Dr. David Spiegel

And so that is part of the dissociation that occurs with hypnosis.

So it's how you put things outside of conscious awareness and don't worry about what it means.

It also adds to cognitive flexibility.

You know, if you're thinking, well, people like me don't usually do this, that may inhibit you from...

Enacting a new form of psychotherapy, for example, that you've never done before.

But if you're having this decreased activity in the part of your brain that reflects on what it means, you're more likely to be cognitively flexible and willing to give it a try.

And that's one of the therapeutic advantages of hypnosis as well.

There's sort of two ways to think about it.

In terms of enhancing focus, yes, it has been very helpful in teaching people to just prepare your mind to narrow in and focus on something.

And when you're really engaged in reading something or you're writing a paper, I mean, I'll have that.

Sometimes I'm thinking, oh, God, I'm

I have to do this for another hour.

Other times, an hour will go by, and I'll think, hey, great, because when you're in it, it feels game-like to you.

You're just assembling the parts of the puzzle and putting them together.

It's fun.

You just get absorbed.

For me, that's a hypnotic-like experience.

When I'm having trouble, when I'm struggling,

Sometimes doing things like self-hypnosis can help.

It's possible that for some people with that disorder, training in self-hypnosis might help, but we'd have to see how hypnotizable they were and take it from there.