Child Abuse and Hypnotic Ability

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Abstract
Earlier empirical and theoretical work has suggested that there is a relationship between higher hypnotic susceptibility and severity of childhood punishment. The present study examines the hypnotizability of young adults who were physically abused as children. The hypnotizability scores of three groups were compared: an abused group whose members were physically abused before the age of ten (n = 23); a family-disruption group whose members reported divorce or death in the family before age ten, but no physical abuse (n = 27); a baseline/control group whose members reported neither abuse nor family disruption (n = 346). The abused group was significantly more hypnotizable than either the family-disruption or baseline/control group. The effect was substantial, with 65 percent of abused subjects in the high hypnotizable classification (compared to 14.8% and 35.3% for the family disruption and baseline/control groups respectively). Two explanations of this relationship are offered, and suggestions are made for future investigations.

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