Hypnosis, Suggestion, and Altered States of Consciousness
This paper examines hypnosis as a psychological phenomenon, tracing the shift from early beliefs in its powerful unconscious influence to modern research challenging those claims. Drawing on the work of Ernest Hilgard and Nicholas Spanos, the paper explores how hypnotism functions largely through suggestion, subject expectation, and motivated compliance rather than a distinct altered state. It also considers therapeutic applications of hypnosis, including overcoming phobias, managing addictive habits, enhancing memory and academic focus, and achieving pain relief, arguing that outcomes depend heavily on a subject's prior beliefs and level of motivation.
- Introduction to Hypnosis and Its Uses: Defines hypnosis and its entertainment and therapeutic contexts
- Hypnotic Suggestion and Involuntary Actions: Spanos research on expectation and involuntary behavior
- Research by Hilgard and Spanos: Contrasting early and modern hypnosis research findings
- Hypnotic Suggestion for Memory Enhancement, Studying, and Pain Relief: Therapeutic applications and motivational prerequisites for success
- Conclusion: Motivation and belief as keys to hypnotic outcomes
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What makes this paper effective
- Clearly contrasts competing theoretical positions — Hilgard's early claims versus Spanos's later experimental corrections — giving the paper a coherent intellectual arc.
- Grounds each claim in cited sources, maintaining academic credibility throughout a concise argument.
- Connects abstract psychological concepts (suggestibility, expectation, motivation) to concrete practical applications such as pain relief and academic performance.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of scholarly contrast: it introduces an established view (hypnosis as a powerful unconscious tool) and then systematically undermines it with more recent empirical evidence, ultimately arriving at a nuanced, evidence-based conclusion. This technique — presenting and then complicating a dominant framework — is a core move in academic argumentation.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a definitional introduction covering both entertainment and therapeutic contexts, then moves into a focused section on suggestibility and involuntary behavior. A third section bridges the competing research traditions, and a final section applies the revised understanding of hypnosis to practical therapeutic goals. The conclusion ties motivation and prior belief together as key determinants of hypnotic outcomes.
Introduction to Hypnosis and Its Uses
Hypnosis is widely considered to be an altered state of consciousness in which the subject becomes open to suggestions without being consciously aware of them (Pinker, 2002). In hypnosis for entertainment purposes, subjects are called to the stage and supposedly induced into a hypnotic state. They are then instructed to perform actions that they would presumably never carry out consciously. Themes in movies involving hypnosis typically include post-hypnotic suggestions that are implanted into a subject's unconscious mind, after which specific behaviors are triggered by words or other signals that prompt the subject to carry out those subconscious instructions (Pinker, 2002).
Hypnosis has also been used for therapeutic purposes, such as overcoming phobias and other types of fears or situational anxiety. It has additionally been used for overcoming addictive habits such as smoking, as well as for gaining access to repressed memories (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).
Hypnotic Suggestion and Involuntary Actions
According to modern research into hypnotism, it appears that hypnotism may be more a form of focused concentration that is very similar to meditation. In that regard, Spanos effectively demonstrated, among other things, that individuals who submit to hypnosis with prior knowledge and expectations of what their experiences might be are very likely to believe they experienced exactly what they expected. Meanwhile, individuals who had no such expectations — because they were never told what to expect — failed to have any of those experiences (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008).
Spanos also demonstrated that hypnosis is largely dependent on the manner in which the hypnotist frames instructions, such as by telling subjects "your arm feels very light and is rising" rather than asking them whether their arm feels unusual (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2008). The conclusion of most contemporary psychologists is that hypnotized subjects may believe their actions under hypnosis are involuntary when, in fact, those subjects who are considered "hypnotizable" are generally responding to their own expectations and their desire to validate the hypnotist's expectations as well. This would also explain why some people are not hypnotizable at all, and why hypnotized individuals generally will not follow directions they would consider highly offensive when not under hypnosis (Pinker, 2002).
Conclusion
Ultimately, hypnosis may be useful for pain management and increased academic focus, but that is probably dependent on subjects strongly desiring those results and believing that hypnotism works before attempting to use it for those purposes. Conversely, those who are not particularly motivated to achieve those goals and who are skeptical about hypnosis beforehand will probably not experience any benefits from it.
References
Gerrig, R., & Zimbardo, P. (2008). Psychology and Life. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Penguin.
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