> Your right in stating that guided imagery is a hypnotic technique. It can be used as an induction, or as a suggestion, and sometimes as both. Either way it is still by-passing the critical factor and accessing the sub-conscious mind, therefore it is hypnosis.

Well... To the best of my knowledge it is very controversial precisely what is going on when people are hypnotised. It is very controversial whether people are going into trance or an altered state of consciousness (indeed, it is very controversial what the nature of these states is). Spanos has a socio-cognitive role enactment theory of hypnotism, for example. The 'sub-conscious mind' (in the psychodynamic sense) is also very controversial...

But I do see how guided imagery is about suggesting relaxation similarly to how other techniques are about suggesting giving up smoking or losing weight or whatever.

> Your very correct in stating that there is definitely controversy regarding the use of hypnosis for the recovery of memories. The main issue here is the problem of leading the client.

yes. though i do think that leading the client can be a whole heap more subtle than is commonly acknowledged and i also think that it is possible for a client to lead themselves. for example... client goes to the self help section of the bookstore and finds this book with a little checklist in the back. roughly along the lines of 'do you have some of the following symtpoms? - anxiety, depression, feeling tired sometimes, etc [basically non descript symptoms]. if so then you have probably been sexually abused'. client gets to thinking that maybe they have been sexually abused but they simply don't remember it... client starts to become convinced that they have been but they simply don't remember it. client thinks about this all the time trying to find the memory trying to find the memory. because it is on the clients mind all the time scenes are more likely to occur to them when they are dreaming or when they are under hypnosis. the scene is then accepted as veridical and thus a false memory is born. not due to the hypnotist leading the client to be sure, but due to the client leading themself. therapist suggestion can be even more subtle if the therapist thinks that severe abuse is the best explanation for their clients difficulties hypnotisable clients are very adept at picking up on the non-verbal cues and 'playing along'. i'm very very wary indeed about the use of hypnosis for memory work.

there is one possible exception:

> Yet there are still many police departments using specially trained forensic hypnotists to aid in investigations.

if someone is hypnotised in order to attempt to remember a lisence plate number of a car then there is no harm that follows from confabulating the lisence plate number.

i didn't know that about the smoking study. interesting. i'll have a look at that at some point...

> Hypnosis is very successful with those clients that truly want to quit.

one does of course want to be careful about implying that those who truely want to quit quit while those who don't truely want to quit don't quit.

i wonder if it had more to do with the hypnotisability of subjects (which is heavily dependent on their belief that hypnotism will work for them). what i mean to say is that if the control group consisted in similarly hypnotisable subjects who had the belief that the patches and / or gum would work for them then i wonder what the difference would be between the experimental group and the control. no idea...

> Nobody seems to know a way to put a scientific study together in regards to hypnosis and the plecobo effect.

part of that is the difficulty around differentiating a hypnotised state from a non hypnotised state. one needs to know what a hypnotised state is to ensure that the control group isn't hypnotised.

> Being that all hypnosis is self hypnosis, you could take a person off the street that has no training, (or has never heard of hypnosis) hand them a story to read to a "client", and they would induce a hypnotic state into the "client" (as long as the "client" was willing to enter hypnosis).

There are of course formal methods of induction which people get better at with experience. Part of the battle is in persuading the person that the hypnotist does indeed have the power to hypnotise them. E.g., get them to close their eyes and hold their arms straight out until their arms are tired and are starting to droop. At precisely the point at which you see them start to droop say 'your arms are feeling verrrrrrrrrrry heeeeeeeeeeavy. If the arms droop a little more in response then say something like 'your arms are becoming even heeeeeeeavier' or if they raise them in response say something like 'your arms are now starting to feel light light as a feather'. There are skills about voice intonation and little exercises involving physically tiring certain muscle groups in order to make the suggestions a little more compelling and believable...

But these are things to do with inducing a hypnotic state (assuming their is such a thing). Some people simply don't 'fall for it' they simply remain sceptical throughout the clinicians suggestions. Sometimes because of fear of what they might do while hypnotised (sometimes because of fear of losing control) sometimes because they just consider the whole thing to be a crock.

> Therefore there is no way to discern a hypnotic state induced by a hypnotherapist and a plecebo effect by a non trained individual.

This is what concerns me with respect to the validity of the 'hypnotised state' and 'not hypnotised state' distinction.

I'm in Australasia. To the best of my knowledge while psychologists / psychologists learn about hypnotism enough to be cautious about its application in memory work and learn some skills like guided imagery and progressive muscle relaxation they are not taught formal methods of induction.

There are outfits which do teach formal methods of induction but the biggest group of practitioners seem to be polytechnic trained councellors (who take a course that ranges anywhere from one six week paper to a three year program). There are some psychologists / psyciatrists who use formal methods of induction, I'm sure. I do think it is fair to say that the majority do not, however.

Are you able to tell me what state you are in?

I'll check out Spiegel, thanks for the link.