Reflections on some unresolved issues in hypnosis

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jul 2005  by Wickramsekera, Ian II

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Sarbin, T. (2005). Reflections on some unresolved issues in hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 53 (2), 119-134. Dr. Sarbin presents a very stimulating and erudite analysis of the hypnosis literature with respect to the evolution of his theorizing in hypnosis over the past 68 years. He traces the origins of his socio-cognitive approach to his qualitative insights into an experiment he conducted on the influence of hypnotic imagery upon digestion. The author discusses his insight that the results could be better explained to be a consequence of the participant's active efforts rather than a product of an "undefined mental state." The author also discusses how this observation and his subsequent research led him into theoretical formulations of hypnosis in terms of social role-taking, believed-in-imagining, invitations to act "as if, and as a social discourse. The author also advances a very important and subtle idea about how the experience of hypnosis represents an "embodied" action in the sense that the participant's experience of hypnosis is determined by their active efforts to produce the physical enactments of a socially constructed role rather than by the influence of an altered state of consciousness upon the body. The author discusses recent findings in neuroscience which are consistent with his theorizing about the how embodied perceptions and actions are indeed partly determined by social cognitive phenomena as illustrated by some other recent experiments involving work in the neuroscience of imitation, the chameleon effect, and mirror neurons (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999; Gallese, 2003). However, the author's use of the term embodiment can be critiqued in terms of its inconsistency with the manner in which embodiment has previously been employed by cognitive neuroscientists and phenomenologists (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991). Embodiment has been defined by scientists and philosophers in this tradition to describe how our states of mind emerge from a constructive and resonant interaction between bottom-up sensory processes and top-down expectancies (e.g., social role influences, response expectancies, etc.) that are also reciprocally influenced by these same states of mind. The author thus ironically appears to de-emphasize the equally important role that the embodied phenomenological experience of mental states plays in reciprocally shaping the psychophysiology of sensation and behavior despite his subtle insights into how social cognitions can become embodied actions. Address for reprints: 25515 Hatton Road, Carmel, CA, 93923. Email: trs85@aol.com

References:

Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76 (6), 893-910.

Gallese, V. (2003). The roots of empathy: The shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity. Psychopathology, 36:171-180

Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, (1991). The embodied mind. London: MIT Press.

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