ABSTRACT
Hypnosis has been shown to foster brain neuroplasticity possibly by inducing epigenetic changes. Further, it offers powerful techniques to isolate psychological processes in order to gain insights in their neural bases, thus optimizing clinical approaches. Given the established greater cognitive flexibility of hypnosis in self-regulatory processes and strategies, current evidence suggests that the hypnotic approach can be similar to other processes of self-regulation using real-time technology (i.e., neurofeedback). Neurofeedback techniques, namely EEG-NFB and rtfMRI-NFB, offer new opportunities to use hypnosis and posthypnotic suggestions as probes into brain mechanisms and, reciprocally, provide a means of studying hypnosis itself. In addition, these new innovative tools can be the neurophenomenological link between neuroscience and psychotherapy in the hypnotic setting. This chapter advocates the potential role of hypnosis in self-regulatory strategies (hypno-neurofeedback) and how the hypnotic state can serve as a way to tap neurocognitive questions and how cognitive assays can in turn shed new light on the neural bases of hypnosis. This cross talk should enhance research and clinical applications. In this perspective, hypnosis may be the appropriate tool for bridging the gap between neuroscience and psychotherapy.
