Suggestibility, Expectancy, Trance State Effects, and Hypnotic Depth: II. Assessment via the PCI-HAP

Abstract

This study sought to determine if self-reported hypnotic depth (srHD) could be predicted from the variables of the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory - Hypnotic Assessment Procedure (PCI-HAP) (Pekala, 1995a, 1995b; Pekala & Kumar, 2007; Pekala et al., 2010), assessing several of the processes theorized by researchers to be associated with hypnotism: trance (altered state effects), suggestibility, and expectancy. One hundred and eighty participants completed the PCI-HAP. Using regression analyses, srHD scores were predicted from the PCI-HAP pre-hypnotic and post-hypnotic assessment items, and several other variables. The results suggested that the srHD scores were found to be a function of imagoic suggestibility, expectancy (both estimated hypnotic depth and expected therapeutic efficacy), and trance state and eye catalepsy effects; effects that appear to be additive and not (statistically) interactive. The results support the theorizing of many investigators concerning the involvement of the aforementioned component processes with this particular aspect of hypnotism, the self-reported hypnotic depth score.

Key Words:

• Altered states of consciousness
• consciousness
• expectancy
• hypnosis
• hypnotic depth
• hypnotism
• psychophenomenology
• suggestibility
• trance