It's commonly understood that hypnosis is voluntary, and a subject
will only be hypnotized and take suggestions that are not against his
or her own choosing.

My question is in regards to posthypnotic suggestion.  If a subject is
willingly hypnotized, and given a posthypnotic suggestion he or she
wants at the time, I'm curious about the willingness of the subject to
disassociate from the suggestion at will.

When a posthypnotic suggestion is triggered days or weeks after the
hypnosis session, what ability does the subject have to resist?  For
example, if the suggestion is to scratch his or her ear every time the
subject goes to a particular website, does the subject have the
ability to remove this suggestion or resist the temptation?  Does the
same apply for potentially dangerous suggestions, an example being a
case where the hypnotist (unethically) suggests the subject can not be
hypnotized by anyone else?

My question is specifically in regards to the subject's ability to
resist the suggestion, or to permanently remove the suggestion by
means other than future hypnosis.  I understand that in some or most
cases, the subject isn't even aware that a particular action or
feeling is associated with a specific suggestion that was put in
place.

Thanks for the help!

---

Clarification of Question by gm1123-ga on 02 Jul 2006 06:35 PDT

Another example of a suggestion would be to instantly fall back into a
trance state when hearing a particular phrase by the hypnotist.  While
hypnosis is voluntary, would a subject who is no longer wants hypnosis
but has such a suggestion be able to resist?