MAY 2008, VOLUME 36, NUMBER 2, Abstract 8
SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM ABSTRACTS OF THE AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF HYPNOSIS CONGRESS, NORFOLK ISLAND, SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2008
Scientific Addresses
Using Hypnosis to Model Delusions and Confabulations
Amanda J. Barnier, Macquarie University, Sydney
Hypnosis has a long history of utility. Clinicians use hypnosis to treat a myriad of conditions and researchers use it to explore fundamental processes of human information processing. But some particularly interesting uses have come from partnerships between clinicians and researchers in instrumental hypnosis. To illustrate, I will describe a recent collaboration between hypnosis researchers and cognitive and clinical neuropsychologists, which focuses on delusions and confabulations. Although both conditions involve distortions of reality, they are considered distinct pathologies, demanding different explanations and treatments. Our colleagues, Langdon and Coltheart, recently and controversially proposed that both delusions and confabulations can be understood within a common explanatory framework: the two-factor theory (which identifies two specific disruptions in normal information processing). But this has yet to be tested because there is no proven way to reliably create and study delusions and confabulations in the laboratory. Hypnosis provides a way, and I will describe the steps we are taking to recreate these clinical conditions in the laboratory and to test the two-factor theory of delusions and its extension to confabulations. I will highlight the value of hypnosis and the value of collaborating across the clinic and the lab.