International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

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International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis.Edited by G.D.Burrows, R.O.Stanley, P.B.Bloom
Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBNs: 0-471-97009-3 Hardback); 0-470-84640-2 Electronic)
Neuropsychophysiology of
Hypnosis:
Towards an Understanding of
How Hypnotic Interventions
Work
HELEN J. CRAWFORD
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA
No longer can one hypothesize hypnosis to be a right-hemisphere task, a
commonly espoused theory popular since the 1970s e.g., Graham, 1977;
MacLeod-Morgan, 1982), or that highly hypnotizable individuals exhibit greater
right hemisphericity Gur & Gur, 1974). Rather there is growing evidence
Crawford, 1994a; Crawford & Gruzelier, 1992; Gruzelier, 1988) that hypnotic
phenomena selectively involve cortical and subcortical processes of either
hemisphere, dependent upon the nature of the task, as well as shifts in attention
and `disattention' processes ... Thus, hypnosis instructions `can be seen to
trigger a process that alters brain functional organizationÐa process that at
the same time is dependent on individual differences in existing functional
dynamics of the central nervous system.' Crawford & Gruzelier, 1992, p. 265;
Crawford, 1996, p. 254)
During the transition from the 1990s, labeled the `Decade of the Brain,' into the
twenty-®rst century, new discoveries about the neuropsychophysiological bases of
hypnosis are being made.The excitement is high as interdisciplinary approaches
address old and new questions about psychological and physiological phenomena
with ever-re®ned electrophysiological and neuroimaging techniques.Hypnosis and
its various phenomena, should have neuropsychophysiological correlates if one
takes to heart a quote from Miller, Galanter and Pribram's 1960) seminal book,
Plans and the Structure of Behavior: `There is good evidence for the age-old belief
that the brain has something to do with ...mind' p.196).
The present chapter looks back and forth between the phenomena of hypnosis
and neurophysiology in a quest to help understand how and when hypnotic
interventions work effectively in clinical and medical settings.Due to limited
International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis. Edited by G.D.Burrows, R.O.Stanley and P.B.Bloom
# 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd