This session brings together experts from cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, neuropsychiatry and neurology. They share a common interest in the effects of suggestion (placebo / nocebo) and the potential of hypnosis both as a research tool and therapeutic intervention.

Devin Terhune will discuss the neuropsychiatric profiles of individuals who are highly responsive to verbal suggestion and the neurocognitive bases of how verbal suggestions can modulate awareness & perception.

Quinton Deeley will discuss the use of suggestions in hypnosis and fMRI to create experimental models of alterations in control, ownership and awareness of mental contents and behaviour. This provides insights into first rank symptoms of schizophrenia, dissociation, and cultural phenomena such as revelatory, mediumistic and possession states.

Wendy Phillips will discuss practical clinical applications of hypnosis in neurology, with a focus on Functional Neurological Disorder (FND). She will outline what FND is, how it is recognised clinically and how it is phenomenologically similar to hypnosis, with reference to predictive coding models/active inference theories.

Anna Crozier will Chair. She is a GP with a MSc in Clinical Hypnosis & ST7 dual trainee in General Adult Psychiatry and Medical Psychotherapy

In this session you will:

Chair: Anna Crozier, Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, Colchester, United Kingdom

Responsiveness to verbal suggestion: neurocognitive mechanisms and dissociative psychopathology

Devin Terhune, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Modelling altered self-experience in psychopathology and cultural settings with suggestion, EEG and fMRI

Dr Quinton Deeley, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Hypnosis and Functional Neurological Disorder

Wendy Phillips, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, Cambridge, United Kingdom