Association of Thought Impact Scale Scores with Hypnosis Treatment Responses and Hypnotherapy-Seeking: A Confirmation Study.

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that high Thought Impact Scale (TIS) scores are associated with greater therapeutic response to hypnosis treatment and greater tendency to seek such treatment. This study aimed to confirm those findings in a new population-based subject sample and also evaluate hypothesized associations of TIS scores with several hypnotic phenomena. An internet survey of 1,500 U.S. adults identified 80 individuals who had undergone hypnosis treatment. As previously found, high TIS scorers were much more likely than low scorers (median-split) to have undergone hypnosis treatment (7.2% vs. 3.2%, p < .0001), but, in contrast with prior findings, high TIS scorers did not report a significantly higher rate of moderate or greater improvement from hypnosis treatment (58.6% vs. 40.9%, p = .12). TIS scores were positively correlated with greater imagery vividness, sense of automaticity, and altered body perception during hypnosis.