International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

6 INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CLINICAL HYPNOSIS
HEIGHTENED IMAGERY VIVIDNESS OR REALITY
The heightening of imagery or fantasy generation has been suggested to be an
effect of the hypnotic procedure and a characteristic of hypnosis and hypnotizability
Sheehan, 1979; Lynn & Rhue, 1987), and yet the correlations between
imagery vividness and hypnotizability are moderate. With the internal/cognitive
focus of attention and the suspension in critical judgment referred to earlier, it is
likely that imagery experienced will be accepted and responded to as if it has
greater reality rather than greater sensory vividness.
VOLITIONAL CHANGES AND ALTERATIONS IN VOLUNTARY
MUSCLE ACTIVITY
Subjects undergoing hypnotic induction procedures frequently report a sense of
their behaviour as being under their normal control. Weitzenhoffer 1978) discussed
this as a feature of the `classic suggestion effect' that is a characteristic of
hypnosis. This suggestion effect has two component criteria: a) that there must be
a response to a suggestion; b) that the response must be experienced as avolitional.
Relaxation, paralysis, automatic movements and rigid catalepsy may all be
experienced as avolitional changes in response to hypnotic suggestion. Enhanced
muscle performance may also be reported, but this may be due to reduced
perception of muscle fatigue, rather than to actual improved performance.
ALTERATIONS IN INVOLUNTARY MUSCLES, ORGANS AND
GLANDS
Extensive experimentation and clinical accounts have demonstrated that many
physiological processes assumed to be outside conscious control can be altered
in response to hypnotic suggestions Kiernan, Dane, Phillips & Price, 1995).
Whether these changes are due exclusively to hypnotic interventions or are
modulated by hypnotic susceptibility remains to be demonstrated.) A recent
experiment by Kiernan et al. 1995) has demonstrated such a physiological
response to hypnosis.
ALTERATIONS IN PERCEPTIONS
While many phenomena associated with hypnosis are subtle and few are exclusively
related to the hypnotic state, the alterations in sensation, particularly pain,
have not been demonstrated to the same extent in nonhypnotic states when suitable
subjects and techniques of hypnosis are used. Many descriptions have been given
of major and minor surgery carried out with hypnotic anesthesia alone. While this
approach is not suggested as the intervention of choice, given the ready availability