Why do some people face adversity and become depressed and traumatized, while others face similar challenges and seem to easily transcend them? The study of hypnosis affords clinicians a deeper understanding of how people form subjective experience, whether that experience is life-diminishing or life-enhancing. Hypnosis can be used to address the formation of attributions, or causal explanations, which can either increase or decrease the likelihood of the onset of depression and PTSD in the aftermath of an aversive event. In this invited lecture, we will consider attributions in general and the specific attributions related to expectations that influence how clients respond to therapeutic interventions in general and hypnosis in particular.