International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

HYPNOSIS, DISSOCIATION AND TRAUMA 155
from the hypnosis as they care to, and feel they are in charge of the self-hypnosis
experience. They should learn to use it on their own as a self-hypnosis exercise as
well as with the therapist. Such procedures help patients to deal with traumatic
memories with a greater sense of control and mastery.
Congruence. The goal is to help patients integrate dissociated or repressed
traumatic material into conscious awareness in such a way that they can tolerate
experiencing the memories as part of themselves. In this way the traumatic past is
not incompatible with their present experience. Patients should emerge from
therapy having reviewed not only what was done to them but what they did to
protect themselves, not only what they lost but what they had valued and why.
CONCLUSION
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a challenge in many ways. It challenges patients'
defenses, interferes with working through of traumatic experiences, and impairs
function. It poses special problems for families as well as therapists who treat it.
Working with survivors of trauma forces therapists to confront their own vulnerabilities
as well. Maintaining an empathic connection with such patients is crucial
to the treatment of people who feel ashamed and degraded, and yet it stimulates
dif®cult emotions in those who do this work. When the traumatic stressor is a
collective one, as in the Oklahoma City bombing, symptoms of intrusion, avoidance,
and hyperarousal may affect the community as a whole. At the same time,
community action and support can help to heal the wounds in¯icted by the
violence. People gathered and left mementos by the hundreds on the fence
surrounding the damaged building: ¯owers, poems, stuffed teddy bears. One group
showed photographs of the blasted shell of the building with cloudy `®gures' which
they claimed represented the spirits of those who had died watching after injured
children in the rubble. There is a strong human need to make some kind of sense
out of tragedy. While some trauma de®es meaning, psychotherapeutic techniques,
including the use of hypnosis, can help in ®nding meaning and managing emotion
in the aftermath of traumatic stress.
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APA 1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. DC:
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Bower, G. H. 1981). Mood and memory. Am. Psychologist, 362), 129±148.
Bowners, I. T., O'Gorman, E. C. et al. 1991). Assault characteristics and post-traumatic
stress disorder in rape victims. Acta Psychiat. Scand., 83, 27±30.
Bremner, J. D., Southwick, S. et al. 1992). Dissociation and post-traumatic stress disorder in
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