Editing Suggestibility (section)

===Susceptibility===

Popular media and layman's articles occasionally use the terms "suggestible" and "susceptible" interchangeably, with reference to the extent to which a given individual responds to incoming suggestions from another. The two terms are not [[synonym]]ous, however, as the latter term carries inherent negative bias absent from the neutral psychological factor described by "suggestibility".

In scientific research and academic literature on hypnosis and hypnotherapy, the term "suggestibility" describes a neutral psychological and possibly physiological state or phenomena. This is distinct from the culturally biased common parlance of the term "suggestible". The term "susceptible" implies weakness or some increased danger to which one is more likely to become a victim. It therefore has a negative effect on expectation and itself is a hypnotic suggestion that suggestions must be noticed and guarded against.  Both terms are often bound with undeserved negative social [[connotation]]s not inherent in the word meanings themselves.

To be suggestible is not to be gullible. The latter pertains to an empirical objective fact that can be shown accurate or inaccurate to any observer; the former term does not. To be open to suggestion has no bearing on the accuracy of any incoming suggestions, nor whether such an objective accuracy is possible, as is the case with metaphysical belief.

While research from the 1960s indicated increased suggestibility under the influence of [[LSD]] among both mentally ill and healthy individuals, recent documents suggest that the CIA and Department of Defense have discontinued research into LSD as a means of mind control.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/rockrep.cfm#hallucinogens |title=Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health? Lessons Spanning Half A Century, part F. HALLUCINOGENS |publisher=103rd Congress, 2nd Session-S. Prt. 103-97; Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans' affairs |date=December 8, 1994 |vauthors=Rockefeller IV JD |location=West Virginia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060813164326/http://gulfweb.org/bigdoc/rockrep.cfm#hallucinogens |archive-date=August 13, 2006 |access-date=December 13, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Middlefell R |title=The effects of LSD on body sway suggestibility in a group of hospital patients |journal=The British Journal of Psychiatry |volume=113 |issue=496 |pages=277–280 |date=March 1967 |pmid=6029626 |doi=10.1192/bjp.113.496.277 |s2cid=19439549 |url= http://www.lycaeum.org/research/researchpdfs/1489.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110430033215/http://www.lycaeum.org/research/researchpdfs/1489.pdf |archive-date=2011-04-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Sjoberg BM, Hollister LE |title=The effects of psychotomimetic drugs on primary suggestibility |journal=Psychopharmacologia |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=251–262 |date=November 1965 |pmid=5885648 |doi=10.1007/BF00407857 |s2cid=15249061}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|date=June 2023}}

Some therapists may examine worries or objections to suggestibility before proceeding with therapy: this is because some believe there is a rational or learned deliberate will to hold a belief, even in the case of more convincing new ideas, when there is a compelling cognitive reason not to 'allow oneself' to be persuaded. Perhaps this can be seen in historical cases of mass hypnosis where also there has been media suppression. In the individual, unexamined actions are sometimes described by hypno- and psycho-therapists based on outgrown belief systems.

Hypnotic suggestions include terms, phrases, or whole concepts where to understand the concept includes making sense of a subjective sensation, or a framework for the appropriate response.... simple one-word forms of this include the word [[terrorism]] where to understand the concept, one must understand the notion of terror and then understand in the sentence that it is meant to refer to "that" given object.