Milton H. Erickson and Elizabeth M. Erickson
Reprinted with permission from The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1941, 24, 95-133.
Despite the general familiarity of posthypnotic behavior and its extensive role in both experimental and therapeutic work, little recognition has been given to it as a problem complete in itself. Instead attention has been focused almost exclusively upon the various activities suggested to the subjects as posthypnotic tasks, with little heed given to the nature of the behavior characterizing, if not constituting, the posthypnotic state, and which influences and perhaps determines the nature and extent of the suggested
posthypnotic performance. Emphasis has been placed primarily upon the results obtained from posthypnotic suggestions and not upon the character or nature of the psychological setting in which they were secured. The study of the mental processes and the patterns of behavior upon which those results are based and which must necessarily be in effect in some manner previous to, if not also during, the posthypnotic performance, has been neglected. Yet despite a lack of adequate experimental provision there has been a general recognition of certain significant facts regarding the posthypnotic performance which imply directly the existence of a special mental state or condition constituting the background out of which the posthypnotic act derives.
Foremost among these facts is the occurrence of the posthypnotic act in response to a suggestion which is remote from the situation in which it has its effect. Next the immediate stimulus, posthypnotic signal, or cue eliciting the posthypnotic act serves only to establish the time for the activity and not the kind of behavior, since this is determined by other factors. Also the posthypnotic act is not consciously motivated but derives out of a remote situation of which the subject is not consciously aware. Finally it is not an integrated part of the behavior of the total situation in which it occurs, but is actually disruptive of the conscious stream of activity, with which it may be entirely at variance.
In a search of the literature published during the past 20 years, covering approximately 450 titles, no references were found which were suggestive of a direct study of posthypnotic behavior itself, although many of the titles indicated that posthypnotic suggestion had been used to study other patterns of behavior. Similarly a review of approximately 150 selected articles and books, some of which were published as early as 1888, yielded only a little information definitive of posthypnotic behavior as a specific phenomenon.
The more instructive references were found chiefly in the general textbooks on hypnotism rather than in experimental studies involving the use of posthypnotic behavior. However, even these were general assertions or brief, vague, and sometimes
selfcontradictory statements, based either upon the author’s own experience and that of others, or upon experimental material of an inadequate and often irrelevant character in which there was a marked confusion of the results of suggested posthypnotic activities with the mental processes and patterns of posthypnotic behavior by which those results were obtained.
Nevertheless, despite their inadequacies the references found did indicate that there had been frequent recognition of posthypnotic behavior as constituting a phenomenon in itself, and a number of these will be cited and discussed briefly, with
emphasis placed primarily upon those points we propose to develop in direct relation to experimental data in the body of this paper.
Thus Bernheim (1895, p. 157), in discussing posthypnotic activities, states, “I have said that somnambulists who are susceptible to suggestions à longue échéance are all eminently suggestible, even in the waking condition; they pass from one state of
consciousness into the other very easily; I repeat the fact that they are somnambulists spontaneously, without any sort of preparation,” but he offers no elaboration of this statement.
Likewise, Sidis (1898, p. 174), gives recognition to the fact that posthypnotic behavior is a thing apart from ordinary conscious behavior and is marked by special characteristics. He declares, “The posthypnotic suggestion rises up from the depths of the
secondary self as a fixed, insistent idea . . . In hypnosis the suggestion is taken up by the secondary, subwaking, suggestible self, and then afterward this suggestion breaks through the stream of waking consciousness . . .” Without attempting to develop these points he proceeds with a discussion of certain experimental results, actually irrelevant to these observations. Similarly, Bramwell (1921, p.
95) states:
Under ordinary circumstances, the instant hypnosis is terminated all the phenomena which have characterized it immediately disappear. In response to suggestion, however, one or more of these phenomena may manifest themselves in the subject’s waking life. This is brought about in two ways. (1) Where the operator suggests that one or more of the phenomena shall persist after waking . . . (2) The most interesting class of posthypnotic suggestions, however, are those in which the appearance of the phenomena has been delayed until some more or less remote time after the termination of hypnosis.
Later in the same chapter Bramwell (1921, pp. 111-112) states, “According to most authorities posthypnotic suggestions, even when executed some time after awakening, are not carried out in the normal condition; there is, in effect, a new hypnosis or a state closely resembling it.” He proceeds:
According to Moll, the conditions under which posthypnotic acts are carried out vary widely. He summarizes them as follows:
(1) A state in which a new hypnosis, characterized by suggestibility, appears during the execution of the act, with loss of memory afterwards and no spontaneous awakening. (2) A state in which no symptoms of a fresh hypnosis are discoverable although the act is carried out. (3) A state with or without fresh susceptibility to suggestion, with complete forgetfulness of the act and spontaneous awaking. (4) A state of susceptibility to suggestion with subsequent loss of memory.
Apparently Bramwell approves of this fairly adequate, though confusingly worded recognition by Moll of the existence of a posthypnotic state. Nevertheless he continues his discussion with an irrelevant exposition of the immediate results obtained through posthypnotic suggestion in the treatment of physiological disturbances. Except for other similar unsatisfactory and scattered
references he makes no further effort to elaborate his points or those he emphasizes from Moll.
Schilder and Kauders (1927, p. 64) offer the following statements which by their somewhat contradictory nature serve to emphasize that the post hypnotic state is of a special character, but that it is hard to recognize:
Certain authors actually assume that the hypnosis again comes to life during the execution of the posthypnotic command, an assumption which is justifiable to the extent that in a number of such cases the persons experimented on actually do enter into a dream-like state while executing the posthypnotic order. In other cases, the person complying with the posthypnotic order can hardly be distinguished from any other person carrying out an order, so that it would be farfetched to speak of a renewal of the hypnotic state.
No further effort is made to develop these points, except by a general discussion of some results obtained through posthypnotic suggestion.
Binet and Féré (1888, p. 177) recognize that subjects show a peculiar sensitivity to suggestion after awakening from a trance, and they direct attention to posthypnotic behavior as a specific phenomenon, placing emphasis upon this highly significant
observation, “. . . when a subject remains under the influence of a suggestion after awaking, he has not, whatever be the appearance to the contrary, returned to his normal state.”
Hull (1933, p. 300), in direct relation to this passage, takes exception to their declaration, commenting, “This statement is similarly ambiguous from our present point of view because acts performed by posthypnotic suggestion constitute a special case, as is shown by the fact that they are usually followed by waking amnesia of the acts in question. “ Just how this comment applies to that observation by Binet and Féré is uncertain. Although Hull, in his textbook published in 1933, does recognize that posthypnotic behavior is a “special case,” he disregards his own statement as well as his awareness of the observation by Binet and Féré. Neither he nor his associates make any attempt in their extensive experimental work to provide for the possible existence of any special posthypnotic state which might have a significant bearing upon posthypnotic activities, without regard for the possible influence upon the assigned task of the mental processes and patterns of behavior peculiar to the posthypnotic state, and which might significantly, although perhaps indirectly, control the entire character of the posthypnotic performance. For example, quoting the work of various experimenters, Hull devotes an entire chapter of his textbook to post-hypnotic phenomena, but limits the chapter to studies of amnesia for directly suggested activities and of the durability of posthypnotic commands, with no reference to that mental state or condition of which the retention and execution of suggestions constitute only a partial reflection.
Nor are Hull and his associates alone in this regard, since it is a general tendency to study posthypnotic behavior only in terms of how well some suggested task is done, without regard for the mental state or psychic condition constituting the setting for that task.
There seems to be no general recognition of the fact that the task performance is only a partial manifestation of the general mental state, and not until adequate provision is made for the needs of the situation in which the task is to be done can it be considered a measure of the capacity for performance.
In our judgment it is this oversight of the special character of the posthypnotic state that accounts in large part for the confused, unreliable, and contradictory nature of the results obtained in experimental studies of posthypnotic phenomena.
Thus in his study of functional anaesthesias, Lundholm (1928, p. 338) states, “The experiments were carried out with the subject in a posthypnotic, fully waking condition, but in which he was deaf for the sound-click, the deafness being due to preceding
suggestion during hypnotic sleep.” An assumption is thereby made that the subject was fully awake and not in either a partially waking or a somnambulistic state, and there is no recognition of the fact that the suggestions given served to effect an actual continuance of the significant part of the trance state, since the posthypnotic suggestion compelled an uninterrupted persistence of certain phenomena of the trance state, not possible in a fully waking condition.
Another instance in which there is a complete disregard for the posthypnotic state and a confusion of somnambulistic states with the waking condition may be found in Platanow’s (1933) experiment on age regression. In describing his experiments he states:
After the subject had reached a suitable state of hypnosis, we generally addressed him as follows:
“At present you are six years old .” (This suggestion was repeated three times.) “ After you wake up you will be a child of six.
Wake up!”
After the subject was awake, a short conversation was held with him, for orientation purposes, and this was followed by tests according to the Binet-Simon method. By means of suggestion the subjects were transferred to the ages of four, six, and ten. When transferred from one age to another they were hypnotized, given the corresponding suggestion, and awakened again. The
experiments were generally ended by the suggestion of the real age, and were followed by amnesia. From this description one is led to believe that the subjects were awake in the ordinary sense of the word during the administration of the psychometric tests, despite the experimenter’s recognition of the fact that normal waking memories did not obtain and the fact that his experimental findings proved amply that a mental state other than the normal waking one was elicited by the posthypnotic suggestions.
Fortunately in both of the above experiments this confused and contradictory use of terms did not affect the validity of the findings or the conclusions.
A search of Hull’s articles, as well as those of his associates, shows many references to the problems involved in studying the outcome of the posthypnotic state, but there is no apparent realization that the subject, as a consequence of receiving posthypnotic suggestions or in executing posthypnotic acts, might manifest behavior apart from the assigned task, which could alter the task performances significantly. Thus he proposes studies of learning behavior in response to posthypnotic suggestion or of amnesias as posthypnotic phenomena, without any provision for the possible effect, direct or indirect, which the posthypnotic state might have upon the behavior elicited (Hull, 1931). He is interested, apparently, only in the results secured, and he does not seem to realize that any interpretation of those results must be made in specific terms of the psychological setting in which they were obtained rather than in a categorization as broad and ill-defined as is the term “posthypnotic”. The tendency to regard the results as representing a posthypnotic performance is of value to that extent only, but does not give any understanding of what the posthypnotic state itself is, and it accounts largely for the variability of the findings of posthypnotic investigations. In brief, Hull as well as others associated with him emphasizes only posthypnotic suggestions and their ultimate results and not the posthypnotic state that must be in existence prior to, if not actually during, the posthypnotic activity. They disregard entirely the fact that there must necessarily be some state of mind which permits a coming forth into consciousness, or partial consciousness, of the posthypnotic suggestion, of which, quite frequently, no awareness can be detected in the subject until after the proper cue is given. Even then that awareness is of a peculiar, limited, and restricted character, not comparable to ordinary conscious awareness. Yet Hull and his associates have directed their attention exclusively to the beginning and the end of along, complicated process and have disregarded the intermediary steps.
To illustrate the confusion which exists in the use of posthypnotic suggestion, the experiment by Williams (1929, p. 324), among others, may be cited. In his report Williams states:
In the case of the combined trance-normal work-periods, the subject was awakened when he had reached exhaustion in the trance by repeating rapidly, “One, two, three—wide awake.” The instruction to “keep on pulling” was also added in this case so that the subject would continue his work, if possible, in the waking state.
In this combination of instruction in the trance state to awaken with the command to keep on pulling after awakening, Williams actually gave his subjects a posthypnotic command. Hence the “waking performance” was in response to an unintentional and unrecognized posthypnotic suggestion. Furthermore Williams apparently assumed that an awakening from a hypnotic trance could be accomplished instantly, despite a continuance of trance activity, and similarly, in the same experiment he assumed that a trance induction could also occur instantly without any interruption of waking activities. Hence the validity of his findings as representing performances in waking and in trance states is to be questioned.
This same confusion of ideas with regard to posthypnotic suggestion and the results to be expected from it is also shown by Messerschmidt (1927-1928) in her experiment on dissociation. Posthypnotic commands were given in direct and indirect relation to separate tasks, one of which was presumably to be done at a conscious level of awareness and the other as a posthypnotic or
“subconscious” performance. As a consequence both the posthypnotic behavior and the supposedly waking behavior became integral parts of a single performance, one part of which was provided for by direct posthypnotic suggestions. The other part was in response to indirect and unintentional posthypnotic suggestions, specifically the instruction that the posthypnotic activity was to be carried on regardless of the assignment in the waking state of a new and different task. Thus the posthypnotic suggestions served to instruct the subjects to prepare themselves for certain definite tasks as well as for other tasks not yet specified, although as the experimental procedures were repeated on them, the subjects necessarily became aware in the trance state that the desired
performances were to be dual in character. To instruct subjects in the trance state to execute a given task after awakening, when the subjects have full knowledge also of the fact that a second task, contingent upon the first, will be imposed upon in the waking state, is actually a method of giving two types of posthypnotic suggestion. Also, to instruct subjects in the trance state that upon awakening they are to do serial addition by automatic writing without regard for any other task which may be given them or to do serial addition
“subconsciously” while reading aloud “consciously,” constitutes the giving of posthypnotic suggestions covering both activities, and, hence the “conscious” task actually becomes a posthypnotic performance concomitant with the other posthypnotic activities.
Likewise, to suggest to hypnotized subjects that they will do one task “subconsciously” and another task “consciously” will serve only to elicit posthypnotic performances of both tasks and not a waking performance of one, despite the greater degree of conscious awareness of it, which itself constitutes an additional posthypnotic response.
Also, in addition to the oversights already mentioned, Messerschmidt’s experiment, like Williams’, makes no provision for the possible existence of a posthypnotic state, a somnambulistic state, or any special mental state that might interfere in some way with, or exercise a significant influence upon, the performance of the suggested tasks.
Quite different from the usual experimental study of posthypnotic behavior is the report by Brickner and Kubie (1936), who emphasize throughout their investigation the significant effect which the mental state that develops directly from posthypnotic suggestions has upon the total pattern of behavior. They also note the disappearance of those changes in the general behavior upon the completion of the posthypnotic task. Similarly, although their studies were directed primarily to other purposes, Erickson (1935) and Huston and his coworkers (1934) demonstrate clearly the development, in direct consequence of posthypnotic suggestion, of a special mental state or condition which influences, alters, and even negates the subject’s ordinary waking behavior in routine
situations until the posthypnotic suggestion has been either removed or acted upon completely.
While this review of the literature is necessarily incomplete, it does disclose that there has been frequent, if inadequate,
recognition as well as complete disregard of the special mental state that develops in direct relation to post hypnotic suggestions, and which is not necessarily limited to the task suggested as the posthypnotic activity. Also it shows that much experimental work has been done on posthypnotic behavior with no attempt made either to define the posthypnotic state or to make provision for any significant bearing it might have upon experimental procedures. Neither has there been any attempt to give an adequate definition of the posthypnotic act specifically, except in terms of the results secured from it. The mental processes and the patterns of response by which those results were achieved have been ignored. Instead there has been the general assumption that the posthypnotic act is
recognition as well as complete disregard of the special mental state that develops in direct relation to post hypnotic suggestions, and which is not necessarily limited to the task suggested as the posthypnotic activity. Also it shows that much experimental work has been done on posthypnotic behavior with no attempt made either to define the posthypnotic state or to make provision for any significant bearing it might have upon experimental procedures. Neither has there been any attempt to give an adequate definition of the posthypnotic act specifically, except in terms of the results secured from it. The mental processes and the patterns of response by which those results were achieved have been ignored. Instead there has been the general assumption that the posthypnotic act is