ABSTRACT
Cognitive concepts have been central to hypnosis research and theory since the advent of the information processing revolution in psychology. Models based on cognitive principles (e.g. Bowers, 1990; E.R. Hilgard, 1986; Kirsch and Lynn, 1997; Spanos and Chaves, 1989; Spiegel, 1990; Woody and Bowers, 1994) have grown in sophistication in recent years, offering important insights into the mechanisms of hypnotic phenomena. Despite this progress, mainstream psychology has largely failed to capitalize on the wealth of information that has amassed since hypnosis research began over two centuries ago. In retrospect, this seems like a remarkable oversight. Hypnotic phenomena provide a window on some of the most fascinating and entrenched mysteries of the mind, including the nature of will and consciousness, and the relationship between psyche and soma. Hypnosis also has clear instrumental value (Reyher, 1962) as a tool to facilitate the investigation of various psychological phenomena, including pain (Rainville et al., 1997), auditory hallucinations (Szechtman et al., 1998), dissociative amnesia (Barnier, 2002), unexplained neurological illness (i.e. conversion hysteria; Halligan et al., 2000; Oakley, 1999a) and voluntary control of movement (Blakemore et al., 2003).
