WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SOCIAL IN CONTEMPORARYACCOUNTS OF HYPNOSIS?

摘要

Historically and continuing into the present, the field of hypnosis has been divided intoproponents of 'state' or 'special-state' and 'non-state' or 'sociocognitive' accounts ofhypnosis. Although many investigators now dispute this distinction, it can still be usedas a rough guide to views of the phenomenon. The sociocognitive view, at least in thelast 20 years, has emphasized social and cognitive processes in the explanation ofhypnosis and its effects, but increasingly – and consistent with social cognition in general– the social too has been theorized in cognitive terms. This paper reviews these theoreti-cal developments with the aim of exploring the implications of the loss of the social in'non-state' accounts. As a historical, cultural and ultimately social phenomenon, at whatcost is hypnosis reduced to its strictly cognitive dimensions?