Transcript Hypnosis
BHS 499-07
Memory and Amnesia
Hypnosis and Multiple
Identities
Myth of Hypnosis
Spanos is a critic of traditional views of
hypnosis.
He argues against the idea of hypnosis
as an altered state of consciousness in
which people:
• Have unusual experiences.
• Have abilities not available to them normally.
• Cannot lie and will do things without question.
Sociocognitive View of
Hypnosis
Hypnotic behaviors can be explained using
normal psychological processes.
The term hypnosis refers to a historically
rooted conception of hypnotic responding held
by the participants.
Responding is context-dependent:
•
•
Determined by the willingness of subjects to adopt the
role
Modified by their understanding of that role.
Components of Hypnotic
Situations
An induction procedure
• Now, includes suggestions that the subject is
becoming relaxed or sleepy.
Administration of suggestions calling for
specific behavioral or subjective
responses.
• Arm levitation (raising)
Hypnotic responding is stable over time.
What is Hypnotic Responding?
Traditional view says that a trance state
is induced in which people respond
involuntarily to suggestions.
Sociocognitive view says that
responding reflects expectations and
attitudes people bring to the session.
• Hypnotic subjects retain control over their
actions, even when experienced as
involuntary.
Fallacies
Hypnotic responding is no better than
non-hypnotic responding to suggestions.
• Neither produces long term change in
smoking, wart removal, etc.
There is no unique quality to hypnotic
trance that cannot be simulated.
• People are not necessarily faking, but
anything a hypnotized person can do, a nonhypnotized person can too.
Explaining Dramatic Behaviors
Negative hallucinations – deafness,
blindness.
• Delayed auditory feedback – “deaf”
hypnotized subjects behaved like nonhypnotized.
Demand characteristics – depends on
how the question is asked.
• Fading number 8
Involuntariness
One of the chief demands of the
hypnotic situation is the loss of will.
• Sociocognitive view says subjects retain
•
control and use it in goal-directed ways.
Subjects interpret their responses as
involuntary in order to conform to social
demand – woman swatting fly.
Wording of suggestions affects
involuntariness.
Studies of Spirit Possession
Spanos argues that other “dissociative”
experiences are the result of cultural
suggestion, enacting a social role.
Not all cultures have multiple personality
disorder (DID or MPD), but some enact
multiple personalities as spirit
possession.
• Human occupant of a body is temporarily
displaced by another self that takes over.
Speaking in Tongues
Glossolalia (speaking in tongues) occurs
in the context of a religious ceremony.
• May be accompanies by convulsions, eye
closing or unconsciousness, etc.
Interpreted as the holy spirit taking over
and speaking in His own language.
• Interpretation may follow, with amnesia.
Learned and practiced behavior.
Spirit Mediums
The medium becomes possessed by a
spirit or series of spirits who help the
client.
The ceremony involves behaviors
marking the transitions, and observer
responses the validate the performance.
Example of Spirit Possession
http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.or
g/spiritualresearch/difficulties/Ghosts_De
mons/violent_manifestation.php
Learning the Possessed Role
In some families, being a medium runs in
the family and the spirit moves from one
relative to another.
In some cases, people apprentice to
learn the role.
• Kardec introduced spirit mediums into Puerto
•
Rico where “espiritistas” replaced folk healers.
The first possession may arise during
distress.
Peripheral Possession
A person with little social status or power
becomes possessed by a member of
another person’s family.
• That possessing spirit begins making
demands that must be met by the other
family.
Women may adopt peripheral
possession roles in order to engage in
behavior otherwise not tolerated.
Historical Demon Possession
Symptoms of demon possession from the New
Testament:
•
•
Convulsions, sensory and motor deficits, enactment of
alternate identities, loss of voluntary control, increased
strength, amnesia
These symptoms ultimately coalesced into a relatively
stereotypic social role.
Largely a conversion tool, so possession
increased with competition among religions.
Witchcraft and Demon
Possession
In the 15-17 centuries, demon possession was
associated with witchcraft (part of a Satanic
conspiracy).
Compendium Maleficarum – witchhunting
manual from the 17th century.
People who were of low social status but
intelligent, well-traveled, or privy to thoughts
and actions of others were suspected.
Behaviors of those possessed were involuntary
Socialization of Demoniacs
Clerics taught those possessed their
role.
• Initially symptoms were ambiguous.
• Later, became convulsions, being bitten, and
seeing spectres of witches attacking them.
Catholic & Protestant treatment of
demons varied.
• Enactments sometimes used strategically.
Evidence of Social Construction
Incidence of demon possession has
varied widely across cultures and across
time periods with inconsistent symptoms.
• Some experts diagnose many more cases
than others.
The more attention paid to the
symptoms, the more elaborate they
become.
• Rearrangement of biographies to fit role.