Methodological and practical issues regarding phenomenological subtypes of highly suggestible individuals: A response to Kumar

In his commentary on our article on phenomenological subtypes of highly suggestible individuals (Terhune & Cardeña, 2010), Kumar (2010) argues that methodological differences between our studies and previous research on highly suggestible subtypes temper our ability to link the two and that it is unclear whether the existence of phenomenological subtypes has implications for hypnotherapy. Although we agree that it is premature to make conclusive statements about highly suggestible subtypes, we argue that convergent findings across studies with different methodologies are especially salient because they are unlikely to result from a common set of methodological artifacts. In addition, we describe a number of implications that research on phenomenological subtypes has for hypnotherapy.