MAY 2006, VOLUME 34, NUMBER 1, Abstract 1
BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN PRACTITIONERS AND RESEARCHERS: A CONVERSATION ANALYTIC APPROACH TO HYPNOSIS
Hellene T. Demosthenous, Griffith University
Practitioners have much to contribute to the scientific literature on hypnosis, and researchers are encouraging them to do so. Yet practitioners and researchers often have different views on how the study of hypnosis should be conducted. While practitioners often state that researchers base their findings on controlled and contrived situations that have little to do with real-world clinical practice, researchers stress the need for systematic rigour. To help bridge the methodological gap between practitioners and researchers, this article presents conversation analysis as a suitable method for the systematic and rigorous study of the interactional accomplishment of hypnosis under naturally occurring conditions in real-world clinical practice.