"Hypnotizability" and Suggestibility

Abstract

Can chronic schizophrenics be "hypnotized" ? To answer this question it is necessary to specify the referents for the word "hypnotized." Some investigators (eg, Erickson et al1T) seem to use this word to refer to a hypothesized alteration in "state of consciousness" produced by a "hypnoticinduction." In present-day research, how ever, experimenters appear to be converging on the following nonmentalistic, operational definition of the word "hypnotized": Subsequent to the administration of one of the procedures traditionally labeled as a "hypnotic induction," the subject manifested enhanced response to standardizedtest-suggestions of limb and body rigidity, hallucinations, amnesia, and so on. The operational definition implies that subsequent to the "hypnotic induction" the subject's level of suggestibility was enhanced above his basal level or "normal waking" level. However, most experimenters fail to compare suggestibility after a "hypnotic induction" with suggestibility prior to a "hypnotic induction," apparently assuming that