Using hypnosis to study emotion (and emotional blunting)
Having suffered an extended lack of attention, the psychological study of emotion is now a
thriving area of research. A number of studies have used hypnosis and hypnotic suggestion to
investigate this key component of human consciousness.
The relationship between pain and emotion is an important area of research, with critical clinical
application (Keefe et al, 2001). Laboratory studies of pain have been repeatedly criticised on the
grounds that experimentally-induced pains are not sufficiently threatening to produce a strong
emotional response, as is the case with 'real world' pains. Pierre Rainville and colleagues
(2005) conducted a study at the Universite de Montreal using hypnotic suggestion to produce
emotional states, and to examine the effects of these on pain perception. Critically, the emotional
states were ones which are known to be related to clinical pain, such as sadness, anger and fear.
They found that emotions of sadness, anger, and fear increased perceived pain, but that positive
states such as satisfaction or anticipation of relief failed to relieve pain above the level produced
by hypnotic relaxation. Further, they found that the changes in experienced pain unpleasantness
correlated with the strength of emotion that participants felt (see figure below). The authors note
that by producing emotional states through hypnotic suggestion instead of having participants
view emotional films or pictures ('secondary inducers') they may have bypassed confounds
associated with these techniques such as the additional attentional demands imposed. And that by
avoiding painful 'secondary inducers' such as electric shocks, they have in turn avoided the
induction of a variety of other feelings (e.g. surprise, humour) that can prove a confound in these
studies.
Taking a slightly different tack, Richard Bryant and colleagues conducted a series of studies
investigating the use of suggestion to produce emotional blunting. Emotional blunting, emotional
numbing, or a flattening of affect, is a feature common to a number of clinical conditions such as
post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis, this work may therefore have important clinical
implications.
In a 2001 paper Bryant and Kourch report an experiment in which they displayed pictures of
neutral or disfigured face to high and low hypnotisable participants. Suggestions for emotional
numbing were given and these produced reductions in reported distress as well as reductions in
emotional facial expressions, these effects were stronger in high hypnotisables.
In a 2005 study Bryant asked high and low hypnotisable participants to rate the valence
('emotionality') of neutral words. Each of the words was preceeded by the subliminal
presentation of either a neutral or an unpleasant image. Participants were tested in a control
condition and also following hypnotic suggestions for emotional numbing. The low
hypnotisables in both conditions, and the highs in the control condition, both rated the words
more positively if they had been primed with a subliminally presented negative picture.
However, when the highs were given the suggestion for emotional numbing their ratings of the
words were unaffected by the negative priming. This result indicates that the effects of the
emotional numbing suggesting are produced at a pre-attentive stage of awareness (i.e. the effects
happen at an 'unconscious' level and are not the result of demand characteristics).
In a 2006 study Bryant and Kapur found that the ability to experience suggested emotional
numbing is related more closely to hypnotic susceptibility than to the effects of a hypnotic
induction (i.e. it's the suggestion which produces the effect, not the hypnosis).
A number of interesting paradigms have emerged in the study of emotion suppression such as
investigation of ironic processes (Wegner et al, 1993) or effects upon memory for emotional
events (Richards & Gross, 2000). This series of investigations indicates that study of hypnotic
susceptibility and hypnotic suggestion has a useful role to play in the emerging study of the
neuroscience of emotion.