The Similarities between Hypnotic Induction and Freud's Free Association Technique

Abstract

The free association technique, as traditionally used by Freud, incorporated a suggestion to his subjects to use sensory imagery, which in hypnotically susceptible subjects could result in a hypnotic trance induction. A two-phase experiment tested whether subjects high in hypnotic susceptibility would also demonstrate hypnotic phenomena after they were given instructions in free association as practiced by Freud. Conversely, subjects low in hypnotic susceptibility would not demonstrate the hypnotic phenomena criteria that were selected. Twenty-nine subjects were tested for high and low hypnotic susceptibility and were exposed to Freud's free association procedure. The results suggested that the free association technique presents a condition in which certain types of subjects will demonstrate various phenomena of hypnosis. For some subjects, then, Freud may well have continued to be using a procedure, namely hypnosis, that he thought he had abandoned.