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).