Randi's Encyclopedia: Hypnosis

[Suggestologist]

Like treble-head I'd like to see some evidence for this.

There are a lot of claims made about physiological effects from purely psychological trigering (like the infamous ice cube causing a heat blister story).

They rarely hold up to scrutiny.

I'm not saying that it isn't true, merely that there are so many bogus claims in this area that some evidence is really important.

M.H. Erickson (the father of modern hypnosis and other things) was highly skeptical of hypnotically produced blisters. Here is what he presented at a UCLA Medical School symposium in 1952, published as "Control of Physiological Functions by Hypnosis" in The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, July 1977, 8-19. But I'm taking it from the 4 volumes of his collected works:

I remember one carefully controlled experiment in inducing blisters on the arm by a friend of mine in the army. He wrote me that he kept the subject under absolute observation for 24 hours, and the man produced the blister in the area drawn on his arm with a pencil. My first questions was "Was he kept under observation for 24 hours?"

"He was".

I was extremely specific about it. How many times a day did the man go to the lavatory? Who went with him, and who watched him? The man had some cigarettes concealed, he lit a cigarette, and he produced his blister, but it wasn't hypnotic in origin; 24-hour observation means 24 hours and four minutes per day to be scientifically accurate.

 

[treble_head]

I don't think Ashles was looking for more evidence that blisters do not appear through hypnotic suggestion. I know I wasn't. That was pretty well established by Ashles' post.

Brass tacks: We don't need evidence as to what hypnotism does not do, but what it does and can do. Basically, does hypnotism help people as or more effectively than well established, and more controllable means? And what things does it help with? And what data is there to back it up?

 

[Suggestologist]

I don't think Ashles was looking for more evidence that blisters do not appear through hypnotic suggestion. I know I wasn't. That was pretty well established by Ashles' post.

Brass tacks: We don't need evidence as to what hypnotism does not do, but what it does and can do. Basically, does hypnotism help people as or more effectively than well established, and more controllable means? And what things does it help with? And what data is there to back it up?

If I were to tell you that psychogenic impotence and frigidity are highly efficacious areas, would you tell me that subjects should just take viagra and ... oh wait, I don't know if there is any drug for frigid women. Of course viagra has some bad side effects...