Hypnotic and direct suggestions affect attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help (ATSPPH) are crucial for mental health treatment engagement.
• Low ATSPPH is a significant barrier to accessing mental health services.
• Investigating novel interventions to improve ATSPPH is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the efficacy of hypnotic suggestions in enhancing attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help (ATSPPH).
• To compare the effects of hypnotic suggestion, relaxation, and a control condition on both explicit and implicit ATSPPH.
• To explore the differential impact of counter-attitudinal information on explicit and implicit attitudes.

Main Methods:

• Administered the Chinese version of the ATSPPH scale to 303 college students.
• Recruited 61 participants with low ATSPPH for the experiment.
• Assessed hypnotic susceptibility using the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A.
• Assigned participants to hypnotic suggestion, relaxation, or control groups.

Main Results:

• Counter-attitudinal information significantly improved explicit ATSPPH in the hypnotic suggestion and relaxation groups.
• The hypnotic suggestion group showed significant improvement in implicit ATSPPH.
• A notable difference emerged between explicit and implicit attitude changes during the intervention.

Conclusions:

• Hypnotic suggestions are effective in improving explicit attitudes toward seeking psychological help.
• Hypnosis demonstrates a unique ability to enhance implicit attitudes related to mental health help-seeking.
• The findings highlight the complex interplay between explicit and implicit attitudes in attitude change interventions.