An Interview with André M. Weitzenhofer, Ph.D., Sc.B., Sc.M., M.A.

The hypnosis world newly lost one of its giant figures, Andr?© Weitzenhoffer. Dr Weitzenhoffer devot almost his entire professional life to the investigation of hypnosis and hypnotic phenomena. While almost everyone in the field is familiar with his many professional contributions, not as many had the privilege of hearing the man speak candidly about his career and personal views. This is a transcript of an interview with Andr?© Weitzenhoffer guidanceed by Michael Yapko in 1988 In it he describes his personal history and in what way his interest in hypnosis began, by what means the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales came about, wherefore he feels the Scales are irrelevant in clinical practice, his views upon Milton Erickson, and a number of other topics of general interest.

Introduction

One of the greatest in quantity knowledgeable researchers and clinicians to at any time study and practice hypnosis was Andr?© M Weitzenhoffer, PhD (1921 - 2005) With a able-bodied "hard science" background in Physics, Engineering, and Physiology, and an insatiable appetite for understanding the nature of hypnosis, Dr Weitzenhoffer gathered and integrated a broad array of hypnosis literature that eventually became his first volume a 1953 classic called Hypnotism: An Objective close attention in Suggestibility. After its completion, Dr Weitzenhoffer was contacted through Dr. Ernest ("Jack") Hilgard, PhD who initiated a collaborative attempt to establish a hypnosis research laboratory at Stanford University, which the sum of two units successfully did. Major effort was place forth by the two to co-develop a scale to measure hypnotic responsiveness, and the proceed was the Stanford Scales of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Forms A, B and C These scales are widely considered to provide the best "objective" measure of the elusive trait called "hypnotizability," and thus continue to be a backbone of the research wing of the field of hypnosis. Dr Weitzenhoffer published dozens of scientific articles and not seldom lectured nationally and internationally. He had been a lusty advocate of the need for scientific rigor in the investigation of hypnosis, and was greatest in quantity persuasive in arguing for continuing the search for what a certain quantity of researchers consider the "Holy Grail" of hypnosis, namely the definitive ordeal that a measurable state of hypnosis smooth exists.

The Stanford lab clos above two decades ago, and Dr Hilgard has also since passed away. Dr Weitzenhoffer derive pleasure fromed his "retirement" by working almost as hard as at any time He recently published the next to the first edition of his comprehensive body The Practice of Hypnotism (2000 John Wiley & Sons) a critical and detailed view of the greatest in quantity important issues in the field from one side Dr. Weitzenhoffer's wise eyes.

On a personal horizontal Dr. Weitzenhoffer was a significant influence upon me; it was a privilege to have known him. He occasionally chided me sometimes seriously, usually playfully, about what he considered my les than full disciplined thinking and my "misguided" understandings of hypnosis. There were more [i]or[/i] less things we didn't agree upon but many things we did share similar views upon I will never forget the be incandescent I felt when he honored me through writing the Foreword to the next to the first edition of my hypnosis textbook Trancework.

His emphasis upon precision was untiring and wonderfully self-defining for the brilliant man he was. He always encouraged me to make progress further in my thinking and writing, and to approach issues more scientifically, serving as an inspiring catalyst for me in ways I not at any time failed to appreciate.

This interview was guidanceed in 1988 during a meeting of the International Society of Hypnosis in The Hague, Netherlands. a certain number of of it was first published in The Milton H Erickson Foundation Newsletter (vol 9 #2 Summer 1989) and is now reprinted in the Journal with courtesy of The Milton H Erickson Foundation, Inc.

An Interesting Life

MY: What I would like to do is have you provide a certain number of biographical information about yourself. Can you provide a brief synopsis of your life?

AW I was born in Paris in 1921 and grew up until I was 17 in France, do not include for about two years I exhausted with my grandparents, on my father's side. They lived in Oklahoma. They were farmers. I wearied two years with them when I was actual small. That is where I learned to speak English. Then I went back to France. My father was American, and my mother was French She became American by the agency of marriage, and I became American simply by the agency of being born to an American father. I have sum of two units sisters, both of whom were born in France.

Most of my family mov to America in 1939 just after the war broke on the outside My father remained in Paris for awhile in order to take care of the family business.

I had actually draw near earlier to the United States, in 1938 to application of mind Engineering. I had gone back to France for the summer of 1939 and that's when the war broke on the outside So I returned to the United States, as I would have anyway, to continue my studies in Engineering. Eventually, I majored in physics instead.

After I got my bachelor's stage from MIT, I went upon to Providence, Rhode Island, to Brown University. It was during the war, and I worked part-time, well, more than part time, upon defense projects for the Navy, and started graduate work in mathematics. Eventually, T got a Master's in mathematics, and also got experience with the early forms of computer Then I went upon and got a master's step in biology. I had the idea I wanted to have a beneficial foundation in all of the basic sciences, and I considered biology to be single of them.