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HYPNOSIS, AUTOGENIC RELAXATION, AND QUIET REST
7
The primary purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the influ-
ence of autogenic relaxation, hypnosis, and quiet rest on selected affec-
tive states and oxygen uptake.
A
secondary purpose
of
the study was to
evaluate the influence
of
body position (seated versus supine) on these
same outcome measures.
METHOD
Participants
Forty-fivehealthy individuals with amean age of
21.5
years
(SD
=
3.5)
were evaluated in one of three conditions consisting
of
hypnosis
(n
=
15),
autogenic relaxation
( n
=
15),
and a control procedure involving quiet
rest
( n
=
15).
A
quasi-experimental design (Marascuilo
&
Serlin, 1988)
was employed to ensure adequate training in the experimental proce-
dures (i.e.,autogenic relaxation and hypnosis) compared with outcomes
in
a control group involving quiet rest. It was not feasible
to
randomly
assign participants to the relaxation and hypnosis groups because the
former were required to possess mastery of autogenic relaxation and the
latter to score high on hypnotizability.
1
ndependcn
t
Vnriables
The
participants in the relaxation group consisted of student volun-
teers who had previously completed a relaxation class based on the
autogenic method (Schultz
&
Luthe, 1969) taught at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. This class met twice a week for
15
weeks, and only
students who received a letter grade of
A
in the classwere eligible to take
part in the study. Participants
in
the control and hypnosis groups were
recruited
by
means
of
flyers posted in various buildings on the Univer-
sity
of
Wisconsin-Madison campus. Volunteers for the hypnosis condi-
tion were initially screened using the Harvard Group Scale
of
Hypnotic
Susceptibility
(HGSHS;
Shor
&
Ome,
1962),and those individuals scor-
ing seven or higher on
the
HGSHS
took part in further testing. Hypnotic
susceptibility was further evaluated using the Barber Suggestibility
Scale
(BSS;
Barber, 1965a),and
all
participants scored above
the
70th per-
centile
on
both the objective
and
subjective portions of the
BSS.
These
screening procedures minimized variability
on
hypnotizability and
insured an adequate depth
of
hypnosis for the purposes
of
this
investigation.
Dependent
Variables
The dependent variables in this investigation consisted
of
state anxi-
ety asmeasured by the Y-1 scale of the
STAI
(Spielbergeret al., 1983),ten-
sion as measured by the Profile
of
Mood States (POMS)(McNair,Lorr,
&
Dropplemann, 1992),and the overall or total mood score yielded by the
POMS. Oxygen uptake was measured using a RayfieldMetabolic Inter-
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