International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis最新文献

Three experiments studied recognition during posthypnotic amnesia (PHA) employing confidence ratings rather than the traditional yes/no format. As the criterion for recognition was loosened, an increase in hits was accompanied by an increase in false alarms, especially to distractor items that were conceptually related to, or semantically associated with, targets. Nevertheless, hits exceeded false alarms at every level of confidence. In addition, amnesic subjects had difficulty identifying the particular list on which recognized items were presented for study or the correct order in which targets appeared on the study list. Taken together, these findings support the conclusion that successful recognition during PHA is more likely to be mediated by a priming-based feeling familiarity than conscious recollection.

Meditation and hypnosis have both been found to attenuate pain; however, little is known about similarities and differences in the cognitive modulation of pain. Hypnotic and meditative states (e.g., mindfulness) reduce pain by sharing and overlapping multiple neuro-cognitive mechanisms, but they differ in many respects. While there are overlapping brain networks involved, the nature of these effects seems different. Both phenomena involve frontal modulation of pain-related areas. The role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex appears to depend, in hypnosis, on the type of suggestion given and, in meditation, on the level of practice. Whereas the anterior cingulate cortex seems to be a key node in both hypnosis and meditation, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex appears to engage in hypnosis as a function of suggestion and, in meditation, as a function of proficiency.

One of the difficulties of evaluating hypnotizability in Chile is the limited existence of validated instruments. In this study, the Mexican version of Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C, was semantically adapted and validated. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in 102 Chilean university students. The content validation was performed by 3 experts; the internal consistency was evaluated with KR-20. The difficulty of the items was measured with a difficulty index. The majority of the students were classified with high hypnotizability. The mean score obtained was 7.41 (SD = 1.84). The internal consistency was acceptable (KR-20 = 0.73). The item with the least difficulty was arm lowering, whereas the auditory hallucination was the item with the greatest difficulty. The survey showed metric properties to be considered as a valid and reliable instrument to measure the level of hypnotizability in the Chilean population.

Despite an explosion of mobile app offerings for management of pain and anxiety, the evidence for effectiveness is scarce. Placebo-controlled trials are the most desirable but designing inactive placebo apps can be challenging. For a prospective randomized clinical trial with 72 patients in a craniofacial pain center, we created an app with self-hypnotic relaxation (SHR) for use with iOS and Android systems. A placebo background audio (BA) app was built with the same look and functionality. Both iOS and Android SHR apps alone and in comparison to the BA group significantly reduced pain and anxiety during the waiting-room time. The Android BA app significantly reduced anxiety but not pain. The iOS BA app affected neither pain nor anxiety, functioning as an ideal placebo. Usage analysis revealed that different default approaches of the iOS and Android devices accounted for the difference in results.

The Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A (HGSHS:A), is commonly used to test hypnotizability. There is still some controversy about what exactly hypnotizability is and whether and how it can be measured, especially by the HGSHS:A. Furthermore, a wider clinical use is limited, requiring a testing time of more than 1 hour. We analyzed the German HGSHS:A version for its factorial structure, item contribution, and item difficulty based on test data from six studies, including 1276 persons, to propose a shorter version of the HGSHS:A. We hereby present a 5-item version of the HGSHS:A (HGSHS-5:G), consisting of the challenge items, that was compared with an 11-item version (highly variable posthypnotic amnesia omitted). Age- and gender-specific norms was generated. The HGSHS-5: G showed high validity, reliability, and classification agreement. It reduces test time to 30 minutes thus facilitating wider use of hypnotizability testing.

There seems to be a natural, human ability to alter one's experience that already exists - prior to and apart from any hypnotic induction. Individual differences in this ability range from low to high and are largely commensurate with the person's assessed hypnotizability. More importantly, these preexisting, individual differences in the ability to alter experience seem to be the "substrate" that enables each individual's response to hypnotic suggestions. It is proposed that, with some notable exceptions, the hypnosis field's understanding of hypnotizability has been hindered by theorists' (and clinicians') tendency to consider the instruments that reveal hypnotic phenomena (i.e., hypnosis and suggestions) to be explanatory concepts.

Hypnotizability refers to "An individual's ability to experience suggested alterations in physiology, sensations, emotions, thoughts, or behavior during hypnosis" (Elkins, Barabasz, Council, & Spiegel, 2015). Research has demonstrated that most people are hypnotizable and that individual differences in hypnotizability exist. In recent years, there have been important advances on perspectives and new, well-validated scales for measurement that seek to improve on older measurement instruments. Emerging research has sought to address questions such as: Is hypnotizability a natural human ability independent from formal hypnotic inductions?; Are multi-component theories most accurate to account for differences in hypnotizability?; What can we learn from a critical review of older measures of hypnotic susceptibility?; Can hypnotizability assessment be accomplished by phone?; What is being found from current study of the Hypnotic Induction Profile?; Can assessment of hypnotizability have therapeutic benefits?; Does comparison of older and newer measures of hypnotizability such as the Elkins Hypnotizability Scale point to a new "gold standard" based on contemporary research? This special issue of the IJCEH provides insights into these important questions.

This project aimed to assess the consistency of hypnotizability over repeated assessments when measured by the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form C (SHSS:C), and the Elkins Hypnotizability Scale (EHS) and to contrast score distribution and pleasantness of these scales. University students were administered either the SHSS:C or the EHS twice with a one-week delay by separate experimenters. Test-retest reliability of the EHS and the SHSS:C was r _s =.82 (.71-.92) and r _s =.66, 95% (.47-.86), respectively (Spearman's correlation). Hypnotizability was comparable at test and retest in the EHS group, SHSS:C scores decreased by the retest. We found that the SHSS:C produced higher scores than the EHS, and the pleasantness of the 2 scales was comparable. Overall, our results supported the reliability of the EHS, while SHSS:C scores were more inconsistent between the 2 assessments. More research is warranted.