Hypnosis, Suggestion and Belief Flashcards
What is a suggestion?
A type of communicable belief capable of producing and modifying experience, thoughts, and actions
What are the three things a suggestion can be?
- Intentional/non-intentional
- Verbal/non-verbal
- Hypnotic/non-hypnotic
What are schema?
A set of interconnected concepts and cognitive elements useful for categorising information on the brain
Prior information such as ___________, constrains experience through effects on _____________
▪️Suggestions, beliefs, and schemas
▪️Brain function
What is a belief?
A disposition to agree to or act in accordance with some proposition
What is identify substitution?
Normal sense of self is attenuated or lost, taken over by another entity
What are some of the originally described signs of possession trance?
▪️Trembling
▪️Hairs on end
▪️Falling to the ground
▪️Convulsions
▪️Limb paralysis
▪️Insensitivity to pain
How might signs of possessive trance be explained now?
▪️Autonomic hyperarousal
▪️Functional
What was Mesmer’s technique for treating disease?
▪️Passes hand over patients body to produce ‘crises’ (swooning, convulsions, crying, etc) followed by stupor
▪️Healing occurred through repeated crisis
What was Mesmer’s theory behind his technique?
Animal magnetism - an invisible, fluid force that passes between human beings, key for healing and restoration
How might Mesmer’s success be explained now?
▪️Mainly conducted on functional symptoms
▪️Unintentional suggestion
How did the ‘crises’ brought οn by De Puysegur differ from Mesmer’s?
▪️Apparent wakefulness, obedience to commands followed by amnesia
▪️Closer to a state of quiescence than arousal
▪️Prototype of hypnotic trance?
What was James Braid’s technique for hypnosis?
▪️Subject stares at object, concentrating on a single thought or idea
▪️Produces ‘visual fatigue’ and ‘nervous sleep’ = fixed stare, relaxation, suppressed breathing, fixed attention on hypnotists words
What conditions did Braid claim to help?
▪️Tics
▪️Nervous headaches
▪️Neuralgia of the heart
▪️Epilepsy and convulsions
▪️Paralysis
Likely all functional symptoms?
What was Charcot’s hypothesis?
▪️Symptoms (particularly motor) arise from unconscious ‘fixed’ ideas based on suggestions or autosuggestions
▪️E.g. ‘hysterical paralysis’
What were Russell Reynolds remarks on functional disorders?
▪️Paralysis, spasm, pain, altered sensation etc dependent on a morbid condition of emotion and/or idea
▪️Organic lesion vs morbid ideation
How did Janet define dissociation ?
A ‘contradiction of the field of consciousness’ resulting in abnormal compartmentalisation of mental functions
How did Janet link dissociation with ‘hysterical’ (functional) symptoms?
▪️Dissociation is influenced by ‘fixed ideas’, typically based on unresolved traumatic memories
▪️These are not generally accessible to consciousness but are released in hysterical individuals who have weak will and consciousness
▪️Symptoms based on suggestive effects of ideas related to functioning, typically motor or visual
▪️Hysterical individuals are highly suggestible, explaining symptoms formation but also leaving them amenable to therapeutic suggestion
What do current theories suggest as precipitating factors for the development of functional symptoms?
▪️Erroneous health beliefs or expectations distort an often noxious somatosensory experience
▪️Misdirected and overly precise attention, anxiety, and dissociation
▪️Symptoms formations helps make sense of the experience
According to current theories, how might functional symptoms be perpetuated?
▪️Maladaptive behavioural responses
▪️Learning and conditioning
▪️Mood
▪️Neuroplasticity
According to current theories, what risk factors may predispose someone to functional symptoms?
▪️Mood/anxiety problems
▪️Obsessive/rigid cognitive styles
▪️Excessive threat vigilance
▪️Abusive or aversive events
What is hypnosis?
▪️Controlled modulation of components of cognition (e.g. awareness, volition, perception)
▪️By an external agent or oneself
▪️Using attentional focusing on ideas and images that may evoke the intended effects
What are the three main types of suggestion?
▪️Ideomotor
▪️Challenge
▪️Cognitive
What is an example of ideomotor suggestion?
Involuntary limb movement
What is an example of cognitive suggestion?
Complex changed in experience (e.g. hallucinations, amnesia, analgesia)
What is an example of a challenge suggestion?
Individuals unable to perform a movement, even when challenged to do so (e.g. raise arm)
Suggested effects in hypnosis,
dissociative symptoms, possessive states etc are all phenomena characterised by…
▪️Subjectively realistic
▪️Involuntary
▪️Alterations in experience and behaviour
▪️That conform to ideas, beliefs, and expectations
How can suggestions in hypnosis be used to further understand these phenomena?
▪️Create experimental analogues (simulations) of symptoms/altered experience
▪️Measures brain changes?
What dimensions of suggested experiences can we study?
▪️Cognitive engagement vs automaticity
▪️Onset - acute, chronic or learned?
▪️Emotion
▪️Arousal (emotional/autonomic)
▪️Verbal/non-verbal
▪️Ideas vs beliefs
What is a concentrative response?
The symptoms happens when you pay attention to the suggestion
It it’s quite automatic/involuntary such as a perceptual illusion
What is a constructive response?
More thought and active engagement is needed for the symptoms to occur
(still involuntary but with more agency)
Which is likely to have more of a suggestive effect on experience, illness ideas or beliefs?
Beliefs - more cognitive traction due to significance, especially if emotionally salient and has rich associations
