Assessment of response to clinical hypnosis: development of the Hypnotic State Assessment Questionnaire

This study describes the development and preliminary psychometric properties of a scale for measuring hypnotic response in clinical hypnosis sessions. The Hypnotic State Assessment Questionnaire (HSAQ), a brief, multidimensional measure of hypnotic response during clinical sessions of hypnosis, is intended to facilitate supervision of hypnosis trainees and to document subjects' response in clinical hypnosis sessions. Results indicate that most HSAQ subscales have good interrater and internal consistency reliability. Furthermore, HSAQ observations correlated with post-hypnotic behaviors and subjective experiences of hypnosis. Use of the HSAQ in hypnosis training settings allows supervisors to obtain standardized data describing hypnosis sessions conducted by trainees. This data may also be used to document clinical response for record keeping or research.