Psychological Manipulation, Hypnosis, and Suggestion
Jose Fernández Aguado
Pehuén Institute of Psychology, Barcelona, Spain
Abstract
A widespread vision links hypnosis to
psychological manipulation. The mass media
favor this image, thus making it popular. Traces
of that point of view can even taint scientific
views at scientific forums. Nevertheless, this
widespread vision is essentially false. In this
paper I deal with some of the possible causes of
that confusion, the main one being that a major
characteristic of hypnosis (namely, an increase
in suggestibility one experiences while under
hypnosis) is also a key characteristic of people
in manipulative and abusive environments. I will
give some well-established and agreed-upon
definitions of hypnosis and explain why one’s
suggestibility is enhanced while hypnotized. My
conclusion is that one’s confidence in the
process and the hypnotizer plays a major role in
any enhanced suggestibility while under
hypnosis. I compare what occurs during
hypnosis to what occurs in the mildly or overly
manipulative contexts of seduction and coercion,
where suggestibility is also enhanced. I conclude
that the main difference in the case of hypnosis
lies in the ease with which one can exit that
enhanced state of suggestibility. I introduce the
concepts of dissociation and integration for the
purpose of increasing readers’ understanding
about the twofold route to higher states of
suggestibility and the way back from them, and
of showing how this way back can be hampered
in manipulative contexts.
Keywords: hypnosis, psychological
manipulation, suggestibility, dissociation,
integration
Introduction
One of the oldest questions in the literature on
hypnosis is whether deeply hypnotized
individuals can be induced to perform antisocial
or self-destructive acts (Orne, 1962), or whether
those individuals can be induced to perform acts
that are against their core principles and that
they would never perform if they were not under
hypnosis.
The answer that many have given to these
questions is “No” (Capafons, 2001 Lynn and
Kirsch, 2006 Orne, 1962). The impossibility of
getting persons to do anything under hypnosis
that they would not do without hypnosis,
therefore, has been widely proven.
Nevertheless, Wells (1941), Rowland (1939),
Young (1948), Estabrooks (1993), Wolberg
(1945 1948), and Weitzenhoffer (1949) have
been leading proponents of the view that,
provided the hypnotist’s technique is adequate,
the subject in hypnosis may be forced to do
anything. But according to Orne (1962), the
evidence shown by all of these authors to
support their view is inconsistent, if not clearly
biased. Orne points out that, before asserting that
by means of hypnosis a person can make
someone act against her will, one must prove
that, without hypnosis, the individual would not
have been predisposed to carry out such an act.
Orne skillfully proves how none of these authors
had controlled the influence the hypnotist may
have had on the subject prior to hypnosis, which
Orne considers a key shortcoming of these
studies.
Therefore, confusion continues to reign. This
confusion has been present since the beginning
of the modern history of hypnosis in the 18th
century, with Mesmer, whose utilization of what
he termed animal magnetism was related to
confusion and deceit. The confusion has
continued to the present day, enhanced by the
popular vision that the mass media have
attributed to hypnosis. More seriously, though,
is the fact that mental-health professionals and
academicians as well often ascribe these
characteristics to hypnosis. For example, Hassan
(1988) states that it is possible to get people who
are under hypnosis to carry out acts that they
would not do if they were not hypnotized.
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In this paper I deal with the main causes, from
my point of view, of this confusion: primarily
that the increase in suggestibility produced while
one is under hypnosis, which is a major
characteristic of hypnosis, is also a core feature
of contexts in which people are being
manipulated.
However, despite this similarity between
hypnosis and manipulation, there is a key
difference: Persons under hypnosis have the
freedom to reverse the process under which their
suggestibility has been heightened. In other
words, they have total freedom in choosing
when to come out of hypnosis (a state that they
also entered freely) whenever they desire to do
so. I will give some examples of this difference.
States of high suggestibility can be attained in
many ways (ways that imply a lesser or higher
degree of manipulation). Hypnosis is merely one
of these ways.
To offer a better explanation of this distinction, I
will first pay attention to what hypnosis is, and
what its essential components are. Then I will
compare what occurs during hypnosis with what
happens in other high-suggestibility contexts. I
will pay special attention to what occurs when
these states are manipulative, such as in cases of
seduction and coercion.
To conclude, I will observe that what occurs
during hypnosis is more because of the
characteristics of human beings than of any
characteristics associated with hypnosis. In other
words, the strength to make us more suggestible
is internal, stemming from our cognitive and
affective architecture, rather than external,
stemming from hypnosis.
Hypnosis and Psychological Manipulation
I am not going to pay much attention to
explaining the impossibility of getting someone
to do something through hypnosis that he would
not do without it. Instead, I will offer some
references that have been widely agreed on
(Capafons, 2001 Lynn &Kirsch, 2006 Orne,
1962) for those wishing to expand their
understanding about this issue. To give one
example, Barber and colleagues (Barber,
Spanos, &Chaves, 1974) obtained from highly
motivated but not hypnotized participants, and
from hypnotized participants, in one task, the
same responses to the same suggestions. The
researchers concluded that hypnosis was not
needed, or at least that no more than high
motivation was needed, to account for the
responses to the suggestions.
Orne (1962) points out that the view sustained
by the likes of Wells (1941), Rowland (1939),
Young (1948), Estabrooks (1993), Wolberg
(1945 1948), and Weitzenhoffer (1949)—that
under hypnosis the subject can be led to do
anything—becomes untenable when one poses
the question as follows: “Does hypnosis increase
the amount of social control that the hypnotist
has over the subject above that which existed
before the induction of hypnosis?”
However, it is fair to say that Orne leaves a door
open for the potential of hypnosis to increase the
amount of social control one may have over a
person under special conditions. These
conditions would be when the person is
ambivalent toward the realization of an action.
Orne (1962) says that
In such a situation, he might well refuse
to carry out the behavior in his normal
waking state, but he could be induced
to carry it out under certain special
circumstances. One condition sufficient
to resolve the ambivalence might be
hypnosis. (…) Quite possibly, in some
instances hypnosis, like alcohol, might
provide the necessary rationalization
for the execution of normally
unacceptable actions. (pp. 186–187)
It is of note, though, that any shift in behavior in
these special circumstances would be as a
consequence of the significance the person who
is hypnotized attached to the term hypnosis
rather than a consequence of hypnosis itself.
That significance would affect both the
hypnotized and the hypnotizer, as the following
quotation from Lynn and Kirsch indicates in
reference to clinical hypnosis (2006):
Other meanings attached to the term are
responsible for its therapeutic efficacy.
As we mentioned earlier, hypnosis can
provide a disinhibiting context,
allowing patients to exhibit responses
that they do not realize they are capable
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