Can hypnosis cause madness?

AbstractRecent controversy about the dangers of hypnosis came to a head in the summer of 1998 with the High Court trial in London of a stage hypnotist for allegedly inducing schizophrenia in one of his participants. In this paper a number of issues arising from the case are critically examined; included are the propositions put forward by the prosecution that the hypnotic state is similar, psychologically and neurophysiologically, to that of schizophrenia, and thereby, because of its very nature, hypnosis can increase vulnerability to psychotic illness and other forms of psychological damage; inadequate dehypnosis may lead to a person remaining in a pathological state; and a series of fairly routine stage hypnosis suggestions can act as a trigger for a schizophrenic reaction in certain individuals. It is concluded that hypnosis procedures must always be applied with due caution and regard to the rights of participants, but that there is no substantive scientific evidence to support any special link between hypnosis and the triggering of episodes of schizophrenia. Copyright © 2000 British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis