The Science of Hypnotizability
Everyone’s different — that goes for hypnotizability too. Everyone has a degree of hypnotic ability and falls into one of three hypnotizability profiles, reflecting their unique brain style:
The Researcher
The Diplomat
The Poet
How do you know your hypnotizability, and what it says about your brain?
First, let’s define hypnotizability. It represents a person’s ability to experience physiological, sensory, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional changes in response to suggestions given during hypnosis.
In other words, your hypnotizability is your capability to realize the change you want to create in your life through hypnosis.
Hypnotizability Tests
There are a number of clinically-validated tests to assess one’s hypnotizability, which are used by hypnosis-certified practitioners in clinics around the world. Some of the most common ones are:
The Harvard Group Scale for Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS; for groups)
The Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS; for individuals)
The Hypnotic Induction Profile (HIP) — developed by Dr. David Spiegel and his late father, Dr. Herbert Spiegel
The HIP is substantially shorter than the HGSHS and SHSS, and it’s available to you for free in the Reveri app.
The Spiegel Eye Roll Test
You might have heard of the Spiegel Eye Roll Test. It was developed by Dr. Herbert Spiegel, and it is by far the quickest and simplest “test.” However, it’s actually just a correlate, and it is not a comprehensive measure of hypnotizability. This means your results from the eye roll test are likely to match your results from the full test, but it is not a test in and of itself. It can indicate your probable hypnotizability profile.
How it works:
The higher up you can roll your eyes while at the same time lowering your eyelids, the more likely you are to be The Poet. It is a bit challenging because you are attempting two movements that do not usually occur at the same time – looking up while closing your eyes.
Getting the most out of hypnosis
No matter which hypnotizability profile you belong to, each of us can experience a wide range of benefits from the hypnosis experience because of the way it is designed – to get you to focus on what you are for, not what you are against – soothing your body’s response to stress, substituting sensations that can filter the hurt out of your pain. Protecting and respecting your body rather than fighting the urge to smoke or overeat. These points of view can help, and the more deeply absorbed you are in them, the easier it will be for you to incorporate this new point of view into your life.
Further, your hypnotizability involves a spectrum of components. For example, you may experience immediate, strong benefits from hypnosis exercises involving behavioral changes (like quitting smoking), while at the same time, requiring more consistent practice on emotional or cognitive hypnosis exercises (like Relieve Stress).
The best measure of your success with hypnosis comes down to how you feel and behave after a session. We encourage you to try to find those aspects of the hypnotic experience that come most naturally to you to make the most of it. And experiment with all of Reveri’s sessions to see how you respond!
What other factors play into my hypnosis results?
The more motivated you are for hypnosis to work, and the more you expect it to work, the better effect it will have. This is true regardless of your hypnotizability profile. This effect, called “expectancy” in academic terms, is similar to but not the same as the placebo effect. The placebo effect requires you to believe you received an actual “medication” or substance (where you also have high expectancy), even if you received a sugar pill instead, and that belief can fuel the effect in hypnosis as well. But in hypnosis, no deception is needed for you to have high expectancy of improvement, and for that to improve your results.
It’s also true that the setting in which one is being tested can change the final result. Some people can respond differently to hypnosis if they are in a setting that is distracting, or if they are doing the test in a group.
Moreover, your relationship with your hypnotist, and even your genes, can play into your hypnotizability profile.
While the factors contributing to your hypnosis results include some that are beyond your control, such as your genetics and brain region communication, there are many factors within your control, like your motivation, setting, and consistency of practice.
Is it necessary to test my hypnotizability?
It is not necessary, but it is highly encouraged! When you test your hypnotizability, you are learning something unique about your brain style.
Reveri has the only at-home hypnotizability test, which allows you to learn your brain style within moments. This reveals some of your inherent strengths.
Immediately following your test, Dr. Spiegel will provide you his personalized advice for making the most out of hypnosis, based on what makes you special, according to science.
In Summary
Everyone is different. Not only is your hypnotizability unique to you, but the different components of your results are also unique. One person can respond better to physiological and sensory suggestions, while another responds better to cognitive suggestions. They could have an identical hypnotizability “profile,” but the result doesn’t tell the full story. The best way to know how hypnosis will affect you and what you can achieve with it is to try it for yourself.
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Many Reveri members experience the benefits of self-hypnosis after a single 10-minute session.