BOOKSHELF FAIL
Hypnotism: An Objective Study in Suggestibility – André M Weitzenhoffer
Let’s start this blog with a potted history of our author, André M Weitzenhoffer, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Weitzenhoffer is described as one of the most prolific researchers in the field of hypnosis in the latter half of the 20th century, authoring over 100 publications between 1949 and 2004 (the year of his death).
He conducted psychological research at both Stanford and, later, Oklahoma universities in the US, working with such hypnosis luminaries as Ernest Hilgard and Milton Erickson.
Weitzenhoffer was a statist. Notably, he developed the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales in partnership with Hilgard. And, while he and Erickson were friends and sometime-collaborators, he was critical of certain aspects of Erickson’s theory and practice.
He subscribed to Clark L Hull’s qualitative-data-driven approach to hypnosis research, which he describes in the opening of this book as an “important landmark” when Hull published this work in 1933.
(Perhaps this drove his need to distance himself from Erickson’s legacy, which, regardless of Milt’s views on Hull and data, were – and still are – predominately measured through the lens of anecdotal case study ‘successes’.)
I should have guessed how I’d fare with this book after Kev came downstairs one afternoon to inspect my bookcase reorg. We needed to accommodate the myriad more hypno-books we’ve been buying, and he was keen to check the integrity of ‘The Academic Shelf’ he’d organised last time.
Was it in chronological order? (No.) And why weren’t the two copies of this Weitzenhoffer book that he’d previously housed on that shelf included? (Because I didn’t realise such a trippy-eye-tastic cover was an academic book… plus it didn’t fit.) Grr.
However, I really should have paid heed to Kev’s insistence on its correct bookshelf location – and to my previous form judging books by the covers.
Lo! This is an academic book – and a detailed and, crucially, outdated one, at that. I struggle to read and digest academic literature at the best of times, and so I’m afraid – dear reader – I had to skim this one.
Published in 1953, it’s simply too outdated. Much as I find, say, a contemporary account of what bearings age, sex, IQ and personality have on suggestibility (a lengthy section, and I use the terms from the book) interesting, my tolerance for reams of scientific data and study on those topics is too low.
Every time I tried to force my attention to an appealing chapter or section, such as the ones on allergies or free will, I saw the words ‘Rorscharch test’ or ‘postural sway’ or ‘Charcot’. It strikes me that Weitzenhoffer was researching and writing at a time when it was felt there was some kind of psychological ‘code’ to crack… There’s a lot of psychology and psychoanalysis in the book. Oh, and charts. LOTS OF CHARTS.
Conclusion: I suck at science.
There are, however, a couple of points I did find of interest in terms of hypnosis as a meme.
Weitzenhoffer comments on the decline in public interest in hypnosis and suggestion techniques prior to World War II, also mentioned by Michael Karoly. This decline is attributed to psychoanalysis, and the post-war resurgence on the need for “rapid methods of therapy”.
(Perhaps we can expect a similar resurgence caused by Covid-19, since a quick course of hypnotherapy is – seemingly – more economical all round compared to an indefinite period on a shrink’s couch?)
Weitzenhoffer also lists 20 types of suggestibility tests, many of which I hadn’t heard of. I assume this is because several of them aren’t suggestibility tests, but instead are quick-fire psychoanalysis (Rorscharch test!) or other tricks of the mind that we’re all prone to.
For instance, subjects are shown a picture for a short while and then asked where the dog is – but the picture didn’t feature a dog and so their answers are taken as an indication of suggestibility. Or they’re asked to rank weighted boxes they’ve been told are in incremental weights when several are, in fact, the same weight. It’s interesting to wonder how much these kinds of tests influenced, and clouded, the field then – and now.
There’s a ‘heat illusion’ test, where a heated panel is affixed to a subject’s forehead and slowly warmed, with them indicating when they feel the warmth. This is conducted a second time without heat to measure their suggestibility. Apparently this can also be substituted with “a mild electric shock”.
And there are two tests involving the drawing of slightly different lengths of lines, and another to do with bouncy balls, that were all too boringly described for me to figure out.
Oh, what hypno-research-fun they had in the 50s!
