Theories of Hypnosis

Below are a few different theories of hypnosis,,some common and others not so common.

Atavistic Hypothesis: Immobilization Theories:
Hypnosis has been considered to be an atavism that at one time may have been necessary in humans as a protective defense mechanism to ward off fear or danger. This hypnotic theory was based on Pavlov’s observation that an animal’s only chance of survival is to remain immobile in order to escape detection.

Though induced differently in animals, the immobility reflex is produced chiefly by physical and instinctual factors. In humans it results from the interaction of these factors with the experiential meaning of symbols and words. Moreover, human and animal hypnosis are dissimilar in that repetitive induction in the animal decreases hypnotic susceptibility, whereas in humans it increases it.

In general, any powerful stimulus, such as fright, causes certain animals and humans to “freeze up”. This concept led to the “death-faint” theory of hypnosis. However, this hypnotic theory does not explain how hypnosis occurs in humans.

Hypnosis as a State of Hysteria:
At one time, hypnosis was considered to be a symptom of hysteria; only hysterical individuals were believed to be hypnotizable. Charcot drew this conclusion on the basis of only a few cases in a pathologic setting. Such a hypothesis is untenable, in as much as susceptibility to hypnosis is not pathogonomonic of neurosis: Normal individuals, in fact, are readily hypnotizable. Although hysterics are more suggestible than normal individuals, it does not necessarily follow that increased suggestibility is a sign of hysteria.

Psychophysiological Theories:
Some investigators implicate the reticular formations, the hippocampus, and subcortical structures mediating communication. Other theories involves inhibition of the ganglion cells of the brain, inhibition and excitation of neurons, a focus of central excitation with surrounding areas of non-excitation, cerebral anemia, shift of nervous energies of the central nervous system to the vasomotor system, and vasomotor decerebration involving anemia of the frontal lobes. “Synaptic ablation”, wherein neural impulses are directed into a smaller number of channels (selective attention), has also been considered.

Psychophysiologic data are lacking to substantiate any of these theories, particularly those that posit that anemia of the brain or a shift of nervous impulses accounts for hypnosis. If hypnosis is due to a shift of one set of neural functions, what produces it? If it is due to anemia, then anemic individuals should be readily hypnotizable. Finally, if the cerebral blood flow is decreased during hypnosis, fainting rather than somnambulism should be produced. More speculative formulations contend that hypnosis is due to psychophysiologic factors, psychokinetic field forces, and oscillating electromagnetic fields.

Hypnosis as a Conditioner Process Leading to Sleep:
Pavlov believed that hypnosis was a “partial sleep”. In his classification, those stimuli directly affecting the sense organs constitute the primary signaling system of both men and animals. Symbols, or words belong to the secondary signaling system and are characteristic for man alone. They exert their conditioned effects via the primary signaling system. Thus words act as conditioned stimuli, which may in turn produce physiologic reactions. A word (signal or cue) becomes the stimulus for conditioned reflexes which become involuntary for life. Pavlov observed that various gradations of hypnosis hardly differed physiologically from the wakeful state and that the fluctuating nature of hypnosis depended on insignificant variations of environmental stimuli.

Most authorities do not believe that there is any similarity between sleep and hypnosis. If there were, it would be better to start a hypnotic induction procedure with the individual asleep. Even though some investigators have been able to convert light sleep to hypnosis, this does not prove that the two are identical. Hypnosis is not a transitional state between sleeping and waking. For those with a further interest in this topic of sleep and hypnosis, have a look at our hypnosleep page.

Experimental data show a rapid decrement in motor response and reflexes during sleep. During deep sleep, conditioned reflexes or physiologic responses to a repeatedly given stimulus cannot be established, whereas in hypnosis the learning of conditioned reflexes is enhanced over and above that of the non-hypnotic state.

During normal sleep, suggestibility is decreased markedly, rapport is lost, and memories are eliminated. The whole concept of sleep, when applied to hypnosis, obscures rather than clarifies the issues. The subject appears to be asleep because eye closure usually is part of the hypnotic induction procedure. Moreover, there is a considerable body of literature on blood pressure, reflexes, and physiochemical and EEG studies which indicates that hypnosis more closely resembles complete wakefulness.

A hypnotized person is more alert to his environment than when he is asleep. However, if the hypnotist uses a hypnotic technique which emphasizes sleep, then the individual, because he responds experientially to the word “sleep”, is apt to enter into a sleeplike state. Thus, in such persons, the EEG findings might resemble those associated with sleep. On the other hand, for the same reasons, an entirely different result is obtained when the word “sleep” is not used. This was borne out by recent studies which showed that the behavioral characteristics which resemble sleep are not intrinsic phenomena of the hypnotic state.

In Dave Elman's "Hypnotherapy" pg. 282, he claims that hypnosis attached to sleep brings about incredible results. "When we succeed in obtaining natural sleep and then attach the hypnosis, we were able to secure a hypnotic anesthesia that was positively amazing. It is in many cases a better anesthesia than can be secured in any other phase of hypnosis. Doctors began reporting that it was much deeper and better anesthesia than it was possible to secure in the Esdale state of hypnosis."

Ideomotor Activity and Inhibition Theory:
Several authors contend that the effects of hypnotic suggestibility are the result of ideomotor action and inhibition, and that hypnotic suggestibility is merely an experience of imagining that which is actualized through ideomotor activities. Although this theory accounts, to a degree, for physical reactions and even for some of the physiological reactions noted during hypnosis, it fails to explain the complex psychological reactions elicited during hypnosis.

The Dissociation and Neodissociation Theories:
For many years it was contended that the hypnotized individual was in a dissociated state: certain areas of behavior were split off from the main stream of awareness. Accordingly, hypnosis abolished volitional control, and, as a result, the individual responded only with autonomic behavior on a reflex level. If the dissociation theory were valid, then hypnotic amnesia could not be removed by the suggestions of the hypnotist. Furthermore, the amnesia would always occur spontaneously.

Hypnosis has been described as “dissociation of awareness from the majority of sensory and even strictly neural events taking place”. While this is partially true, it does not help us to understand the actual nature of hypnosis. Dissociation characterizes not only hypnosis, but also many other altered states of consciousness, such as dreams, hypnogogic states, “highway hypnosis”, reverie states, the detachment or depersonalization seen in many types of religious worship, and many other mental phenomena.

This older theory fell into disrepute when it was demonstrated that more often, instead of amnesia or dissociation, there was a hyper acuity and a better coordination of all the senses during hypnosis. Thus, although some degree of dissociation occurs when amnesia is present, it by no means indicates that dissociation produces hypnosis, or is similar to it.

Altered State of Consciousness Theory:
More recently, numerous writers have attempted to explain hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness (ASC) paradigm which borrows heavily from Eastern philosophy. Unquestionably, all such altered states are related, particularly the various types of meditative states. These states allow greater preoccupation with internal sensations or mental processes. The relevance of ASC for experiencing hypnosis independently and voluntarily sheds little light on what constitutes the hypnotic state.

Hypnosis as a State:
Several authorities lean toward the idea of hypnosis as a state or trance. Most investigators acknowledge the existence of a hypnotic state. Hypnosis has been related to an “ability component” or a "trait of hypnotic responsiveness” wherein its fluctuating responsiveness is recognized.

The Role-Playing and Non-State Theories:
This theory holds that hypnosis is due to goal-oriented striving at an unconscious level. The subject’s ability to assume a role and relinquish reality orientation depends on the way he interacts on an interpersonal level with the hypnotherapist. Here one would have to consider the importance of rapport. Some theories of hypnotic behavior stress social and interpersonal relationships, while others maintain that the subject plays a role, that is, he acts, in the manner in which he believes a hypnotized person would act.

The role-playing theorists are not denying that hypnosis exists, but rather that all hypnotic behavior can be accounted particularly by the importance of motivation and the goal-directed imagination. They also claim that what can be done in hypnosis can be achieved by “training in human potentials”. This has been refuted by others.

Hypnosis adds more than suggestibility per se, even though the state may involve some degree of role-playing.

The Regression Theory: Psychoanalytic Concepts:
A synthesis between psychoanalytical and Pavlovian physiological theories was attempted by Kubie and Margolin. These investigators felt that the subject undergoes an infantile regression, with the hypnotist fulfilling the role formerly played by the parents. Gill and Brenman have utilized this hypothesis, contending that “hypnosis was a regression in the service of the ego”. For them, transference (the transfer by the patient to the operator of emotions felt for some other person) is an important element of hypnosis. For Kubie, it is only a secondary phenomenon which may or may not be present. Kubie believes motivation to be more significant than the regression concept in understanding the hypnotic response.

An ego-psychological theory of hypnosis is seen as a special type of self-excluding function of the ego. A change occurs from conscious perception to preconscious functioning, akin to the performance of routine activities, and this is regarded as a “topological regression”. This hypothesis presaged the notions that subcortical functions played the important role in production of hypnotic phenomena.

Hypnosis has been attributed to the patient’s nonrational submission and relative abandonment of executive control to a more or less regressed, dissociated state. Ostensibly, the hypnotist shapes the regressed state to make it easier to achieve desired goals.

According to logical theory, the proper motivation induces a favorable mental set (elimination or reduction of irrelevant stimuli), or readiness to comply. When this is combined with relaxation, concentration, belief, and expectation – all catalyzed by the imagination – hypnosis ensues. The sensory changes or the phenomena become effective through distortion of the imaginative processes. Such a theory makes the “Svengali-Rasputin” trance concept of hypnosis untenable.

There are many combinations of the transference theories. Some stress fascination or sensual attraction as an important factor, others consider that hypnosis is due to erotic elements in the doctor-patient relationship.

The Hypersuggestibility Theory:
According to the proponents of this theory, the subject’s attention span is narrowed to the words of the hypnotist, and the latter’s voice takes over the inner voice of the subject. This only explains the phenomenon and not how hypersuggestibility actually occurs. It does not explain the spontaneous occurrence of amnesia or other bizarre, nonsuggested symptoms such as hallucinations. The hypersuggestibility theory, by inference, also implies that only gullible people are suggestible which is not the case.

Psychosomatic Theories:
An elaborate theory hypothesizes that suggestibility is ideomotor action, which, in itself, is a form of abstract conditioning. Other investigators do not concur with the concepts of “abstract conditioning”, and the idea of stimulus response notions as an explanation for hypnotic behavior has received little support.

Informational Theory:
It is possible to advance a speculative hypothesis based on “brain-computer” analogies. Pursuant to this idea, it is important to note that the manner in which the central nervous system (CNS) utilizes sensory processing and control of information can be studied in three ways:

(1) by attempting to observe physiological events, such as electrical and chemical reactions, or other information-conveying mechanisms and energy conversions that are involved in nervous system dynamics;
(2) by studying behavior as it occurs spontaneously or during experimentally designed situations; and
(3) by attempting to develop physical models which retain certain essential characteristics of sensory processing of information and control at non-hypnotic and hypnotic levels.

These three approaches may be labeled microscopic (the examination of detailed events in the CNS), macroscopic (the examination of behavior), and physical (the correlation with physical models of CNS control process). This third model is not to be confused with mathematical analogues of neurobehavioral functioning. Rather, it comprises the evolutionary neurophysiologic development of the complex controls built into the human system design for self-regulation of homeostatic or adaptive mechanisms with those utilized by systems engineers for electronic high-speed “thinking machines”.

Engineers are well aware that whenever a system adjusts its feedback networks to increase the signal to noise ratio, it is functioning optimally – in dynamic equilibrium or negative feedback. This “steady state” has been called everything from Hypnosis, to Nirvana, Zazen, and Exaltation to Union with God.

The processing, storage, and retrieval of information in hypnosis can be understood better from the study of brain-machine (computer) analogies. This is not to imply that the brain is a computer, but rather that scientists must conceptualize that the brain functions according to the same principles set down by the physical sciences for the design of communication equipment. Thus greater receptivity in a receptor (the subject) enables messages (sensory inputs or percepts), to be received clearly from a transmitter (the operator) with a minimal degree of interference (noise), either in the external environmental communication pathways (channel), or in the internal receptors of the subject. This enhances the transmission of reception of signals.

Early Theories of Hypnosis:

Trance as Energy Channeling:
Mesmer believed that human health was influenced by the action of planetary and lunar forces on an invisible magnetic bodily fluid. He suggested that disease results from an unequal distribution of this magnetic fluid. Channeling magnetic forces into the sick person was a means of restoring the equilibrium. Mesmer’s hypnotic rituals were initially performed with actual magnets, and now in the 21st century magnets are back and flooding the world market with popularity due to their apparent ability to improve circulation, in turn making people feel better.

Trance as Sleep:
A number of hypnotists likened hypnosis to sleep. Portuguese priest Faria advanced a theory of somnambulism which held that the hypnotized subject entered a state of “lucid sleep”.

James Braid, who assisted his subjects to enter a trance state through fixation also likened trance to a sleeplike state. He later altered his initial conclusion about the sleeplike nature of hypnosis and proposed that it is a state of mental concentration.

Ivan Pavlov explained trance as an incomplete sleep state induced through hypnotic suggestions. While sleep is not identical to hypnosis, at least one of the similarities that can be observed due to the client’s inward focus is that he becomes oblivious to the external environment.

In deeper levels of hypnosis, due to relaxation of mind and body, the client may enter a state where his body, like in sleep undergoes healing and regeneration.

Trance as Pathology:
Jean Martin Charcot, a distinguished neurologist, concluded that the trance state was a pathological state similar to hysteria. He theorized that there are three levels of hypnosis: catalepsy, lethargy and somnambulism. Adherents of his proposition were known as the Saltpêtrière school and fought with the Nancy school of suggestibility.

Trance as Suggestibility:
Auguste Liébeault who originated the Nancy school, likened hypnosis to sleep and believed hypnosis to be induced through hypnotic suggestion. His pupil Bernheim offered an explanation of hypnosis as a state of enforced suggestibility resulting from hypnotic suggestion. Bernheim believed that everyone was suggestible to some degree.

Trance as Dissociation:
Dissociation is defined as a mental process in which systems of ideas are split from the normal personality and operate independently. Pierre Janet described the hypnotic trance as a state in which the subject’s subconscious mind executed cognitive functions outside of conscious awareness. He also believed that hypnotic dissociation often involves regression to an earlier period in the subject’s life. During hypnosis the subject could remember incidents that occurred in previous dissociated states, however, during the normal waking state, the subject would have an amnesia for these incidents.

Janet distinguished two types of dissociation: total automatism, in which the subject shifted entirely into a different personality, and partial automatism, in which a part of the personality split off and operated unknown to the normal personality.


Contemporary Theories of Hypnosis:

Trance as Regression:
Kris advanced the concept of partial regression in the service of the ego. Gill and Brenman characterized the hypnotic trance as regression to a primitive state in which rationality yields to impulse and the subject develops a transference relationship with the hypnotist. Shor proposed three dimensions of the trance experience:

(a) depth of role-taking involvement, in which the subject initially strives to think and act like a hypnotic subject but then (upon entering trance) begins to do so nonvolitionally and unconsciously;
(b) depth of trance, which develops as the subject’s general “reality orientation” diminishes, and allows the subject to become immersed in an arbitrary and purely subjective world; and
(c) depth of archaic involvement, which involves the regressive-transference properties.

Trance as Acquired Learning:
Hull proposed that hypnotic phenomena were acquired responses similar to other habits. He concluded that the subject’s trance experiences resulted from the hypnotist’s suggestions and were due to “the strictly physical basis of the association between stimuli and responses, ideas becoming purely physical symbolic acts.”

Trance as Dissociation:
Hilgard described the hypnotic experience as a temporary detachment by the subject from usual conscious planning and monitoring functions. By operating independent from reality testing, the subject becomes less critical and thus able to develop dissociative experiences such as amnesia, hypnotic deafness, pain control, and automatic writing.

Trance as Motivated Involvement:
Barber suggested that trance experiences result from positive attitudes, motivations and expectations toward the test situation which leads to a “willingness to think and imagine with the themes that are suggested”.

Further, he believed formal hypnotic inductions to be unnecessary, in that similar to Milton Erickson he believed the hypnotherapists behavior along with the interpersonal relationship to be of the utmost of importance

Trance as Role Enactment:
White described hypnosis as a goal-directed state in which the subject is highly motivated to behave “like a hypnotized person”.

Sarbin described the hypnotic subject as an individual enacting a “role”.

Eclectic View:
Milton Erickson was aware of the unique qualities of each subject and resisted characterizing hypnosis as being essentially the same experience for everyone. Thus he maintained a fairly atheoretical position.

Erickson favored dissociational models of hypnosis as evidenced in the following quotations:
“Deep hypnosis is that level of hypnosis that permits the subject to function adequately and directly at an unconscious level of awareness without interference form the conscious mind.”
“Therapeutic trance is a period during which the limitations of one’s usual frame of reference and beliefs are temporarily altered so one can be receptive to the patterns and associations and modes of mental functioning that are conducive to problem solving."

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