Hypnotic Theorizing: Spring Cleaning is Long Overdue

Abstract

Since the beginnings of animal magnetism and hypnosis, clinical and experimental theories have developed mostly in isolation. On the clinical side, armchair theorizing, based on clinicians' observations and interpretations of their clients' narratives, have laid the foundations of most theories, past and present. On the experimental side, attachment to specific theories has guided researchers in their choice of methodologies and designs. What seemed important was to show how correct one's preferred view was or how incorrect the “other” could be. This unfortunate one-sided perception led to an experimental stale mate where most experiments could be interpreted from any point of view. If the tendency to theorize on what one sees, hears, and believes must come to an end, the practice of performing truncated experiments dedicated to the glory of one's preferred theory must also be relegated to the past. And while we are at it, whether clinical or experimental, the use of concepts or construNcts that cannot be clearly operationalized should be dismissed to avoid the type of serious social consequences the hypnotic community has been facing in the past decades.