ABSTRACT
The formal, structured hypnotic inductions presented in the previous chapter are based on the general assumption that the experience of hypnosis is distinct from other forms of subjective experience and can be induced through some special, if not arbitrary, process. While most in the field readily acknowledge that hypnosis can occur spontaneously and a ritual of induction is unnecessary for hypnosis to occur (Lynn, Kirsch, Neufeld, & Rhue, 1996; Watzlawick, 1985), many practitioners continue to employ induction procedures that provide a structure to which the client must try to adapt. When a client finds a way to respond to a counting method, for example, he or she is demonstrating an ability to get absorbed despite the absence of relevance for the numbers as a source of personal meaning or comfort. After all, what’s so engaging about counting numbers? Yet, the counting methods, and other techniques similarly structured, actually work with many people, probably for the reasons Kirsch (2000) offered when he described the role of expectancy in responsiveness and further suggested that an induction is whatever the client thinks of and expects an induction to be.
