Re:The theoretical basis of ideomotor signalling

Hi Lindsay,

I tend to agree with you, that there are conditions under which someone is not inclined to speak but will signal nonverbally (general anesthesia is just the most obvious but not the only one). I also agree completely that there are conditions where nonverbal and verbal channels reveal usefully different messages.

I don't know that those conditions justify the use of ideomotor signalling in general in hypnosis, and it has to be weighed against the likelihood of interpreting the signalling as somehow a more direct message from a deeper level of mind -- which may not really be true in general.

Moving a finger, for example, is a movement that is easy to perform deliberately, while the sorts of things I would look for as more reliable nonverbal signals are things that we aren't aware of controlling.

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