This study was a pilot project to explore the effect of an autogenic training program (AT; a relaxation intervention) on the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and well-being for people with multiple sclerosis.

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This paper makes the case that hypnotic phenomena are liminal in nature and that hypnotic practitioners (such as Milton Erickson) share many traits with traditional societies' "tricksters." The ambiguous nature of hypnosis has been apparent since the days of Mesmer's animal magnetism. Hypnotized people often report hallucinations that confound their ordinary distinctions between reality and illusion, external and internal processes, and many other binary oppositions, including time and space as well as mind and body. In addition, hypnosis can obscure the distinction between fact and fiction in one's memory, as is evident in the "recovered memory" controversy. The role played by imagination is central to both indigenous rituals and hypnosis, and hypnosis is a multifaceted phenomenon requiring explanation at multiple levels. Some investigators and practitioners have missed the importance of the social context in which hypnosis occurs, while others have come close to destroying the most interesting and useful hypnotic phenomena under the guise of objectivity.

Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco, California 94111, USA. skrippner@saybrook.edu

Although hypnotizability can be conceptualized as involving component subskills, standard measures do not differentiate them from a more general unitary trait, partly because the measures include limited sets of dichotomous items. To overcome this, the authors applied full-information factor analysis, a sophisticated analytic approach for dichotomous items, to a large data set from 2 hypnotizability scales. This analysis yielded 4 subscales (Direct Motor, Motor Challenge, Perceptual-Cognitive, Posthypnotic Amnesia) that point to the building blocks of hypnotic response. The authors then used the subscales as simultaneous predictors of hypnotic responses in 4 experiments to distinguish the contribution of each component from general hypnotizability. This analysis raises interesting questions about how best to conceptualize and advance measurement of the ability to experience hypnosis.

Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. ewoody@uwaterloo.ca

Although attention is a central theme in psychological science, hypnosis researchers rarely incorporate attentional findings into their work. As with other biological systems, attention has a distinct anatomy that carries out basic psychological functions. Specific brain injuries, states, and drugs can all influence attentional networks. Investigation into these networks using modern neuroimaging techniques has revealed important mechanisms involved in attention. In this age of genomics, genetic approaches can supplement these neuroimaging techniques. As genotyping becomes an affordable and technologically viable complement to phenotyping, exploratory genetic assays offer insights into the genetic bases of both attention and hypnotizability. This paper discusses relevant aspects of attentional mechanisms and their underlying neuroanatomy as they relate to hypnosis. Underlining data from attentional networks, neuroimaging, and genetics, these findings should help to explain individual differences in hypnotizability and the neural systems subserving hypnosis.

Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY 10032, USA. ar2241@columbia.edu

Alternative descriptors of the capacity to experience hypnosis, intended to describe the same phenomenon, appear in the current literature. Published members of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) were surveyed to determine their preferences. The descriptors were empirically derived from recent International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis articles and input from the executive committee of SCEH. Participants also indicated their primary theoretical conceptualization of hypnosis. Hypnotizability was chosen nearly 4 times more frequently than the next most favored choice (susceptibility) as a descriptor of hypnotic talent. Hypnosis as an "identifiable state" was chosen more than 4 times more frequently than the socio-cognitive version. This latter finding suggests that the notion of the continued debatability of hypnosis as primarily a state is now shared by only a few.

Washington State University, Pullman 99164-2114, USA. ciara_christensen@yahoo.com

By Carol Tuttle, Master Energy Therapist and the author of the best-selling book, Remembering Wholeness: A Personal Handbook for Thriving in the 21st Century

What do you think and believe about your body? Do you look in the mirror with disgust? Are you dissatisfied with your weight and body shape? This technique will help you clear the negative mental programming you have about your body, which will free your body up to achieve greater results faster and in less time.

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Preliminary findings are in from Traci Stein, MPH, Director of The Columbia Integrative Medicine Program and whiz statistician, Peri Nemerow, both from Mehmet Oz's group at Columbia Presbyterian. They tested out our new guided imagery for cardiac ICU & cardiac rehab on 20 patients (average age = 63) who'd undergone by-pass, valve replacement and transplant surgeries, and surveyed them for feedback on the imagery. It turned out that 90% liked listening to the tape; 79% would recommend the tape to a friend; 71% thought it made their hospital stay more pleasant; 83.3 % felt it increased their appreciation for being alive; 80% thought it helped them to better savor the things that they loved; 80% thought it gave them confidence they would regain their strength; 66.7% said it made them feel more positively about their scars; 75% felt it made them less depressed; and 80% felt it made them more relaxed. We also think it only fair to tell you that some thought it was weird. Interestingly enough, patients reported similar levels of satisfaction regardless of age or gender, or whether they'd listened to imagery before. Most patients listened to the tape just once. The team is now looking to do further research with a larger sample size, going for more objective outcome measures of things like blood pressure, heart rate, pain and length of stay.