Goal-directed fantasy does not explain the training effect of the carleton skills training package

Abstract

Two treatments to enhance the hypnotic responsiveness of subjects who pretested as low in hypnotic susceptibility were compared. Subjects in one modification treatment (n = 20) received the Carleton Skills Training Package (CSTP). Those in a second modification treatment (n = 20) were administered a partial training that did not include information about imaginal strategies. The authors of the CSTP assume that goal-directed fantasies underlie subjects' feelings of involuntariness, so teaching imaginal strategies is the primary agent of subjective changes after the training. Controls (n = 20) received no treatment. Both training packages enhanced behavioral and subjective response to an equivalent degree. Control subjects' performances were stable across tests. Modest increases in hypnotizability scores following training were related neither to enhancing goal-directed fantasies nor to use of imagery. Other mechanisms, possibly compliance, may underlie the CSTP effect.