Hypnotic Induction And Suggestion In The Role Of Hypnosis

Hypnosis had showed its magic and wonderful effect in out-patient and clinical treatment, as well as in the hypnosis performance. To date, although hypnotism itself had a well development, but the misunderstandings and abuse were not uncommon. This makes the exploration and interpretation of the inner mechanism of hypnosis is very important. Although many scholars dedicated to the study of hypnosis, but the scholars had different interpretations about hypnosis. The empirical studies also appeared inconsistent results, for interpretation of the principle of hypnotic phenomena remain much controversy.After read and analyzed the predecessors'studies, we found that, there had differences in the process of conducting hypnotic experiments. In a large number of researches, theses'main hypnotic programs existed in two modes, and one was only given the hypnotic induction to enter the hypnotic state, and then directly asked the participant to finish the tasks. The other mode had given the suggestion of experimental tasks after the hypnotic induction, and then let the related experimental tasks to complete. Conventional studies had showed that, in the two modes, the participants' performances were inconsistent, as reflected in theses'concentration and completing the tasks. What are the roles of hypnotic induction and hypnotic suggestion in hypnosis, and is hypnotic suggestion an indispensable part of hypnosis? These are exactly what our study would like to discuss.According to previous researchers'studies combined with the long-term experiences of hypnosis of this article's researchers, we thought that: Hypnosis includes hypnotic induction and suggestion, and the two stages have different functions. Hypnotic induction makes the individual into a prepared attention state, and the special suggestion encourages individuals to control attention based on the prepared attention state, which is in accordance with the suggestion.This research had designed two experiments to discuss this issue. The purpose of the first experiment was to prove that hypnotic induction and suggestion were different stages, and the participants would have different degree of concentrating their attentions in the two stages. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the hypnosis condition, and the others to the no-hypnosis condition. Independent variables were the state (hypnosis, no-hypnosis) and suggestion (no hint, hint). Dependent variable is the individual's response-the extent of focus ed attention. Indicators of the dependent variable were the accuracy and reaction time. The participants were asked to have their eyes on the center of the screen for a period of time and then to judge the statement. The results showed that, in the first round of the task with no hint, the no-hypnosis group were significantly better than the hypnosis group both in accuracy and reaction time (F = 0.005,p<0.05; F= 6.948,p<0.05); In the second round of task with hint, there was no significant difference between the two groups (F= 0.97, p> 0.05; F= 1.238, p> 0.05).The hypnosis group with hint was better than itself with no hint both in accuracy and reaction time (t=-3.839,df=14,p<0.01;t=4.319, df=14,p<0.01); The no-hypnosis group had no difference in accuracy (t= 0.000, df= 15, p> 0.05) in both tasks, while in the hint round, the reaction time was better than no hint (t= 3.160, df= 15, p<0.01). Thus, we believed that after the hypnotic induction, the individuals were actually entered a kind of prepared attention state before the attention control. In this state, the individuals' self-control decreased and the ability of spontaneous activity reduced, so they would not pay attention to the phrases showed on the screen and had a poor exhibition. This study named the state for prepared attention state. The suggestion stage was based on the prepared attention state, while the individuals received the hypnotist's instruction, they would quickly concentrate attention on the target tasks and follow the instructions to complete the task effectively. Therefore, the hypnosis group's behavior in the second round was better than the first round.There was no significant difference between the two groups in the second round of task with hint, the possible reason was that, in the no-hypnosis state, the individuals also can focus attention, and the attention the target task required was not very large, so there was no significant difference in both tasks. However, if the extent of demanding attention was much higher, there may be some differences between the two stages, which led to differences in completing the task. Moreover, since the participants accepted suggestion in the no-hypnosis state can also accomplish the task, whether the hypnotic induction did not needed or hypnosis was only because suggestion worked? The second experiment would focus on this issue.The second experiment was to demonstrate hypnotic induction had impact on the ability of focusing attention. Independent variables were the state (hypnosis, no-hypnosis) and task complexity (simple task, difficult task). Dependent variable is the individual's response-the extent of focused attention. Indicators of the dependent variable were the accuracy and reaction time. The results showed that in the completion of simple task, the hypnosis group and the no-hypnosis group had no significant difference in accuracy (F= 2.591, p> 0.05), while the hypnosis group's reaction time was significantly better than the no-hypnosis group's (F= 4.415, p<0.05); In the completion of difficult task, the hypnosis group was significantly better than the no-hypnosis group in accuracy (F= 19.119, p<0.01), while the hypnosis group's reaction time was higher than the no-hypnosis group, but the difference was not significant (F= 0.313, p> 0.05). According to the experimental results, we can found that although individuals can also focus attention in the no-hypnosis state, but the degree of focused attention was different with the state after hypnotic induction. If the required attention was not very large, there was not significantly different between the no-hypnosis state and the hypnosis state, but if there need for a higher degree of focused attention, the effect of focusing attention in the no-hypnosis state was weaker than the hypnosis state. Through the prepared attention state, the individual can put more attention resources to focusing on the target task as quickly as possible. Thus, it was because of the mutual cooperation of hypnotic induction and suggestion, hypnosis could produce a lot of miraculous results, both of the hypnotic induction and suggestion was very important.