Depth of hypnotic trance will differ depend on language use - Literature review Example

justice system, but generally there is agreement that hypnosis is a valuable technique when carried out responsibly by professionally qualified practitioners. Most of the empirical research that has been carried out to date is concerned with hypnosis in a monolingual context. Both practitioner and client share a common language, the subject matter that arises in the hypnosis sessions is collected in that shared language, and evaluation is also conducted in that language. Theoretical research has taken account of international work which has been conducted in many separate mono-lingual contexts, but there is so far not very much comparative work on the differences which might exist in different linguistic contexts.

There is one dominant framework for the measurement of hypnotic sensibility, and that is the Harvard Group Scale, (Shore and Orne, 1962) which was developed in the United States in the 1960s, based, of course, on hypnosis using the English language. Analysis of bi-lingual hypnosis situations, and evaluation of any variation of the effect of different languages on the hypnosis process is very rare. Hypnosis in the twenty first century has not changed very much since the time when the Harvard Group Scale was first proposed.

What has changed is the amount of international contact due to forces like the end of the Cold War, the process of globalisation and the advent of new technologies like the internet and fast, affordable international travel. Both permanent and temporary migration of population groups appears to be on the increase, and this means that in all areas of life, including the field of psychology, people are being faced with new challenges. There is an increasing likelihood that professional contact will be made with people who may not share the same ethnic, cultural and linguistic heritage.

Diversity is increasingly being built in to business processes and services. In addition to these practical dimensions of globalisation, there are