The use of a multimodal image, the apple technique, to facilitate clinical hypnosis: a brief communication.
A 1- to 3-minute exercise involving imagination (of an apple) and ideomotor ideation (hand levitation) is a simple, benign technique that is useful for illustrating to patients the nature of imagery and hypnosis. It avoids power struggles and allows a reasonable approximation of the patient's capacity for imagery and hypnotic responsiveness, without emphasizing the use of a hypnotic procedure. When administered to 35 college students, the hand levitation component of this exercise correlated with the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (Weitzenhoffer & E. R. Hilgard, 1963) (r = .66, p less than .001) and with the Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale: Adult (Morgan & J. R. Hilgard, 1975, 1978/79) (r = .60, p less than .001).
Strauss
B S
BS
Department of Psychiatry, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60616.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001326:Autogenic Training; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011597:Psychomotor Performance