Hypnotizability and Unrelated Physical Symptoms

Abstract

Thus far, I have dealt only with the therapeutic use of the trance in clinical situations associated with a marked response to hypnosis, where it could be reasonably assumed that the response was, in some way, causally related to the symptoms. The trance was used therapeutically to create the symptoms or a facsimile of them, thereby increasing the patient’s familiarity with the trance experience, on the assumption that the clinical picture was initiated by the occurrence of a spontaneous trance. In this way, a coping mechanism was added to the patient’s repertoire.