Steven Jay Lynn

Binghamton University | SUNY Binghamton · Department of Psychology

Deficits in the ability to read the emotions of others have been demonstrated in mental disorders, such as dissociation and schizophrenia, which involve a distorted sense of self. This study examined whether weakened self-referential source memory, being unable to remember whether a piece of information has been processed with reference to oneself,...

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic is a mass traumatic event that has universally and indiscriminately negatively affected the world. The adverse consequences of the pandemic have globally impacted psychological health and well-being via increased stressors, such as uncertainty, health anxieties, and financial instability. During the initial months...

Acceptance can improve psychological functioning. However, research has yielded inconsistent findings regarding the efficacy of acceptance, which may be related to instructions to accept different aspects of psychological functioning (e.g., thoughts vs. emotion). We compared the effects of self-regulation instructions to accept thoughts, emotions,...

This special issue is dedicated to the life and works of psychology pioneer Scott O. Lilienfeld. Dr. Lilienfeld tragically passed away in September 2020 and was one of the field’s most brilliant minds and prolific contributors. As a leading authority on psychopathy and the delineation between science and pseudoscience and a prodigious scholar acros...

This issue of BJPsych Advances includes an article on the use of hypnotherapy in psychiatric practice. The article contains a number of errors and misconceptions regarding the characteristics and practice of hypnosis that we address in this commentary.

Creativity is often defined as the ability to produce novel and useful outputs. Because creativity can be manifested in diverse ways of behaving and thinking, measuring creativity has proved to be challenging. Existing measures of creativity, specifically those addressing creative personality, lack psychometric validity and well-established relatio...

More than half of people (55%) report that they experience a lucid dream (e.g., they become aware they are dreaming while dreaming) at least once in their lifetime, whereas approximately a quarter (23%) of individuals report that they dream lucidly on a monthly basis (Saunders et al., 2016). Despite the prevalence of lucid dreaming, the construct i...

Purpose: A heated debate exists on whether traumatic memories can be dissociated or repressed. One way in which researchers have attempted to prove the existence of dissociative amnesia or repressed memory is to examine whether claims of amnesia for traumatic events are associated with specific neural markers. Methods: Here, we will argue that suc...

Objectives The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic is recognized as a mass traumatic event in which COVID-19-related stress (CS) can indicate other trauma- and/or stressor-related disorder. The facets of mindfulness (observing, describing, acting with awareness, nonjudging, and nonreacting) have been linked to reductions in stress-related symptoms and t...

When experiencing mental health challenges, we all deserve treatments that actually work. Whether you are a healthcare consumer, student, or mental health professional, this book will help you recognize implausible, ineffective, and even harmful therapy practices while also considering recent controversies. Research-supported interventions are iden...

Harmful consequences of COVID-19, such as prolonged quarantine, lack of social contact, and especially loss of parents or friends, can negatively impact children and adolescents' mental health in diverse ways, including engendering posttraumatic stress symptoms. Our study is the first to compare the transdiagnostic Unified Protocol for the Treatmen...

In this review, honoring Scott O. Lilienfeld, we reflect on key conflicts, controversies, and flash points in the so-called memory wars that have captured headlines, affected legislative action, and influenced civil suits and criminal trials. We trace the memory wars, beginning in the 1990s to the present. From the outset, the memory wars featured...

A PDF of the EDS with instructions for scoring and accessing a Qualtrics version of the scale.

Ego dissolution (i.e., ego loss, ego disintegration, ego death, or self-loss) is a conscious state marked by a loss or diminution of one's sense of self and a lack of first-person experience. We developed a novel, valid, and internally consistent ego dissolution scale to both (a) assess trait-like aspects of ego dissolution, which have received sca...

Scott O. Lilienfeld was among the most influential clinical psychological scientists, avid promoters of psychological science, and stalwart and effective critics of pseudoscience in our time. We describe the role that Lilienfeld and other skeptical scientists played in the so-called “memory wars” that spanned more than three decades and continue to...

In this chapter, we distill a large corpus of literature that Scott O. Lilienfeld produced with his colleagues on science vs. pseudoscience, distinguishing myths and misconceptions and fact and fiction in psychology, the virtues of evidence-based clinical practice, and adopting a scientific mindset and teaching scientific thinking skills in undergr...

Informed by the transtheoretical/transdiagnostic model (TTM) of dissociation, we tested the nomological network of dissociation by evaluating the unique relations among dissociation and its facets (i.e., depersonalization, amnesia, absorption, taxon) with variables pertinent to competing dissociation theories (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder [P...

This book pays tribute to Scott O. Lilienfeld of Emory University, a leading scholar in the field of clinical science who has made important contributions to a wide range of central topics including definition of the field, cognitive biases and critical thinking, memory, personality and personality disorders, projective testing and its problems, cu...

For more than 30 years, the posttraumatic model (PTM) and the sociocognitive model (SCM) of dissociation have vied for attention and empirical support. We contend that neither perspective provides a satisfactory account and that dissociation and dissociative disorders (e.g., depersonalization/derealization disorder, dissociative identity disorder)...

Irving Kirsch is a leading figure in the field of psychological science who has advanced our understanding of hypnosis in key respects that have withstood the tests of time and replication. We honor his prodigious contributions over his distinguished career and extend his response expectancy theory in an integrative model that encompasses predictiv...

Ross (in press) argued that false memory researchers misunderstand the concepts of repression and dissociation, as well as the writings of Freud. In this commentary, we show that Ross is wrong. He oversimplifies and misrepresents the literature on repressed and false memory. We rebut Ross by showing the fallacies underlying his arguments. For examp...

This project extends the study of ego dissolution through the development and validation of a new measure, the Ego Dissolution Scale, for quantifying trait-like propensities towards self-loss experiences. This two-factor scale exhibited adequate reliability and validity. Further, this project postulates that ego dissolution and dissociation, althou...

For more than 30 years, the posttraumatic model (PTM) and the sociocognitive model (SCM) of dissociation have vied for attention and empirical support. We contend that neither perspective provides a satisfactory account and that dissociation and dissociative disorders (e.g., depersonalization/ derealization disorder, dissociative identity disorder)...

In a review of the literature in this journal, Piedfort-Marin et al. (2021) identified what they purported to be myths about dissociative identity disorder (DID) and dissociative amnesia. When responding to these beliefs, they supported the Trauma Model of dissociation and argued for a causal etiological link between trauma and dissociative conditi...

Background Research has indicated that enhanced emotion regulation bolsters psychological resilience. However, no study has systematically reviewed the empirical research directly evaluating the relation between emotion regulation and resilience or reviewed how individual emotion regulation strategies are differentially associated with resilience....

Objective: Previous research has documented a strong association between emotion regulation (ER) and quality of life (QoL). Nevertheless, extant studies have not tested this association in participants meeting diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder nor accounted for other explanatory variables statistically. Our primary objective wa...

Background and Objectives Anecdotal and research evidence suggests that individuals with dissociative symptoms exhibit hyperassociativity, which might explain several key features of their condition. The aim of our study was to investigate the link between dissociative tendencies and hyperassociativity among college students. Methods The study (n...

Memorializes Scott O. Lilienfeld (1960-2020), one of the most influential figures in contemporary clinical psychology. His contributions were prodigious and spanned psychopathy and personality disorders, psychiatric classification and di agnosis, dissociation, memory and trauma, neuroscience, and cultural sensitivity. He authored, coauthored, and c...

Based on converging research, we concluded that the controversial topic of unconscious blockage of psychological trauma –i.e., repressed memory- remains very much alive in clinical, legal, and academic contexts (Otgaar et al., 2019). In his commentary, Brewin (in press) conducted a co-citation analysis and concluded that scholars do not adhere to t...

Dissociative disorders are conditions marked by discontinuities in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior. Dissociative disorders include dissociative amnesia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. This entry reviews the...

This entry surveys the applications of hypnosis in the field of health psychology. The review features qualitative reviews, meta‐analytic studies, and randomized controlled trials and documents the promise of hypnosis in treating many health‐related conditions. Hypnosis for pain control and modulation of distress is the best established of all appl...

We critically reviewed the protocols, results, and potential implications from empirical studies ( n = 44) on mirror-gazing (including the “psychomanteum”) and eye-to-eye gazing, both in healthy individuals and clinical patients, including studies of hypnotic mirrored self-misidentification, mirror-gazing in body dysmorphic disorder and schizophren...

Dissociative disorders are conditions marked by discontinuities in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior. Dissociative disorders include dissociative amnesia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. This entry reviews the...

We reviewed articles that appeared between 2000 and 2018 and that addressed fantasy proneness as measured by the Creative Experiences Questionnaire (CEQ) or the Inventory of Childhood Memories and Imaginings (ICMI). We searched Google Scholar to identify relevant articles and used the Hunter-Schmidt method to meta-analyze the correlates of fantasy...

We evaluated variables important to understanding dissociation ( N = 379 undergraduates). We investigated: (a) the correlations among dissociation and impulsivity, alexithymia, mindfulness, negative affect, neuroticism, sleep disturbances, and emotion dysregulation; (b) unique variance of these variables in statistically predicting dissociation sco...

We show that, in contrast to Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsowrth, and McNeilis (2019), large proportions of laypersons believe in the scientifically controversial phenomenon of unconscious repressed memories. We provide new survey data showing that when participants are asked specific questions about what they mean when they report that traumatic memo...

We present 21 prominent myths and misconceptions about hypnosis in order to promulgate accurate information and to highlight questions for future research. We argue that these myths and misconceptions have (a) fostered a skewed and stereotyped view of hypnosis among the lay public, (b) discouraged participant involvement in potentially helpful hypn...

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has disrupted virtually every aspect of daily living, engendering forced isolation and social distance, economic hardship, fears of contracting a potentially lethal illness and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Unfortunately, there is no formula or operating manual for how to cope with the current global...

In this chapter, we argue that we are constantly creating our experiences from the bedrock of spontaneous thoughts and mind wandering we engage in as much as half of our waking existence: We create and recreate ourselves and our realities in the moment, every moment. In many circumstances, including hypnosis, which is the focus of our discussion, w...

What does believing in repressed memory mean? In a recent paper in this journal, Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsworth, and McNeilis (in press; Study 3) argued that when people are asked to indicate their belief in repressed memory, they actually think of deliberate memory suppression rather than unconscious repressed memory. They further argued that in...

Can purely psychological trauma lead to a complete blockage of autobiographical memories? This longstanding question about the existence of repressed memories has been at the heart of one of the most heated debates in modern psychology. These so-called memory wars originated in the 1990s and many scholars have assumed that they are over. We demonst...

The authors summarize research findings, their clinical implications, and directions for future research derived from 40 years of study of hypnosis, hypnotic phenomena, and hypnotic responsiveness at Steven Jay Lynn’s Laboratory of Consciousness, Cognition, and Psychopathology and Joseph P. Green’s Laboratory of Hypnosis. We discuss (a) the accumul...

Study 1 evaluated whether a single-session mindfulness meditation with implementation intention instructions (II) would elicit gains in psychological functioning across 2 weeks that exceeded comparison conditions (meditation with no II, sitting quietly [SQ]). Study 2 evaluated whether a 2-session lovingkindness meditation (LKM), which directed comp...

Destructured sensory fields, involving homogenous stimulation with little or no time-varying structure, provide a fertile ground for testing hypotheses about predictive coding in the human brain. Extended exposure to sensory patterns that deviate substantially from the statistics of natural environments can elicit a bewildering range of perceptual...

Re-experiencing symptoms are a hallmark of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Relatively little research has examined flashbacks in individuals with PTSD, and theoretical attempts to define and conceptualize flashbacks continue to be marked by considerable controversy. We compared individuals with PTSD or subthreshold PTSD symptoms (PTSS) with (...

We examined construct and discriminant validities of the Revised Transliminality Scale (RTS) using a large sample (n = 577) of undergraduates who completed the RTS along with established measures of mystical experiences, schizotypy, dissociation, absorption, various phenomenological aspects of consciousness, positive and negative affect, anxiety, m...

In this comment on Patihis and Pendergast (2018), we challenge an assumption that underpins recovered memory therapies: that there exists a close link of traumatic experiences with dissociation. We further suggest that (a) researchers examine how therapists who believe in repressed memories instill this belief in clients and establish expectations...

This chapter presents a brief interview with Lilly's coping model. In contrast to mastery modeling, the coping model discusses her difficulties and struggles, her initial skepticism about hypnosis, how she worked to overcome self‐doubt and negative thinking, and why, in retrospect, she should have told more of her friends about her goal of smoking...

In an effort to make it easier for clinicians interested in researching the effectiveness of the program, this chapter provides a number of materials, such as: a fact sheet about the program, a consent form template, a basic assessment inventory, and forms to track progress over time. It presents them within the context of the own ongoing research...

This chapter talks about hypnosis, report common misconceptions about hypnosis, and advance reasons to include hypnosis in The Winning Edge program. It reviews the evidence for hypnosis as an effective tool for behavioral change, including a frank discussion about what's needed to establish hypnosis as an empirically supported strategy to enhance s...

This chapter examines the various strategies in the program—cognitive‐behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness, acceptance, and hypnosis— as The Winning Edge. Indeed, two‐session program to achieve smoking cessation models the way that psychological principles and the latest technologies for promoting behavior change can be used to master longstanding...

This chapter provides copies of the self‐recording sheets for the second hypnosis script and daily accounts of smoking. It also provides a “Phone Call Guideline” sheet to help structure the phone conversation. Some participants don't mail back their recording sheets, the chapter investigates during the phone conversation about the frequency of list...

Participants enter treatment with varying levels of motivation and with different degrees of readiness to change. The facilitators' goal is to encourage participants to consider their own reasons for change and their own goals related to stopping smoking, instead of debating the reasons and goals imposed by others or situational pressures such as t...

In this chapter, the authors begin their trek through The Winning Edge and provide facilitators with a step‐by‐step description of how to conduct the program. Starting from the very first comments, the trainer is positive, upbeat, and confident about the program. Facilitators are expected to be well versed in the specifics of the program and to hav...

This chapter provides copies of the various handouts and worksheets that accompany the DVD slide presentation. Facilitators can also access the site and stream the DVD material in group settings. The chapter also provides participants with a recording sheet to note how often they listen to the hypnosis track over the week between the first and seco...

This chapter begins with a general discussion of how participants fared over the preceding week, in terms of reviewing the DVD, listening to the self‐hypnosis track, and self‐monitoring. A series of PowerPoint slides guides the group discussion. Participants review their self‐monitoring worksheets and discuss trigger situations and possible alterna...

This chapter provides information for facilitators and therapists who work on an individual or group basis. It discusses typically, participants will express concerns about the content areas either before, during, or after the intervention. The chapter provides the facilitator with evidence‐based information that addresses participants' concerns, c...

This is an introduction to the special issue “Prospection Studies: Exploring Future-Oriented Perspectives on Consciousness.”

A sizable literature has yet to establish a reliable empirical connection between the trait conceptualization of emotion regulation as habitual, cross-situation emotion regulation tendencies and its state conceptualization as real-time, fluid, momentary emotion-situation interactivity and dependency. Thus, an open question remains: Do self-reported...

Scant studies have addressed the relations of an array of variables related to trait mindfulness in the context of a single investigation. We tested 800 (67.9% females, 31.3% males, .6% other, and .3% missing) undergraduate participants to evaluate three hypotheses: (a) increased positive affect, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientious...

To facilitate continued research on the transliminality construct, we revisited Lange, Thalbourne, Houran, and Storm’s (2000) Revised Transliminality Scale (RTS) to examine its conceptual foundations and validity. Keyword searches in several academic databases revealed many multidisciplinary studies that collectively align with the idea that transl...

The terrain of contemporary psychotherapy is vast. In fact, patients can choose from more than 500 brands of psychotherapy. The challenges in navigating this bewildering landscape of psychotherapeutic interventions can be daunting (Lilienfeld, 2007). In this volume, we guide consumers of psychotherapy, clinicians, researchers, and students in the t...

This editorial introduced the current issue which consists of five articles addressing what has variously been termed precognition, precognitive ability , and retrocausal or retroactive influences —that is, the possibility that people can make “accurate prediction of future events without inferential means”.

This chapter compiles the state of the empirical evidence for the effectiveness of treatments for dissociative symptoms in adulthood, and argues for caution when treating dissociative symptoms, as workers in the field have expressed concern that some of these symptoms may arise as a function of the very techniques used to treat them. It reviews in...

Psychotherapy process and outcome research will therefore likely gravitate toward technology-based interventions capable of reaching isolated and functionally impaired individuals. Individuals with schizophrenia commonly exhibit cognitive deficits early in childhood that impede social and academic progress, implying a developmental component. Schiz...

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book presents the most systematic evaluation of psychotherapies for a variety of psychological disorders. The structure relies heavily on the David and Montgomery framework for evaluating the state of the science of psychotherapy interventions. This framework is...

This chapter evaluates the scientific status of diverse psychotherapies and encourages the widespread practice of evidence-based psychotherapies. The chapter discusses interventions that produce successful outcomes and are grounded in scientifically supported mechanisms of action from clinical practices that bear the patina of science yet lack cruc...

An adequate understanding of specialized terminology is a prerequisite for the mastery of core concepts across all scientific disciplines, including psychological science. In a previous article (Lilienfeld et al., 2015), we presented an annotated list of 50 widely used psychological terms that should generally be avoided, or at best used judiciousl...

Smoking cessation remains a major health priority. Despite public campaigns against smoking and widespread availability of smoking-cessation treatments, many people continue to smoke. The authors argue that the “problem of motivation,” that is, suboptimal or fluctuating motivation to resist smoking urges and to comply with the demands of treatment,...

The debate regarding the relationship between dissociation and trauma has raised questions regarding the validity of measures of dissociation. Dalenberg et al.'s (2012) meta-analysis included studies using the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES II), but excluded the DES-Comparison (DES-C) scale, claiming that it lacked validity as a measure of dis...

Researchers and clinicians typically divide hypnosis into two distinct parts: the induction and the suggestions that follow. We suggest that this distinction is arbitrary and artificial. Different definitions of hypnosis ascribe different roles to the hypnotic induction, yet none clearly specifies the mechanisms that mediate or moderate subjective...

This essay presents the rationale to consider anomalous experiences (AEs, such as synesthesia, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, psi-related experiences, and near-death experiences) as an essential topic in psychology. These experiences depart from the typical or customary characteristics of consciousness (e.g., out-of-body experiences), or from ordi...

Although interest in the relationship between mental imagery and psychopathology has increased greatly over the last decade, few publications to date have examined relationships between personality-related psychopathology and mental imagery use, abilities, or both. However, we have reason to expect that substantive relationships may exist. For exam...

In this editorial, the author indicates that readers of the current issue will find articles that fulfill an important mission of the journal: to devote coverage to the study of intriguing phenomena and experiences long considered to lie outside the boundaries of mainstream scientific research. Specifically, the articles span research and theory re...

We examined the possibility that hypnotic suggestion could be used to induce mystical-type experiences in the laboratory. Undergraduate volunteers (N = 113) reported their experiences in responses to a suggestion for a mystical-type experience added to a standardized group-administered scale of hypnotic responsiveness (the Harvard Group Scale of Hy...

Hypnosis is a unique form of top-down regulation in which verbal suggestions are capable of eliciting pronounced changes in a multitude of psychological phenomena. Hypnotic suggestion has been widely used both as a technique for studying basic science questions regarding human consciousness but also as a method for targeting a range of symptoms wit...

We present an overview of major dissociative disorders, including depersonalization/derealization disorder, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative identity disorder. We discuss the prevalence, etiology, and treatment of each disorder and review treatment approaches. We present two competing models of dissociation – the posttraumatic model and the s...