Hypnotic Depth Scales
Hypnotic susceptibility scales, which mainly developed in experimental settings, were preceded by more primitive scales, developed within clinical practice, which were intended to infer the "depth" or "level" of "hypnotic trance" on the basis of various subjective, behavioural or physiological changes.
The Scottish surgeon James Braid (who introduced the term "hypnotism"), attempted to distinguish, in various ways, between different levels of the hypnotic state. Subsequently, the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot also made a similar distinction between what he termed the lethargic, somnambulistic, and cataleptic levels of the hypnotic state.
However, Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault and Hippolyte Bernheim introduced more complex hypnotic "depth" scales, based on a combination of behavioural, physiological and subjective responses, some of which were due to direct suggestion and some of which were not. In the first few decades of the 20th century, these early clinical "depth" scales were superseded by more sophisticated "hypnotic susceptibility" scales based on experimental research. The most influential were the Davis-Husband and Friedlander-Sarbin scales developed in the 1930s.
Read more about this topic: Hypnotic Susceptibility
Famous quotes containing the words depth and/or scales:
“Nature seems to have treasured up the depth of our mind talents and abilities that we are not aware of; it is the privilege of the passions alone to bring them to light, and to direct us sometimes to surer and more excellent aims than conscious effort could.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)