A review article demonstrates that empathy is deeply involved in the psychology and neurophysiology of hypnosis and the self. Hypnosis is a subjective experience for both client and research participant. To better assess the mind during hypnosis, more precise phenomenological descriptors are needed. Noetics, defined as a method to comprehensively quantify the mind, can help understand hypnosis, empathic involvement theory, and the brain/mind/behavior interface, similar to how fMRI and qEEG quantify the brain.
Consciousness can be scientifically understood by combining phenomenological self-report methods with quantitative and statistical procedures from psychology. This approach, called psychophenomenology, produces a reliable and valid methodology for mapping, quantifying, and statistically assessing the structures and patterns of consciousness, particularly in states such as hypnosis.