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Acting As If You Are Hypnotized . By: Lindsey Peck and Colleen Ahearn. Background. Common belief that hypnotized was a separate/unique state of awareness Mesmerize acquired from Mesmer created first example of hypnosis Used by Freud in psychoanalytic techniques
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Acting As If You Are Hypnotized By: Lindsey Peck and Colleen Ahearn
Background • Common belief that hypnotized was a separate/unique state of awareness • Mesmerize acquired from Mesmer created first example of hypnosis • Used by Freud in psychoanalytic techniques • Ernest Hilgard – 6 descriptions of hypnosis • Nicholas Spanos – does NOT involve alternate state of consciousness
Method • Findings taken from 16 studies • Involved in all experiments • Purpose to contradict Hilgard and popular belief that hypnosis is a unique state of consciousness
Findings and Conclusions • Behavior is involuntary • Suggestion vs. instruction • Raising arm vs. lowering arm • People become absorbed in these imaginary strategies and convince themselves behavior is involuntary
Findings and Conclusions • Creation of expectations • 3 main studies • 1. Difference in lectures • 2. Comparing experiences with vivid imagery • 3. Altering amount of information given about experiment
Significance • Not denying the actual existence of hypnosis • Hypnosis not an altered state of consciousness but result of motivated, goal-directed, social behavior • Hypnosis still exists because people need to believe in a last resort problem solver • Changed psychology with an alternative experimentally based explanation for hypnosis behavior
Recent Applications and Alternative Theories • Article in 1997, mirroring Spanos theory and supporting it • In 2003, Lynn completed a study of hypnosis as a therapeutic practice to recover repressed memories from childhood is faulty • Although he dies in a plane crash in 1994 his research has carried on • Many articles later (1993, 1998, 1999, 2000) on refuting Spanos’ theory and supporting Hilgard’s