Hypnotic susceptibility, or F‐bias: its relevance to eating disorders

Abstract

Hypnosis research and theory has recently paid increasing attention to hypnotizability as a trait in its own right and to a convergence with ideas in neuropsychology. Hypnotizability, or F‐bias, may be broadly characterized as involving focused attention, flexibility in switching cognitive styles and the activity of frontal cortical systems. F‐bias/hypnotizability correlates with a number of activities other than hypnotic performance, one of which is disordered eating behaviour. Within the clinical literature the general finding has been that restricting anorexics are of normal or slightly above normal hypnotizability whereas bulimics are very significantly above normal hypnotizability and show increased dissociative tendencies. In normal weight non‐clinical populations also there is also a positive correlation between hypnotizability, dissociative tendencies and attitudes to food intake. A recent study looked at both dissociation and hypnotizability in relation to disordered eating, as measured by an eating questionnaire, in a normal weight female undergraduate population. The data confirmed that those with bulimic tendencies scored higher on both hypnotizability and dissociation. The results also showed that hypnotizability was specifically related to a factor of dietary restraint, whereas dissociation was related to a factor of impulsive eating. The latter may account for the binge components of disordered eating. In contrast to earlier views, which tended to equate hypnotizability and dissociative tendencies, these data suggest that they are independent factors which influence different aspects of eating behaviour. Other work is described, which indicates that restrained eaters are more responsive than non‐restrained eaters to suggestions of increased body size, which may account in part at least for the distortions of body image seen in clinical eating disorders. The ways in which both hypnotizability and dissociative tendencies might operate as independent moderators in a sociocultural model of the development of anorexia and bulimia nervosa are discussed. Copyright © 1998 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis

Hypnosis and Conversion Hysteria: A Unifying Model

“…Davies & W agstaff, 1991 ;Kirsch, 1990;M cCue & M cCue, 1988 ;M oene, Hoogduin , & van Dyck, 1998;Sackeim et al, 1979 ;Schreiber, 1961 ;Udolf, 1987). It is assum ed here that the mechanism s that produce hypnot ic effects and the sym ptoms of conversion hysteria are the same but that the source of suggestions 252 OAKLEY Downloaded by [Umeå University Library] at 17:20 16 November 2014 in hysteria lies primarily within the internal dynam ics of the individual and/or in im plicit societal and interindividual pressures (as has been suggested by Oakley & Frasquilho, 1998, for similar effects underlying body im age changes in eating disorders).…”

“…Set in the context of the m odel outlined in the previous section, hypnot ic susceptibility (hypnot isability) reflects the degree to which an individual possesses a capacity for focused attention (and disattention to extraneous stimuli), flexibility in switching cognitive styles app ropriately, and im plicates frontal cortical system s in the underlying neurological changes (so-called F-bias, see Oakley & Frasquilho, 1998). This particular set of cognitive capacities then enables the individual to respond to explicit or implicit suggestions of sensory and m otor changes with congruent experiences which have a quality of involuntariness to them.…”

Hypnotizability, Eating Behaviors, Attitudes, and Concerns:A Literature Survey

“…Kaffman (1981Kaffman ( , 1991, Schumaker et al (1994), and Covino et al (1994) have described anorexia as a monoideistic disorder, hypothesizing that hypnotizability may contribute to its development and maintenance. Investigation of such a possibility has been undertaken by Oakley (1997, 1999), Frasquilho, Oakley, and RossAnderson (1998), Oakley and Frasquilho (1998), and Wybraniec and Oakley (1996) (see Table 8). These authors attempted to integrate the research of the last two decades.…”

Differing roles of imagination and hypnosis in self‐regulation of eating behaviour

“…Again restrained eaters were more susceptible to body image modification, especially size expansion. Oakley and Frasquilho (1998) contend that disturbed body image, in which hypnotic and/or imaginative ability may be engaged, plays an important role in the disordered regulation of eating behaviour.…”