International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

PERSONALITY AND PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS 173
beginning therapy relationship with the patient. Beginning with traditional psychoanalytic
techniques, Wolberg decided to experiment with hypnosis when the patient
experienced dif®culty with traditional free association. Initial attempts at hypnosis
were unsuccessful. However, eventually dream interpretation allowed the patient to
utilize hypnosis and ultimately to conclude a positive hypnoanalytic treatment.
Johan R. was eventually discharged with no outward trace of mental disorder. A
post-treatment Rorschach test revealed no evidence of anxiety and no neurotic or
psychotic tendencies. A follow-up by Wolberg 16 years later indicated that Johan
was continuing to live a productive, independent life.
Following Wolberg's landmark book, the work of Margaretta Bowers provided
another major advance in our understanding of the clinical potential of hypnosis with
psychotic patients. Bowers Bowers, Berkowitz & Brecher, 1954) expanded the
concept of the use of hypnosis for the severely disturbed patient from the unique
individual case to the general class of severe mental illness. In 1954, Bowers reported
on positive hypnotherapy work she had done with a series of 10 psychotic and other
severely disordered patients. In later publications, she summarized hypnotic work
with a series of 30 chronic, ambulatory schizophrenics and addressed the issues of
the use of hypnosis with schizophrenic patients as a general group Bowers,
Berkowitz & Brecher, 1954; Bowers, 1961; Bowers, Brecher-Marer & Polatin, 1961;
Bowers, 1964). Bowers also reported on her early use of hypnosis with positive
clinical results with Multiple Personality Disorders Bowers & Brecher, 1955;
Bowers, Brecher-Marer et al., 1971). Bowers concluded that psychosis was a defense
and that it was the task of the therapist to assist the healthy self to regain its lost
dominance over the defensive facade presented by the psychotic patient. Bowers felt
that hypnosis was a powerful tool to assist the therapist in this task of connecting
with and reestablishing the dominance of the `healthy self'.
Following the pivotal and pioneering work of Wolberg and of Bowers in the mid-
1900s, a continual ¯ow of clinical work utilizing hypnosis with severely disturbed
patients was reported in the literature. Schmidhofer 1952) reported symptom relief
in groups of psychotic war veterans through relaxation and suggestion. Danis
1961) reported that some of his schizophrenic patients were able to utilize
hypnosis to help them to sustain and continue their ongoing therapy work.
Stauffacher 1958) described the successful treatment with hypnosis of a paranoid
schizophrenic male patient. Hypnosis was utilized to help the patient uncover
repressed material. The patient was able to utilize the insight from these recovered
memories and to achieve a complete remission of his illness.
Then in 1959, Gill and Brenman reported that while most schizophrenics in their
studies were apparently not amenable to hypnosis, nevertheless some schizophrenics
were paradoxically highly responsive to hypnosis. Gill and Brenman reported
speci®cally on successful hypnotic therapy intervention with a `severely disturbed
schizophrenic girl, regarded by most of the staff as hopelessly psychotic'. The
positive response and clinical improvement in this severely disturbed psychotic
patient, as reported by Gill and Brenman, was unmistakable and impressive.