ABSTRACT
The essence of hypnosis has been the focus of a continuing controversy among investigators and theorists since the end of the 19th century. This controversy has spawned a variety of competing constructs for describing and explaining the nature of trance and of hynotic responsiveness. Two significant dimensions along which these theories have varied are the issue of the “involuntariness” of hypnotic behavior and the role of trait versus state variables in determining the specific parameters of responsiveness and expe rience in trance. Experimental investigation of these core dimensions of hypnosis have been ongoing for at least the past 50 years and have produced a variety of inconclusive or conflicting data, typically interpreted to confirm the pre-existing theoretical bias of the investigators. The current zeitgeist of the experimental hypnosis literature has recapitulated these ongoing controversies with the competing views of the contextualists (including Coe, Chaves, Barber, and Spanos) who tend to emphasize situational, social role variables and the neo-dissociationists (including Evans, Fromm, Hilgard, Nash, and Orne) who emphasize the stable centrality of “hypnotizability” with its hypothesized antecedents and phenomenological correlates.
