International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

166 INTERNATIONAL HANDBOOK OF CLINICAL HYPNOSIS
neurological examinations had revealed no abnormalities. Thorough investigation
did reveal, however, that there had been many physical complaints in the past
which conformed to the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria for somatization disorder.
At the ®fth session it was suggested to the patient that the object she was
holdingÐa big plastic foam eggÐwas growing alternately bigger and smaller, so
that the hand opened and closed a little. After an hour and a half, her ®ngertips
were pink and the hand was relaxed and able to open. The patient was then told to
come out of the trance with her arm still in a relaxed state. She did so and the
symptoms had disappeared.
The session ended with a discussion of the possibility that the hand might close
up again. The patient was told that if that happened, she must above all remain
calm and that she would have to learn, through hypnosis, to gain control over the
condition.
At the sixth session it was possible to evoke the condition and then make it go
away again. The patient was then taught how to do this. She was asked ®rst of all,
while in a deep trance, to close her right hand and then to open it slowly, so as to
teach her left hand to open. This suggestion appeared to work well. The depth of
trance was then lessened during the exercises. Finally she managed to open the
hand using the procedure outlined here and without formal hypnosis.
On follow-up a year later, the cramping was still causing her some problems, but
she was managing to open the ®st without help. At that time she was complaining
of a burning sensation in the eye. She was seen by an ophthalmologist, who could
not ®nd a somatic cause for her complaint Hoogduin, Akkermans, Oudshoorn &
Reinders, 1993).
Reversed Hand Levitation in a Case of Pseudo-ataxia
Mrs C is a 40-year-old hairdresser who had been suffering from ataxia for about 7
years. She could not carry out coordinated, goal-directed movements of her hands.
When she tried to bring her hands together, for example, they missed each other by
several centimeters. Sometimes the action was so uncontrolled that she hit her
hands against a wall or cupboard. She could barely eat or drink without help. She
only managed to do the former by holding her face very close to the plate.
A second major complaint was a coordination disorder of the torso muscles.
When Mrs C tried to stand up, for example, her torso swayed in all directions and
she could not walk unaided. She managed to move about with the help of a
walking-stick, but still with a swaying motion. This did not, however, cause her to
fall. The complaints had come on suddenly. Some 7 years previously she had had to
have an operation. She had been frightened by the idea of anaesthetization because
a friend had previously spent a long time in a coma after having been anaesthetized.
On the morning of the operation Mrs C had woken up completely paralysed and the
operation had had to be cancelled. Muscle power had returned after a few days, but
the patient had been left with the ataxic complaints, which had remained unex-