Hypnotic amnesia and the paradox of intentional forgetting

Hypnotic amnesia is often interpreted as a deliberate effort to avoid thinking of ideas or thoughts targeted for amnesia. However, as D.M. Wegner (1989) showed, nonhypnotized individuals who deliberately attempt to suppress certain thoughts or images paradoxically suffer intrusions of the prescribed material. The authors replicated Wegner's findings in 2 separate investigations. However, they also found that hypnotic amnesia did not have such paradoxical effects. Indeed, the great majority of high-hypnotizable individuals administered suggestions for amnesia showed no such intrusions whatsoever, indicating that thought suppression and hypnotic amnesia represent quite different processes.