Multileveling the playing field: Altering our state of consciousness to understand hypnosis

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

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Spiegel, D. (2005). Multileveling the playing field: Altering our state of consciousness to understand hypnosis. Contemporary Hypnosis, 22(1), 31-33. In another commentary of Kallio and Revonsuo's (2003) paper, Spiegel examines the state/nonstate controversy about hypnosis through six principles of explanation: 1) When you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

2) Categories are artificial. 3) Hypnosis is not confined to context (and hypnotic phenomena occur with and without a formal hypnotic induction). 4) Social influence theory is a social influence. In this regard, Spiegel says, "The pure social psychological 'explanation' for hypnosis is fundamentally as arid as pur behaviourism, which similarly, patronizingly, and inaccurately referred to the brain as a 'black box'" (p. 32). (5) Is consciousness a social construct? (6) Occam's razor can bleed the life out of phenomena. Address for reprints: David Spiegel, M.D., Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA 94305-5718, USA. E-mail: dspiegel@stanford.edu

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