seem to hold back their efforts in the waking condition (consciously? unconsciously?) because they know they are supposed to perform better in the hypnosis condition (Barber, 1965; Braffman & Kirsch, 1999; Stam & Spanos, 1980; Zamansky et al., 1964).

Since 1968, more than 40 publications have emphasized the effects of cultural knowledge and expectations on a person’s hypnotic behavior. The best experimental demonstration of this effect is Gandhi and Oakley’s (2005) study, partially titled: “The efficacy of ‘hypnotic’ inductions depends on the label ‘hypnosis.’” Gandhi and Oakley found that the mean effect size of labeling a hypnotic induction “hypnosis” was .51 on the behavioral measure (i.e., a medium effect size) and 1.18 on the subjective measure (i.e., a large effect size). Thus, the effects of Western cultural expectations about hypnosis are not trivial, as has been shown to be the case for all kinds of expectancies (Kirsch, 1985, 1990, 1991; Kirsch et al., 1987, 1995b).

One firm conclusion can be drawn here: research on hypnotic suggestibility does not support the “former majesty” (White, 1941, p. 494) that once was hypnosis. The most consistent through-line in the waking-versus-hypnosis literature is that social and psychological variables significantly influence the responsiveness of research subjects. Sociocognitive theorists consider this through-line to be evidence that the sociocognitive theory of hypnosis is correct and that state theories of hypnosis are incorrect (e.g., Lynn et al., 2008).

Two Implications of Dell's Ability-To-Alter-Personal-Experience Model

This article endorses Dell’s (2021) ability-to-alter-personal-experience model of hypnotic phenomena. The following paragraphs explain two aspects of that model more clearly than Dell’s recent publications (Dell, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022). First, Dell has not stated explicitly that his model is less an explanation of hypnosis than it is an explanation of (the domain of) hypnotic responses. The ability-to-alter-personal-experience model addresses precisely the same domain of experiences as do hypnotic suggestions (Elkins et al., 2015; Hilgard, 1973; Kihlstrom, 2008). Those two domains of phenomena are one and the same. Accordingly, the domain of the ability-to-alter-personal-experience model includes “alterations in perception, memory, and action” (Kihlstrom, 2008, p. 21), “alterations in physiology, sensations, emotions, thoughts, or behavior” (Elkins et al., 2015, p. 383), and so on. Second, Dell explicitly rejects the idea that hypnotic responses are caused by suggestion, hypnosis, or a state of increased suggestibility. This total abrogation of the concepts of hypnosis and suggestion requires elaboration and justification.

Revisiting the Concepts of Suggestion and Suggestibility

Reviewers of the present paper sometimes seemed to be more concerned about the implications of the ability-to-alter-personal-experience model for suggestion than the model’s implications for hypnosis. Might this indicate that suggestion is the crucial metaphor for hypnosis? There is evidence, both historical and contemporary, in support of this idea.

Suggestion has always been central to the concept of hypnosis. Bernheim, for example, declared that “suggestion … rules hypnotism” (Bernheim, 1886/1947, p. 15). Charcot and his model of hysteria fell into disrepute when he failed to see that he was unknowingly suggesting to his patients how to act. Suggestions held great cultural importance at that time:

We can hardly realize today to what extent hypnotism and suggestion were invoked in the 1880s to explain countless historical, anthropological, and sociological facts such as the genesis of religions, miracles, and wars … Entire educational systems were based on the concept of suggestion … (Ellenberger, 1970, pp. 164–165)

With the turn of the 20^th century, Bernheim (1917) completely disavowed hypnosis, but strongly championed suggestion and a state of suggestion:

It would be best to drop the term “hypnotism” altogether and replace it with “state of suggestion.” One could have discovered these phenomena directly in the waking state without passing through the unnecessary intermediary of induced sleep; then the word hypnotism would not have been invented. The idea of a special magnetic or hypnotic state provoked by special maneuvers would not have been attached to these phenomena. (Bernheim, 1917, p. 47)

At this same time, Coué propounded a self-suggestion model of therapy (Yeates, 2016): “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”

Suggestion is still central to hypnotic theory (e.g., Barnier et al., 2022; Halligan & Oakley, 2014; Kirsch et al., 2011; Lynn et al., 2015b; Oakley & Halligan, 2009, 2013; Oakley et al., 2021; Terhune & Oakley, 2020; Terhune et al., 2017). But, perhaps, change is in the air.

In the last decade, several authors have proposed models of hypnosis that implicitly or explicitly demote the causal role of suggestion in favor of the person’s own ability (Dell, 2021; Dienes et al., 2022; Lush et al., 2019, 2020; Lynn et al., 2015b; Oakley et al., 2021; Santarcangelo & Scattina, 2016; Terhune et al., 2017). Santarcangelo and colleagues’ systematic investigation of the physiology of highly hypnotizable individuals implicitly demotes the causal role of suggestion, but they have not discussed that implication.

Lynn et al. (2015b) have included ability in the integrative version of their sociocognitive model: “the ability to respond to imaginative suggestions depends on the ability to experience or translate the suggested sensations and imaginings into credible and compelling subjective experiences and actions” (p. 316). Nonetheless, their integrative model is still centered on suggestion (Hypnosis, suggestion, and suggestibility: An integrative model; Lynn et al., 2015b).

The essential point is that a person’s “ability … to translate” [suggestions] into credible and compelling subjective experiences and actions” (Lynn et al., 2015b, p. 316) does not require a suggestion in order to operate. The ability to alter personal experience lies solely within the person – not between the person and a therapist who makes suggestions. Utilization of that ability can certainly be evoked by a therapist’s suggestion, but suggestions are only one of many possible triggers (e.g., personal desire, daydreaming, wishing, conscious intention, etc.) that can motivate the person to alter his/her personal experience. No human ability (e.g., musical, athletic, artistic, mathematical, or the ability to alter personal experience) requires suggestion in order to be used. The foregoing sentence mirrors the fundamental contention of the ability-to-alter-personal-experience model: the causal engine of hypnotic phenomena is the person’s ability, not suggestion.

Terhune et al. (2017) have emphasized that “[a] remarkable feature of the human brain is its ability to translate endogenous mental representations into perceptual states” (p. 60). Despite this unambiguous endorsement of ability Terhune and colleagues conceptualize hypnosis in terms of suggestion: “[h]ypnosis can be understood as an elaborate form of suggestion that occurs within a specific sociocultural context” (Terhune et al., 2017, p. 60).

Oakley et al. (2021) strongly endorse the causal role of ability, but they call it “direct verbal suggestibility:”

we propose … the term “direct verbal suggestibility” (DVS) to describe what we see as the distinct human trait underlying responsiveness to direct verbal suggestions [emphasis added] with and without an accompanying hypnotic procedure … We offer the label “DVS” as there is … no agreed overarching term that would encompass examples of this general personality trait, seen in both hypnotic and non-hypnotic contexts [emphasis added] … (p. 7, 9)

Thus, the metaphor of suggestion has long characterized the practice, theory, history, and daily discussion of hypnosis. For much of the history of hypnosis, it was generally believed that the magnetizer’s or hypnotist’s suggestions controlled the person (e.g., rapport, involuntariness, automatisms; the classic suggestion effect; Crabtree, 1993; Ellenberger, 1970; Gauld, 1992; Weitzenhoffer, 1978b, 1980). As Hull noted:

It is an almost universal belief … that once a subject has yielded to hypnosis … he is completely within the power of the hypnotist, and … so long as the trance persists he cannot resist any suggestions that the latter may choose to give … (Hull, 1933, p. 310)

Recently, the concept of suggestion has been directly challenged. For example, Dienes et al. (2022) have correctly noted that “suggestion may be a misleading word [emphasis added]” (p. 11): “The subjective experiences can be created by the subject for their own purposes, without there being an authority to suggest them as such” (Dienes et al., 2022, p. 11). I have noticed that practitioners typically respond to such claims by invoking the causal role of suggestion, the person administered the suggestion to himself/herself.

Dell (2021) has unequivocally called suggestion into question:

The ability-to-alter-experience model posits that the manifestations of the human ability to alter experience are revealed by suggestions (just as paramecia are revealed [but not caused] by a microscope). On this view, suggestions, suggestibility, and hypnotizability do not … explain the human ability to alter experience (just as microscopes do not … explain paramecia). (Dell, 2021, p. 16)

We can discuss “microscopic paramecia” and “suggestibility,” but these familiar, descriptive terms will lead us astray if we mistake them to be causal in nature.

Two authors have explicitly rejected the causal role of suggestion in favor of human ability. Lush et al. (2020) have proposed an ability that they call “phenomenological control,” and Dell (2021) has proposed an ability that he calls “the ability to alter personal experience.”

Lush and colleagues: Phenomenological control is not restricted to response to direct suggestion … Phenomenological control is sensitive to plans and goals (Hilgard, 1977/1986; Spanos, 1986), and it is a long-standing adage amongst hypnosis researchers that all hypnosis can be seen as self-hypnosis (e. g. Kilhstrom, 2001, pp. 217–218). Therefore, people may implement phenomenological control in everyday life when it suits their plans and goals … (Lush et al., 2020), p. 5)

Dell: [Dell] (re)conceptualizes hypnosis and hypnotizability in terms of … an ability [to alter personal experience] that exists independently of (1) an induction, (2) a hypnotist, (3) the hypnotic state, (4) alterations of consciousness, (5) suggestions, and (6) the context of hypnosis. (Dell, 2021, p. 17)

And yet, the views of Lush and colleagues and of Dell are not new. As far back as 1814, the Abbé de Faria said that “[n]othing comes from the magnetizer, everything comes from the subject and takes place in his imagination” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1994).

In summary, the ability-to-alter-personal-experiences model rejects three central components of the historical model of hypnosis: (1) the need for a concept of hypnosis (2) the need for a concept of suggestion, and (3) the existence of a state of hypnosis or suggestibility. In doing so, the ability-to-alter-personal-experiences model opposes both the state and nonstate models of hypnosis. Dell’s model rejects (1) the state models of hypnosis/suggestion and (2) the causal relevance of the psychological variables endorsed by the sociocognitive model of hypnosis (with the single exception of the recent claim that “the ability to respond to imaginative suggestions depends on the ability to experience or translate the suggested sensations and imaginings into credible and compelling subjective experiences and actions” (Lynn et al., 2015b, p. 316).

The ability-to-alter-personal-experience model and Lush and colleagues' (2020) phenomenological control model address a logical shortcoming in the hypnosis literature. Contrary to the evidence that is documented in the literature, subjects’ modestly increased responsiveness during hypnosis does not (yet) logically imply that hypnosis caused that increase. Because no study has controlled all relevant, non-hypnotic variables, it is a logical error to conclude that post-induction changes in performance are caused by hypnosis. Unless all competing explanations have been ruled out, the logical standing of the accepted interpretation of the empirical literature (i.e., that hypnosis increases suggestibility) can only be post hoc, ergo propter hoc (i.e., after this, therefore because of this), a logical fallacy (Damer, 1994).

Dell’s ability-to-alter-personal-experience model and Lush and colleagues’ phenomenological control model generate the same conclusion. If the ability to alter personal experience is a freestanding, human ability, then that ability can certainly be invoked via an induction and by suggestions, but neither the induction nor the suggestions are required for that ability to operate.

Increased Suggestibility

There seem to be three important questions about increased hypnotic suggestibility. First, does hypnosis produce a majestic increase in hypnotizability (i.e., transcendent hypersuggestibility)? Second, does hypnosis increase suggestibility at all? Third, why do so many Westerners, including practitioners, seem to “see” a dramatic increase in suggestibility?

In regard to Question One (i.e., Does hypnosis produce a majestic increase in hypnotizability), no modern, well-controlled study has shown hypnosis to produce a transcendent increase in suggestibility. This is the negative result that Hull feared: “If hypersuggestibility must … be discarded as distinctive of the hypnotic trance, which must be done if this inquiry receives a negative answer [emphasis added], we should be forced by logical necessity to abandon the concept of hypnosis as a significant entity” (Hull, 1933, p. 309).

The evidence is clear; hypersuggestibility must be “discarded as … distinctive of the hypnotic trance” (Hull, 1933, p. 309). Does this mean that the concept of hypnosis should be abandoned as a “significant entity?” Practitioners of hypnosis who find hypnotic interventions to be valuable and effective would certainly not agree.

In regard to Question Two (i.e., Does hypnosis increase suggestibility at all?), the empirical evidence cannot answer this question with an unambiguous “yes,” and Dell’s ability-to-alter-experience model answers this question with a resounding “no.” Yet, 80% of practitioners endorse the statement that the existence of a hypnotic state (Christensen, 2005; Kirsch, 1993; Munson et al., 2015) is “characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion” (Elkins et al., 2015, p. 382). These practitioners do not doubt that hypnosis increases suggestibility and is therapeutically effective.

In regard to Question Three (i.e., Why do Westerners, including practitioners, seem to see a dramatic increase in suggestibility?), I offer two interrelated explanations. First, Western culture has an inaccurate/incomplete view of human capacities. Second, Western culture harbors a beguiling, culture-bound entity that is famous for increasing suggestibility – hypnosis.

Western Culture Has an Inaccurate/Incomplete View of Human Capacities

Whether they have personally experienced hypnosis or have just observed or read about it, Westerners generally consider hypnosis and hypnotic responses to be unusual and surprising, if not wondrous (Barnier et al., 2008; Dell, 2021; Faria, 1819; Hilgard, 1964; James, 1890; Mohl, 2013). Hypnotic phenomena differ conspicuously from Westerners’ everyday experience – and from what their culture has taught Westerners about human capacities – thereby evoking surprise (Dell, 2021; James, 1890; Mohl, 2013), a response that occurs when a person’s operative worldview is violated (Kahneman, 2011).

From a sociocognitive point of view, media presentations of hypnosis seem to transmit 18th- and 19th-century views of hypnosis to the general public. Western culture still contains archaic views of hypnosis. Contemporary media portrayals of hypnosis commonly reflect the culture-bound view that hypnosis is special and unusual.

Importantly, neither Western culture, nor science, nor practitioners of hypnosis give full credence to the idea that humans can intentionally alter their personal experience (Dell, 2021). Perhaps, their inclination to act on this belief is blocked by their strong investment in the causal power of suggestions.⁴ If practitioners gave full credence to the idea that humans can intentionally alter their personal experience, and if those practitioners were not hindered by a competing or concomitant investment in suggestions, they would stop practicing hypnosis! The bottom line here is that practitioners of hypnosis act as if they believe that effectiveness requires hypnosis (and requires suggestions).

Practitioners (and other Westerners) see sudden and unusual alterations of personal experience when highly hypnotizable individuals respond to a hypnotic suggestion. This brings us to a pivotal denouement: highs’ responses to hypnotic suggestions depart so greatly from Westerners’ daily experience and expectations that, vis-a-vis their daily experience and expectations, Westerners necessarily find the performance of highs to be at least unusual (if not something that approaches the paranormal or transcendent).

The Western, Culture-Bound Concept of Hypnosis

The Western, culture-bound concept of hypnosis has always been constitutively special, transcendent, and dramatically different from the occurrences of everyday life (Hull, 1929; Sutcliffe, 1960, 1961). In fact, logically, the concept of a special/transcendent hypnosis can only exist if it produces changes in experience and action that do not/cannot occur in the normal waking state. Modern science and the empirical literature on hypnosis refute the culture-bound portrayal of hypnosis – but the continuing presence of the culture-bound myth of transcendent hypnosis still provokes questions from clients such as, “You’re not going to make me dance like a chicken, are you?”

Why has it been so difficult for science to wrest this special/dramatic notion of hypnosis from its cultural bedrock? Probably for one big reason: science has not yet acknowledged, and certainly has not declared, that the ability to alter one’s personal experience is a freestanding, human capacity (that some individuals possess to a remarkable degree). In the absence of that acknowledgment, the dramatic responses to hypnotic suggestions reveal the manifestations of that natural human ability as a hypnotic phenomenon.

The Apperception of a Large Increase in Suggestibility

Research teaches practitioners that hypnosis produces an only-modest increase in suggestibility, but that well-replicated finding holds little sway over practitioners’ everyday experience in Western culture and their experience of, and belief in, hypnosis and suggestion. When Westerners witness a person’s successful response to hypnotic suggestions, they necessarily see a dramatic difference from what their culture has taught them to expect. In short, Westerners’ culturally constrained expectations about the human capacity to alter personal experience serve to perpetuate the culture-bound myth of a transcendent – or, at least, dramatic – hypnosis-induced increase in suggestibility.

Summary and Conclusions

On the view proposed here, neither hypersuggestibility nor modestly increased suggestibility is the essence of hypnosis. In fact, hypnosis does not increase suggestibility at all. Rather, hypnosis successfully utilizes, but does not increase, a natural human ability that some individuals possess to a great degree, and that Western culture only (and partially) acknowledges within the context of hypnosis. That human ability, and only that ability, makes all hypnotic phenomena, and many other phenomena, possible (e.g., Dienes et al., 2022; Lush et al., 2020).

Suggestibility is Not the Essence of Hypnosis-Augmented Treatment

On this view, the essence of hypnotic intervention is twofold: (1) helping (or simply occasioning) patients to intentionally use their own natural ability to alter their own experience, and (2) helping those patients to shape their dormant ability into a ready-to-hand skill. In other words, healthcare professionals who use hypnotic interventions are teachers, coaches, and trainers who awaken and nurture their patients’ natural ability (Hope & Sugarman, 2015), an ability that Western culture hid from them (and that science has not yet acknowledged apart from the domain of hypnosis).

The bottom line here is that the existence of a freestanding, human ability to alter personal experience has been veiled by, conflated with, and partially mystified by the surplus meanings that Western culture has embedded in the concepts of hypnosis, suggestions, suggestibility, and hypnotizability. Bernheim and Young came close to this conclusion about hypnotic phenomena a century ago:

Bernheim: One could have discovered these phenomena directly in the waking state without passing through the unnecessary intermediary of induced sleep; and then the word hypnotism would not have been invented. The idea of a special magnetic or hypnotic state provoked by special maneuvers would not have been attached to these phenomena. (Bernheim, 1917, p. 47)

Young: the differences which appear in somnambulism are differences in the constitution of the persons involved; and would be better described, perhaps, merely as individual differences in normal persons than as differences between the normal and the hypnotic states as such. This would leave the term “hypnosis” with a fairly definite meaning: a state in which a person will do, in a bona fide manner, possessed of conviction, what he will not do in waking life for lack of such conviction. (Young, 1925, p. 232)

Closing Comment

The author proposes a radical reconceptualization of hypnotic phenomena – an understanding that is not new (Faria, 1819; Young, 1925). According to the ability-to-alter-personal-experience model, all hypnotic phenomena (in the therapist’s consulting room and in the empirical literature) are manifestations of a freestanding human ability whose utilization requires neither hypnosis nor suggestion.

A reviewer of this paper asked if I was arguing that “one of the most robust forms of psychological treatment known to modern medicine (i.e., hypnosis) has no practical value?” The answer to that question is definitely no. Hypnosis has proven to be invaluable for over 200 years despite many erroneous ideas about hypnosis during those two centuries (i.e., automaton-like obedience to the operator; spontaneous catalepsy; increased intelligence; acquisition of a sixth sense (i.e., the ability to diagnose and prescribe); increased sensory abilities; spontaneous anesthesia; spontaneous posthypnotic amnesia; a rapport that allows the subject to read the mind of the magnetizer; transposition of the senses (i.e., being able to hear, see, etc. with the stomach); an inability to tell lies; hypermnesia; increased strength and endurance such as becoming a human plank; and dramatically-increased suggestibility).

This paper invites the reader and the hypnotic field to accept two ideas: (1) it is time to leave behind yet another erroneous idea about hypnosis (i.e., the concepts of hypnosis and suggestion), and (2) it is time to fully endorse and act on the idea that the causal engine of hypnotic responses is a freestanding, natural ability to alter one’s personal experience (which some people possess to a great degree), an ability which can and does operate without suggestion.

What are the consequences of accepting these two ideas? Perhaps surprisingly, although the ability-to-alter-personal-experience model rejects hypnosis and suggestions, the model nevertheless validates the therapeutic efficacy of hypnotic interventions and the findings of the empirical literature on hypnosis. Hull feared that if hypnosis were not characterized by heightened suggestibility, hypnosis would cease to be an important scientific phenomenon. The present paper claims that the freestanding ability to alter personal experience is a significant phenomenon – highly significant – but hypnosis is not. The ability-to-alter-personal-experiences model does not question the effectiveness of hypnotic interventions; they are, indeed, effective (e.g., Bryant et al., 2005; Flammer & Bongartz, 2003; Kirsch et al., 1995a; Montgomery et al., 2000, 2002; Schoenberger, 2000; Terhune et al., 2017). Similarly, the ability-to-alter-personal-experience model does not invalidate the hypnotizability scales; those scales are valid measures of the freestanding, human ability to alter personal experience.

Adoption of the ability-to-alter-personal-experiences model holds its greatest consequence for the enormous professional and societal “surround” of hypnosis – namely, hypnotic interventions and therapies, hypnosis research projects, hypnosis training, hypnosis conferences, hypnosis professional organizations, hypnosis books, and hypnosis journals. The implications of the ability-to-alter-personal-experiences model for the great “surround” of hypnosis are potentially huge.

Finally, what are the scientific consequences? Hypnosis is still considered to be “unscientific within some elements of the broader scientific community” (Jensen et al., 2017, p. 4). The nomological network of hypnosis is underdeveloped and subject to dispute (Nadon, 1997). The present paper invites the hypnosis field to abandon hypnosis and suggestion as causal mechanisms, in favor of individual differences in the ability to alter one’s personal experience. Were this to happen, researchers and practitioners might be enabled to establish a mature nomological network that is richly connected to the rest of science, especially psychology, psychiatry, physiology, and medicine.

Acknowledgments

Portions of this article were presented on three prior occasions: in a paper, “Spontaneous hypnosis, hypnotic pathology, and the nomothetic net of hypnosis,” at the American Psychological Association, Denver, August 2016; in a paper, “Rethinking our understanding of hypnosis by taking the correlates of hypnotizability seriously,” Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Chicago, October 2017; and in a Forum presentation, “No high hypnotizability, no dissociative disorder,” International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, Louisville, April 2023. I am indebted to John A. O’Neil for wise and incisive feedback about the ideas in this paper. Because this paper is theoretical, there are no data that can be made available to other scholars.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Claparède and Baade (1909) questioned the claim of increased suggestibility on the grounds that some individuals are actually less suggestible during hypnosis: “It is very doubtful whether hypnosis can be regarded as increased suggestibility. Certain subjects are more suggestible in the waking state then during hypnotic sleep” (Janet, 1925, p. 282). This finding has been replicated in modern research.

2. Resistant individuals may exhibit decreased suggestibility during hypnosis (Erickson, 1932). In the author’s view, this demonstrates that a person’s response to suggestions always depends on the person, not the suggestions or the operator.

3. Braid (1846) reported successful use of suggestions with individuals who were “wide awake” (p. 13). Delboeuf (1891–1892) was the first authority to discount the existence of hypnotism. In 1891, he wrote, “Comme quoi il n’y a pas d’hypnotisme” (“So it turns out there is no hypnotism”) because he had discovered that “subjects were susceptible to suggestions regardless of whether they were induced into trance” (Pintar & Lynn, 2008, p. 85).

4. Very recently, this has changed. Dienes, Lush and colleagues (Dienes et al., 2022; Lush et al., 2020) and Oakley et al. (2021) have, from different perspectives, shown the significance of a person’s ability to alter their personal experience in the absence of an induction.