This book contains the proceedings of the First International Sym-
posium on Suggestion and Suggestibility, held at the University of
Giessen in the Federal Republic of Germany, July 7-111987, upon the
initiative of and organized by Dr. V. A. Gheorghiu and Dr. P. Netter. I
regret that for personal reasons I was unable to accept his kind invita-
tion to attend, for Dr. Gheorghiu and I are old friends. I am pleased,
however, to have this opportunity to call attention to the significance
of this volume. Most of the chapters were presented in approximately
their present form at the symposium, though some have been extensi- vely
revised for publication. It was a wise choice to divide the papers into
four major sections. - I. Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, II.
Assessment and Indivi- dual Differences of Suggestibility, III.
Psychophysiological Aspects of Suggestibility, and IV. Social and
Cognitive Aspects of Suggestive Processes - each with a summarizing
commentary. In view of the variety and difficulty of the individual
papers, it is a help to have the integration provided by these
commentaries - on Part I by Sheehan (Chap. 7), on Part II by Lundy
(Chap. 13), on Part III by Edmonston (Chap. 19), and on Part IV by
Fiedler (Chap. 30).