ABSTRACT
The history of hypnosis has been marked by a steady prejudice against its use in health care despite its outstanding effects. The problem entails huge epistemological and terminological issues, the latter depending on the questionable terms used to define its phenomenology. As a result, hypnosis has been viewed as a dysfunctional or even abnormal condition over the last two centuries. On the other hand, hypnosis may result from the highest-order processes allowing for metacognition, enabling one to intentionally suspend executive control when relevant to one's goal. This allows one to reach an outstanding improvement of control of mind, body, emotions, pain, and stress with respect to ordinary consciousness. The altered state concept has been based on a conventional, little-defined concept of normality. Actually, consciousness is never a state, being marked by an unceasing, dynamic exchange of information between consciousness and the unconscious, inner and outer world. Likewise, the long-lasting debate between the theories of hypnosis as a state or trait is ill-grounded and is becoming obsolete.
