International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

TRAINING IN HYPNOSIS 25
and risk-taking, I will often turn them loose, observe the multiple groups simultaneously,
and save my discussion for the end. It gives the workshop members more
actual practice that way. In any event, the most common complaint given in postworkshop
evaluations is that not enough practice time is provided and every effort
must be made to accommodate this important need for actual hands-on training.
The third and fourth sessions are devoted to discussing the evaluation and
assessment of patients for hypnosis with special emphasis on ego function pro®les.
Hypnosis is very useful in ego strengthening before subsequent treatment of the
presenting symptoms. Assessing ego strengths and de®cits in addition to diagnostic
considerations creates many additional opportunities for therapeutic interventions.
The old caveat that symptom substitution will occur unless the underlying con¯ict
is uncovered and understood is not always true Bloom, 1994a). Therapists
recognizing which patients can improve without such insight can offer effective
short-term therapy for many seemingly complex problems. Ego function analysis
with selected focused therapy to repair ego de®cits has been a long-documented
and described procedure Bellak, Hurvich & Gediman, 1973), and is especially
applicable to hypnotic interventions Haley, 1973).
Additional topics include rapid induction techniques, imagery utilization, ideomotor
signaling and other communication techniques, age regression and affect
bridging, abreaction management, and post-hypnotic suggestions. Despite the
current controversy regarding the narrative versus historical truth Spence, 1982) of
recovered memories, age regression can augment psychotherapy for current
problems. The use of common feeling states such as pleasure, anger, depression, or
joy can facilitate age regression by forming an `affect bridge'to times past
Watkins, 1971). In working with post-traumatic stress disorders, dissociative
disorders, or in simple cases of lost objects, `going back'in time may reveal
feelings or even facts that may help the therapeutic process move forward. In
teaching these techniques, it is useful to remind the clinicians that common sense
and the tenets of their graduate training are even more crucial in assessing the
recovered material. Too often practitioners of hypnosis unwisely accept as literally
true uncorroborated claims of perinatal, prenatal, and past lives'memories on the
one hand, while recognizing there has been nothing in their masters'level or
doctoral training that would support such claims. The problems of accepting
recovered memories of early childhood sexual abuse are of universal concern.
While such abuse certainly does occur, hypnosis lends a credibility to these
memories that may be due more to an artifact of the hypnosis than an indication the
abuse occurred. Guidelines exist, however, to aid the clinician in using hypnosis in
uncovering memories of sexual abuse Bloom, 1994b). In the ®nal analysis, it is the
clinician's own judgment with a particular case on how to proceed. The participants
in an introductory workshop will have a widely divergent experience and opinion
on how to proceed in these cases. These differences must be respected if the
controversial issues have been fully presented by the workshop leader.
Supervised small group practices occur for at least one hour each week. It is