ABSTRACT

This article titled "Hypnosis as the Cognitive Psychologist views it" is a synthetic one and it is similar in the main objective to Watson's article "Psychology as the Behaviourist views if because of its programatic content. We strongly argue that hypnosis must be explained by mechanisms already well-known to psychology and by injecting more fundamental knowledge trom experimental cognitive psychology. Abandoning classical view of hypnosis because of its limits and mistery surrounding it in favour of information processing approach would have the next positive consequences: 1) from the theoretical point of view it will integrate two separate domains hypnosis and cognitive psychology, offering new research topics and a new perspective on hypnosis, based on a more scientific background; 2) from practical point of view and as a consequence of theoretical clarifications it will be possible to elaborate powerful techniques used in applied psychology, and a rich instnumentarium for diagnosis and modificability of hypnotizability also used in practical work and in hypnotherapy.

KEYWORDS: hypnosis, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, information processing, research program.