Hypnosis and the Law

Abstract

The traditional view of the hypnotized person as someone in a state of automatism, possessed of transcendent powers, is still popular among the general public. This has obvious implications for legal issues concerning possible coercion through hypnosis and the use of hypnosis for interviewing witnesses. However, it is now the opinion of most researchers that hypnosis does not induce a state of automatism, and caution should be exercised when employing hypnotic procedures to facilitate memory. It is concluded that better progress will be made in countering public misconceptions about hypnosis, and in benefiting from research on the applications of hypnotic interviewing procedures, if more effort is made to use concepts and terminology that relate hypnotic phenomena to everyday behavior and experience.