their eyes and sit peacefully yet attentively in their chairs. The hypnotist be-
gins the demonstration by asking them to extend their left arm and to imag-ine a weight is pulling it down. Suddenly the arms of several students begin
to move downward, just as if a weight were pulling on the arms. A few arms
drop immediately; others drop slowly over several repetitions of the instruc-
tions. Still other students remain unaffected, with arms extended straight out.
Later the hypnotist tells the students a fly is buzzing around their head. Some
react swiftly, perhaps swatting at the imaginary fly, others react slowly oronly slightly, and others continue to sit calmly. Before taking them out of
hypnosis, the psychologist tells the students they won ’t remember what has
happened until they are told to. When later asked about what they recall,
some remember nothing, others a few details, and others practically every-
thing that happened.
This description of a hypnotic induction and responsiveness test is typical
of those used in hypnosis research. Although considerable disagreement remains
over the nature of hypnosis, most researchers agree that hypnosis includes an
induction procedure in which people are told they are going to be hypnotized,followed by suggestions to perform certain tasks. These tasks range from the
simple ones used in hypnosis research, such as dropping your arm, to the enter-
taining performances of stage hypnosis participants, such as yelling like Tarzan
or trotting up and down the aisles warning that the British are coming.
Although modern hypnosis has existed in some form for more than 200
years, it remains an intriguing and often misunderstood phenomenon shroudedin mysticism and curiosity. Yet hypnosis also carries a number of potentially
useful applications. For example, many people have dental work performed un-
der hypnosis without the aid of painkillers. Police investigators sometimes use
hypnosis to help witnesses remember crime details. Many psychoanalytically
oriented therapists believe hypnosis can uncover unconscious material crucial
to overcoming patients ’problems. But psychotherapists from other perspectives
also find hypnosis a useful tool when dealing with a wide variety of client pro-
blems, especially chronic pain (Kirsch, 1996; Milling, Reardon, & Carosella,
2006; Patterson & Jensen, 2003). Despite these many uses, psychologists stillquarrel about just what they are dealing with. We ’ll explore some of the differ-
ent opinions on this matter in the next section, followed by an examination ofindividual differences in hypnotic responsiveness.
What Is Hypnosis?
There is no shortage of theories about the nature of hypnosis. Although these
different theories have traditionally been described as opposing camps, more
recently hypnosis researchers have placed the various explanations for hypno-
sis along a continuum (Kirsch & Lynn, 1995). At one end of this continuum
we find psychologists who describe hypnosis in a manner similar to the way
Freud did. They believe hypnosis taps an aspect of the human mind that is
otherwise difficult to reach. These theorists sometimes say that hypnotic parti-cipants fall into a trance or that they experience an altered state of conscious-
ness, like sleeping. On the other end of the continuum we find theorists who
reject the notion that hypnotized people operate under an altered state of86 CHAPTER 4 The Freudian Approach