EC Psychology And Psychiatry

The debate about hypnosis as a psychopathological phenomenon dates back to the time of Charcot. Subsequent evidence is often contradictory because the instruments used to measure hypnosis and psychopathology differ. However, some studies have shown that the psychological processes which underlie mental disorders can be induced and reversed through hypnosis in experimental settings. Hypnosis has been used as instrumentally in the laboratory setting to study the nature of psychopathology in conditions responsive to hypnotic treatment. Indeed, hypnosis can elicit clinically compelling delusions that are phenomenologically and functionally similar to their clinical counterparts. The aim of this study was to investigate a possible relationship between a single hypnotic phenomena and psychopathological dimensions in a clinical setting as a mechanism of modulating specific brain circuits, whose variation in connectivity may underlie certain mental disorders. This retrospective observational study investigated 126 subjects using the phenomenological perspective in which the relationships between the 12 hypnotic phenomena, investigated via the Stanford hypnotic scale (SSHS), and the nine dimensions for psychopathology on the symptom check list 90-R (SCL90-R), highlight a relationship, between the hypnotic suggestion of amnesia and interpersonal sensitivity and anger/hostility. The ideomotor phenomena and hallucination, on the other, were revealed to be negative predictors of high scores on the depression dimension. Based on our results, we would like to propose several precautionary measures regarding the utilization of ideomotor phenomena and hallucination suggestion in the treatment of depression, instead recommending a predictive approach and intervening on the hypersensitivity to rejection through the suggestion of amnesia. These findings are discussed from a neurobiological perspective.

 Keywords: Psychopathology; Hypnosis; Ideomotor Phenomena; Amnesia; Neurobiology; Depression; Hypersensitivity to Rejection; Phenomenology

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