Hypnotic age regression and the occurrence of transitional object relationships.

Abstract

Object relations theory and subsequent empirical investigations have established the characteristic ways in which young children, age 2-6 years, utilize transi-tional objects (teddy bear, blanket, etc.). Three of these characteristics, spon-taneity, specificity, and intensity, were used as the primary criteria to investigate the genuineness of hypnotic age regression when subjects were regressed to age 3 and placed in emotional situations typical of those reported clinically. Two groups of subjects (16 highly susceptible, as "reals, " and IS low susceptible, as simulators) behaved differentially on all three measures, with reals behaving in a generally more childlike manner, thus suggesting an effect attributable to the hypnotic condition. Further, the behavior of these subjects was compared to that of 77 children; reals and children were found to be statistically indis-tinguishable on the two criteria on which they were compared, but simulators differed significantly from both groups. This pattern of results, along with real-simulator differences, suggests a more complete reproduction of an earlier affec-tive process as a function of meaningful hypnotic age regression. Hypnotic age regression has served as the experimental substrate for a great deal of research concerning the genuineness of hyp-notic behavior. Evidence for a genuine re-vivification process has accumulated from the numerous clinical reports of extraordinary regressions during hypnotherapy (e.g. As, 1962; Fromm, 1970). Yet empirical investiga-tions have found no measures on which hyp-notically age-regressed behavior reliably trans-cends waking-state volitional capacity. Over the past three decades these inves-tigators have focused almost exclusively on two purported characteristics of hypnotic age We would like to thank Gail Meglitsch and Mark Schuler for their assistance as raters in the Pilot study; Tim Keple and Lynn Eggers who served as