The nature of hypnosis

Hypnosis is a complex psychological phenomenon. It is an interaction between two people, one of whom is identified as the ‘hypnotist’, the other as the ‘hypnotic subject’ (or there may be a group of subjects). In practice it involves a variety of psychological processes and phenomena: selective attention, usually (though not necessarily) relaxation, imagination, expectation, role-playing, compliance and attribution. The significance of each of these ingredients varies according to the situation. There are, however, two additional phenomena related to the above which are central to a discussion of hypnosis, namely suggestion and trance.

Suggestion

Suggestions are communications conveyed verbally by the hypnotist that direct the subject's imagination in such a way as to elicit intended alterations in the way he or she is behaving, thinking, perceiving or feeling. The word ‘intended’ is meant to convey a key defining property, which is that these changes approximate those that would occur were the imagined events to be taking place in reality. (The reader may also find that the term ‘suggestion’ is often used to denote the process of responding by the subject to the communication.)

A corollary of the above is that the subjective experience of responding to suggestion has an automatic or involuntary quality. For example, the hypnotist may ask the subject to concentrate on his or her arm; suggestions are then conveyed that the arm is becoming very light and beginning to rise in the air.