DEVELOPMENT OF APPARENT UNCONSCIOUSNESS DURING HYPNOTIC RELIVING OF A TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE

Abstract

A general experimental project, to be reported later in its entirety, was undertaken to investigate the possibility of exploration by means of hypnosis of the psychic development of a patient recently recovered from an acute psychotic episode of a schizophrenic reaction type. The method employed consisted of an attempt to have him relive his past life as completely as possible in a special state of hypnosis. <h3>METHOD</h3> The experimental procedure consisted of training the patient to enter profound somnambulistic hypnotic trances, during which, by means of a series of hypnotic suggestions, he was disoriented completely and then reoriented to an earlier period of his life. When thus reoriented, by the employment of carefully worded systematic suggestions and questions, he was induced to relive past events in a chronologically progressive fashion, describing them in detail to the experimenter as if they were in the course of actual development in the immediate