Hypnotic susceptibility of schizophrenic patients.

Abstract

Clinical lore and much of the previous literature has maintained that schizophrenics are far less susceptible to hypnosis than are normals. A few studies have reported success with hypnotizing schizophrenics, but have lacked a methodology which would permit comparison with normal subjects to be made. In the present study, 26 patients with a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia were given the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale[long dash]a verbatim induction technique and rating scale for which data on a normal, standardization group is available. The hospitalized schizophrenics gave results much like the normal group. Reasons for the difference between this and previous findings are discussed, including the hypothesis that previous workers found schizophrenics to be different in hypnotiz-ability from normals because they treated them differently than they would normals.