Hypnosis and sociogenetic influences in human development

This paper revisits the too-long-overlooked relation between hypnosis and human development, aiming to understand hidden, yet powerful sociogenetic processes in development that are exposed in hypnosis. Hypnosis, as a process of interpersonal exchange, not only provides empirical evidence that such factors can dramatically influence intramental functioning, it also affords a glimpse of how such influences occur. Hypnosis results from common sociopsychological and interpersonal processes organized in ways that mimic key, essential features of child-caregiver involvements: interpersonal, asymmetric relationships of shared mentation for common purposes. Within these relationships of organic attunement, in both hypnosis and development, authoritative procedural directives become internalized without awareness. Hypnotic transformations of perceptions, memory, beliefs, anticipations, and behavior reveal just how powerful these relationships can be. And while the effects of hypnosis may startle, the magnitude and reach of the effects are precisely what development requires: organizing body and mind within the web of sociocultural meanings, values, and expectations.