The effects of direct versus indirect hypnotic suggestion on pain in a cold pressor task

Past studies have investigated the usefulness of hypnosis in pain reduction. Although hypnotic analgesia has been found to be effective, it is generally only those subjects who are highly susceptible to hypnosis who benefit. Some experimenters have found that even low-susceptible subjects can use hypnotic analgesia, if the hypnotic induction uses indirect rather than direct hypnotic suggestions. In the present study, high- and low-susceptible subjects were tested for analgesia using either direct or indirect hypnotic suggestion on pain in a cold pressor task. Findings suggest that high susceptibles experience greater pain reduction than do low susceptibles. However, no significant differences were found between the pain reduction in the direct versus the indirect hypnotic suggestion groups. Possible explanations for this lack of differences are discussed.