Personality and Styles of Hypnotic Response

Abstract

In Study 1, an inventory scale of hypnotic depth was used to analyse patterns of response to a standardized hypnotic procedure in 32 hospitalized psychiatric patients. As compared to college student norms, the psychiatric patients described their hypnotic experience in terms of ambivalent emotional enthusiasm, mystical enlightenment, and momentary sleep. In Study 2, the same scale was used with 73 college students to show that accurate performance on the embedded figures test was associated with subjective retention of self-control, conflict about response to challenge suggestions, and rapid passage of time during hypnosis.