Hypnotic susceptibility: what the laboratory scales measure

Hypnotic susceptibility (also hypnotisability) is a score: how many standardised suggestions a person passes in a defined session. It is not a disease, not a talent brand, and not a reason to book a course.

Key evidence

The Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale programme (Weitzenhoffer, Hilgard, and colleagues) gave the field a shared individual yardstick. Hilgard’s 1961 Psychological Monographs paper reported the distribution of susceptibility in a student sample on that scale. Ernest Hilgard is the history page for that laboratory.

Shor and Orne published 1963 norms for the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A: a group, self-report adaptation of Stanford Form A. In 132 undergraduates the group version was congruent with individually administered Stanford norms. That paper is a methods report, not a clinic filter.

Scores are usually described as low, medium, or high in that session. They do not grade a later treatment.

Limitations

Undergraduate norms are not population norms. Passing a motor item is not the same as a clinical change.

What we don't know yet

How much a Stanford- or Harvard-type score predicts later clinical response is still a research question, not a booking rule.

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