Whitehouse, Wayne G.; Dinges, David F.; Orne, Emily C.; Orne, Martin T. (1988). Hypnotic hypermnesia: Enhanced memory accessibility or report bias?. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 289-295.
Laboratory studies of hypnotic hypermnesia have yielded inconsistent evidence of memory enhancement, and the process responsible for the occasional positive findings have eluded identification. The present experiment assessed delay recall for filmed material under conditions in which subjects were required to answer all questions, by guessing if necessary. They also rated confidence in the accuracy of each response. After an initial wake-baseline forced-recall test, subjects were randomly assigned to hypnosis or waking conditions for a second forced-recall test. Both groups of subjects recalled additional correct details on the second test, but the magnitude of this hypermnesia was no greater for subjects exposed to the hypnosis treatment. Hypnotized subjects did, however, exhibit a significantly greater increase in confidence for responses designated as “guesses” on the prior waking test–a finding consistent with the view that hypnosis engenders a shift in the subjective criterion for what constitutes a “memory”. Implications of these findings for the use of hypnosis in forensic situations are discussed.
1987
Geiselman, R. Edward; Machlovitz, Helen (1987). Hypnosis memory recall: Implications for forensic use. American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1, 37-47.
The Council finds that recollections obtained during hypnosis can involve confabulations and pseudomemories and not only fail to be more accurate, but actually appear to be less reliable than nonhypnotic recall. The use of hypnosis with witnesses and victims may have serious consequences for the legal process when testimony is based on material that is elicited from a witness who has been hypnotized for the purposes of refreshing recollection. NOTES 1:
NOTES: The Council finds that recollections obtained during hypnosis can involve confabulations and pseudomemories and not only fail to be more accurate, but actually appear to be less reliable than nonhypnotic recall. The use of hypnosis with witnesses and victims may have serious consequences for the legal process when testimony is based on material that is elicited from a witness who has been hypnotized for the purposes of refreshing recollection.
APA Council of Representatives (1986, December). Resolution on hypnosis. Newsletter of Division 30, Psychological Hypnosis, of the American Psychological Association, 1.
NOTES 1:
The Council of Representatives adopted a motion that opposes the teaching of hypnosis to persons who are not fully trained in a health delivery profession. The motion presented by Dr. Gene Levitt, Division 30 representative to Council of Representatives, was passed by voice vote on August 24, 1986. It read as follows:
“Be it resolved that the American Psychological Association, in the interest of the public, opposes applications of hypnosis by persons who are not fully trained members or advanced students of a health delivery profession and who lack specific, in-depth training in hypnosis. Therefore, be it also resolved that APA opposes the teaching of hypnotic induction techniques or applications of hypnosis that involve treatment or assessment with patients or clients to persons who are not fully trained members or advanced students of a health delivery profession. Be it resolved further that upon passage of this resolution, its text shall be conveyed to the APA Ethics Committee to consider its incorporation in the APA Code of Ethics. We note that the resolution is consistent with the preamble of Principle 1 of the code as well as the Standards for Providers of Psychological Services (Principles and Implications of Standards, 3)”
Dr. Levitt proposed that the motion be named the “Erik L. Wright Memorial Resolution” in honor of the Division 30 Council representative who introduced the first version of it in 1980.
1986
Laurence, Jean-Roch; Nadon, Robert; Nogrady, Heather; Perry, Campbell (1986). Duality, dissociation, and memory creation in highly hypnotizability subjects. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 34, 295-310.
The present paper reports an initial attempt to create a pseudomemory in a group of highly hypnotizable individuals. It was found that for approximately 50% of Ss tested, recall of a specific event was modified when Ss integrated hypnotically suggested material which then posthypnotically was believed to be veridical. This modification in a previously reported memory was linked to a particular cognitive style found in high hypnotizable Ss, namely dual cognitive functioning. Ss reporting duality in hypnotic age regression, and, to a lesser extent, the hidden observer effect, were found to be the most prone to accept a suggested memory as real. These findings suggest the need to emphasize the importance of a cognitive-phenomenological approach to hypnosis and hypnotizability.
Schacter, Daniel L. (1986). Amnesia and crime: How much do we really know?. American Psychologist, 41, 286-295.
Claims of amnesia occur frequently after the commission of violent crimes and can have a significant bearing on the outcome of criminal trials. This article considers the relation between amnesia and crime within the broader context of research on memory and amnesia and provides a critical evaluation of current knowledge concerning the issue. Particular attention is paid to the problem of distinguishing between genuine and simulated claims of amnesia. It is suggested that reliable data concerning the nature of amnesic episodes that occur after the commission of a crime are sparse, and that there is as yet little evidence that genuine and simulated amnesia can be distinguished in criminal cases. The results of several laboratory studies are summarized that indicate that feeling-of- knowing ratings distinguished between genuine and simulated amnesia under conditions in which psychologists and psychiatrists did not.
Sheehan, Peter W.; Tilden, Jan (1986). The consistency of occurrences of memory distortion following hypnotic induction. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 34, 122-137.
The present study examined a range of circumstances for their effects on the vulnerability of hypnotic Ss to memory distortion. 26 high and 26 low hypnotizable Ss were tested individually in a design in which Ss received information that was either misleading or not misleading about a series of events depicting an apparent robbery. The information was presented prior to Ss being given hypnotic instructions, and low hypnotizability Ss were especially motivated for positive response in the session. Memory for the robbery was studied across a range of measures that included forced choice recognition, free recall, and response to leading questions. Results demonstrated predictably variable effects. The 2 groups performed appreciably differently in free recall, for example, while in recognition testing, data indicated that high and low hypnotizable Ss both incorporated misleading information into their memories to the same degree. Some implications of the data for the forensic context are discussed. NOTES 1:
NOTES: 56 Ss were prescreened with Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A, defining highs = 9-12, lows = 0-3. Used Loftus materials for testing memory (wallet snatching sequence, on a series of slides). Errors were classified as errors of fact, of inference, or conjectures. Highs had more intrusions that were errors of fact than lows did (p<.05), confirming the earlier results published by Sheehan & Tilden, 1984. There was no significant association between hypnotizability level and intrusion of central detail (description of robber and victim), but 57% of highs and only 18% of lows intruded peripheral objects incorrectly into their own narrative reports (i.e. descriptions given of the surroundings), p<.01.
There were trends for high hypnotizable Ss to recall more objects correctly than low hypnotizable Ss during narrative reporting (p<.06) and to recall more central objects (p<.06), but not more peripheral objects. There may have been a loosening of criteria for memory among high hypnotizables, because they appeared to produce both greater accuracy and inaccuracy in recall of certain types of detail.
During the recognition testing, high hypnotizables exhibited significantly greater confidence in their responses than low hypnotizable Ss, but there was no group difference for accuracy. "Results for both tests of integration then (recognition and free recall) confirmed the prediction that hypnotic Ss incorporate false information into their memory, and the effect did not differentiate high from low hypnotizable Ss" (p. 131).
When a leading question implied that traffic lights were present in the scene, 34% responded in some way to that suggestion, and 20% said that they could see the lights in their minds eye; but 14% said that "although they could not see the lights, they nevertheless remembered they were there" (p. 132). Response to the leading question did not differ between high and low hypnotizable Ss.
In their discussion, the authors note that hypnosis did not enhance memory in this study. "Results overall suggest that hypnotic induction lowers the correspondence between confidence and accuracy. In the present study, hypnotic Ss were confident about their recall when the degree of accuracy of their reports suggested they should have been quite uncertain. Hypnotic instruction itself would appear, then, to establish conditions that spuriously facilitate a high degree of confidence in the reports that Ss produce.
"A major point to be made about the present study is that both general distortion and confidence effects observed here cannot necessarily be attributed to hypnosis. There was no independent comparison condition, for example, to contrast results for hypnotic Ss with results for Ss receiving no induction procedures. Effects, then, could be attributed to the hypnotic context as much as to the effects of induction per se, and context rather than state may be responsible for the vulnerability of hypnotic Ss that has been observed. The influence of context is seen at least in the clear evidence for an interaction between situational factors and hypnotizability. In free recall, hypnotizable Ss were more prone to distortions than unhypnotizable Ss, while in recognition, hypnotizable and unhypnotizable Ss were equally prone. Mode of testing is, therefore, a major contextual variable that is related to the nature of the distortion and confidence effects that can be observed. Present data further indicate that the hypnotic context is associated with memory distortion even in Ss who have little capacity for being hypnotized, but who are instructed to believe that they can, in fact, experience much of what is being suggested" (pp. 133-134).
Forensic implications need to be tempered because of difference between laboratory and real life, but practitioners nevertheless should be cautious. "While it is not true that hypnotized persons, by virtue of their hypnotizability level, will always distort their reports more obviously than nonhypnotic Ss, so as to bring their recollections into line with what is implied or suspected, parameters do exist that clearly increase the risks of distortion that can occur after hypnotic instruction. This is evidenced, for example, by the distinctive distortion effects that have been demonstrated for high hypnotizable Ss when they are given induction instructions and later requested to tell their story in their own way. Overall, the present data imply that the law needs to closely evaluate the impact of the different settings in which hypnosis takes place and the different ways in which misleading information can be communicated to persons who are later asked to testify. The potential risks of hypnosis--as well as its utility--will depend critically on how that information has been conveyed, and the way in which Ss' memories are tested" (pp. 134- 135).
1985
Bliss, Eugene L.; Larson, Esther M. (1985). Sexual criminality and hypnotizability. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 173, 522-526.
Investigated 33 17-35 yr old sexual offenders, 18 of whom had been convicted of rape, 9 of pedophilia, and 6 of incest. Ss completed a questionnaire containing a list of 15 factors that might have contributed to their crime, a self-report containing 305 items that are symptoms characteristic of 11 major psychiatric syndromes, and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale. Controls for the self-report were 48 individuals taken from a church group, nurses, technicians, and graduate students. Controls for the hypnotizability scale were cigarette smokers who smoked 1 1/2 pack/day and S data taken from the literature. Results show that two-thirds of the Ss had histories of spontaneous self-hypnotic experiences (dissociations); 7 of these were DSM-III multiples and 6 were probable multiples. This group had very high hypnotizability scores. The other one-third without histories of spontaneous self-hypnosis had normal scores. It is concluded that spontaneous self-hypnosis contributed to the perpetration of the crimes in many of tehse cases, although other factors also directed the antisocial behaviors. (22 ref).
Coe, William C.; Yashinski, Edward (1985). Volitional experiences associated with breaching posthypnotic amnesia. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48 (3), 716-722.
Highly responsive hypnotic subjects classified as having control over remembering (voluntaries) or not having control over remembering (involuntaries) during posthypnotic amnesia were compared during posthypnotic recall. Subjects rerated their voluntariness after the experiment. Two contextual conditions were employed (2 x 2 design): a lie detector condition meant to create pressure to breach amnesia and a relax control condition. In contrast to earlier findings, the recall data showed that both voluntary and involuntary subjects breached under the lie detector condition compared with their counterparts in the relax condition; however, the degree of breaching was not great in any condition. The results are discussed as they relate to studies attempting to breach posthypnotic amnesia and characteristics of the voluntary-involuntary dimension.
Geiselman, R. Edward; Fisher, Ronald P.; MacKinnon, David P.; Holland, Heidi L. (1985). Eyewitness memory enhancement in the police interview: Cognitive retrieval mnemonics versus hypnosis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 401-412.
Compared effectiveness of three interview procedures for optimizing eyewitness memory performance: (a) the 'cognitive interview" based on memory-retrieval mnemonics from current memory theory, (b) the presently controversial hypnosis interview, and (c) the standard (control) police interview. Both the cognitive and hypnosis procedures elicited a significantly greater number of correct items of information from the Ss than did the standard interview. This result, which held even for the most critical facts from the films, was most pronounced for crime scenarios in which the density of events was high. The number of incorrect items of information generated did not differ across the three interview conditions. The observed memory enhancement was interpreted in terms of the memory-guidance techniques common to both the cognitive and hypnosis interviews. Neither differential questioning, time nor heightened subject or interviewer motivation could explain the results.
Orne, Martin T. (1985). The use and misuse of hypnosis in court. In Rosner, Richard (Ed.), Critical issues in American psychiatry and the law (2, ). New York: Plenum Press. (Reprinted from Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research, vol. 3, edited by Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, 1981, The University of Chicago Press.)
NOTES 1:
An earlier version of this essay appeared in the Monograph Issue of the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis on the forensic uses of hypnosis, 27 (4) (1979): 311-41.
Spanos, Nicholas P.; Weekes, John R.; Bertrand, Lorne D. (1985). Multiple personality: A social psychological perspective. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 94, 362-376.
The part of an accused murderer remanded for pretrial psychiatric evaluation was role played by 48 college students. Role players were assigned to interview treatments that varied in how extensively they cued for symptoms of multiple personality. The most explicit treatment (i.e., Bianchi treatment, n = 16) included a hypnotic interview that was used in diagnosing a suspect in the "Hillside strangler" rape- murder cases as suffering from multiple personality. A less explicit hypnotic treatment (n = 16) and a nonhypnotic treatment (n = 16) were administered to the remaining role players. Most subjects in the Bianchi treatment displayed the major signs of multiple personality (e.g., adoption of a different name, spontaneous posthypnotic amnesia). In a later session subjects who role played as multiple personalities performed very differently on psychological tests administered separately to each role-played identity. Those who failed to enact the multiple personality role performed similarly when tested twice. Findings are discussed in terms of a social psychological formulation that emphasizes the roles of active cognizing, contextual cueing, and social legitimization in the genesis of multiple personality.
1984
Allison, R. B. (1984). Difficulties diagnosing the multiple personality syndrome in a death penalty case. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 32 (2), 102-117.
The problems involved in diagnosing the multiple personality syndrome in a rape-murder suspect are illustrated by the case of Kenneth Bianchi and the Hillside Stranglings. Hypnotic investigations of his amnesia revealed "Steve," who admitted guilt for the rape-murders. "Billy" later emerged, claiming responsibility for thefts and forgeries. Attempts to evaluate Kenneth Bianchi with methods used in therapy yielded an original opinion that he was a multiple personality and legally insane. Later events showed the diagnosis to be in error. A new diagnosis was made of atypical dissociative disorder due to the effects of the examining methods themselves. Warning is given that it may be impossible to determine the correct diagnosis of a dissociating defendant in a death penalty case.
Deyoub, P. L. (1984). Hypnotic stimulation of antisocial behavior: A case report. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 32 (3), 301-306.
A case study is presented in which a 30-year-old man robbed a bank after being told by a lay hypnotist that he could rob a bank if he wanted. The case is discussed in light of some of the literature on coercion and dangers in hypnosis.
Orne, Martin T.; Soskis, David A.; Dinges, David F.; Orne, Emily Carota (1984). Hypnotically induced testimony. In Wells, G. L.; Loftus, E. F. (Ed.), Eyewitness testimony: Psychological perspectives (pp. 171-213). New York: Cambridge University Press.
NOTES 1:
This is a modified version of a policy brief prepared for the National Institute of Justice. The Conclusions read:
"The use of guidelines is designed to permit the subsequent evaluation of a hypnosis session by independent experts, in order to determine whether undue suggestiveness was present. Nonetheless, even when hypnosis has been used appropriately in a forensic situation and when the session has been monitored and conducted in a manner that is likely to minimize undetected biasing, inadvertent distortions of memory may still occur. Although the recommended guidelines for conducting the hypnosis session help determine what was done during the session, they do not prevent (nor is there any reliable way to prevent) subjects from confounding distorted hypnotic memories with prior and subsequent nonhypnotic recall or from placing undue confidence in these distorted recollections. Thus, the use of the results of hypnosis applied in forensic situations, as well as the use of the procedure itself, demands extreme caution.
"'Hypnotically refreshed' memories cannot be used to 'verify' facts for which no adequate evidence exists, especially when subsequent investigation has failed to produce any substantial independent corroboration and the individual did not recall the fact or was not confident of it prior to hypnosis. As long as the detail recalled is verified by independent physical evidence, the utility of hypnosis can be considerable and the risk attached to the procedure - if properly conducted - minimal. There is no way, however, by which anyone (including an expert with extensive experience in hypnosis) can for any particular piece of information obtained in hypnosis determine whether it is an actual memory or a confabulation. For these reasons, hypnotically induced testimony is not reliable and ought not be permitted to form the basis of testimony in court" (pp. 210-211).
1983
Loftus, Elizabeth (1983). Whose shadow is crooked?. American Psychologist, ?, 550-563.
NOTES
This is a reply to the McCloskey & Egeth reply to Loftus.
1983
Smith, Marilyn C. (1983). Hypnotic memory enhancement of witnesses: Does it work?. Psychological Bulletin, 94 (3), 387-407.
Hypnosis is currently being used extensively by the police and other investigative agencies to "refresh" the memory of witnesses to a crime. The present author reviews the literature and discusses the issue of whether hypnosis can in fact enhance memory. In contrast to the myriad of anecdotal reports extolling the virtues of hypnosis for this purpose, controlled laboratory studies have consistently failed to demonstrate any hypnotic memory improvement. Although the relevancy of these laboratory studies may be questioned because they used verbal, frequently nonmeaningful stimuli in a low arousal environment, several recent studies that have used more forensically relevant, arousal-provoking stimuli persist in showing no hypnosis advantage. Since there is no clear documentation that hypnosis can improve memory, and since the courts have become increasingly reluctant to accept the testimony of witnesses who have undergone hypnosis because of the problem of suggestibility, several nonhypnotic procedures of memory enhancement are considered.
1982
Schuyler, Bradley A. (1982). Further investigation of volitional and nonvolitional experience during posthypnotic amnesia (Dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Fresno). Dissertation Abstracts International, 44 (n6-B), 1977. (Order No. DA 8324472)
"Electrodermal responses were compared between highly responsive hypnotic Ss who were classified as having control over remembering (voluntaries) or not having control over remembering (involuntaries) during posthypnotic amnesia. Three contextual conditions were employed: Two were meant to create pressure to breach posthypnotic amnesia (lie detector instructions alone or with feedback that Ss had been detected as not having told all they could remember); the other provided feedback, in addition to the lie detector instructions, that Ss had told all they could remember. The recall data confirmed earlier findings of Coe and Yashinski and showed that voluntary and involuntary Ss did not differ in response to the contextual conditions. However, lie detector instructions alone did not create pressure to breach as in previous studies. In addition, electrodermal results were insignificant. The results are discussed as they relate to (a) amnesia, (b) the physiological detection of deception and physiological activation, (c) the voluntary/involuntary classification of Ss, and (d) theories of hypnosis" (p. 1977).
1980
Crasilneck, Harold B. (1980). The case of Dora. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 23, 95-97.
NOTES 1:
This is the introduction to a film about a woman who was indicted for murder in the alleged fatal shooting of her husband. The woman was amnesic, had been drinking alcohol before the shooting. The author also provides a verbatim account of what the patient said following suggestions that "you are going to remember every detail." On the basis of the woman's hypnotically refreshed recall, the charge was changed from first degree murder to self-defense.
Erickson, Milton H. (1980). Hypnotic investigation of psychodynamic processes. (3 ). New York: Irvington Publishers, Inc..
NOTES 1:
NOTES: This third volume of four has 2 sections (7 subsections) with chapters as follows. I. General and Historical Surveys of Hypnotism
1. A brief survey of hypnotism
2. Hypnosis: A general review
3. Hypnotism
4. The basis of hypnosis: Panel discussion on hypnosis II. Psychodynamic Processes: Hypnotic Approaches to the Unconscious Section 1: Amnesia
5. The investigation of a specific amnesia
6. Development of apparent unconsciousness during hypnotic reliving of a traumatic experience
7. Clinical and experimental observations on hypnotic amnesia: Introduciton to an unpublished paper
8. The problem of amnesia in waking and hypnotic states
9. Varieties of hypnotic amnesia Section 2: Literalness
10. Literalness: An experimental study
11. Literalness and the use of trance in neurosis Section 3: Age Regression
12. Age regression: Two unpublished fragments of a student's study
13. Past weekday determination in hypnotic and waking states
14. On the possible occurrence of a dream in an eight-month-old infant
15. The successful treatment of a case of acute hysterical depression by a return under hypnosis to a critical phase of childhood Section 4: Automatic Writing and Drawing
16. The experimental demonstration of unconscious mentation by automatic writing
17. The use of automatic drawing in the interpretation and relief of a state of acute obsessional depression
18. The translation of the cryptic automatic writing of one hypnotic subject by another in a trancelike dissociated state Section 5: Mental Mechanisms
19. Experimental demonstrations of the psychopathology of everyday life
20. Demonstration of mental mechanisms by hypnosis
21. Unconscious mental activity in hypnosis--psychoanalytic implications
22. Negation or reversal of legal testimony Section 6: Dual Personality
23. The permanent relief of an obsessional phobia by means of communication with an unsuspected dual personality
24. The clinical discovery of a dual personality
25. Findings on the nature of the personality structures in two different dual personalities by means of projective and psychometric tests Section 7: Experimental Neuroses
26. A clinical note on a word-association test
27. A study of hypnotically induced complexes by means of the luria technique
28. A study of an experimental neurosis hypnotically induced in a case of ejaculatio praecox
29. The method employed to formulate a complex story for the induction of an experimental neurosis in hypnotic subject
Reiser, Martin; Nielson, Michael (1980). Investigative hypnosis: A developing specialty. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 23, 75-84.
NOTES 1:
Author describes his involvement with the Los Angeles Police Department, using hypnosis for "enhancing the recall of key witnesses whose memories of the crime were poor" (p. 75). In 1975, the author and other experts in hypnosis trained 11 lieutenants and 2 captains to use hypnosis. The author describes the training program and a one-year demonstration project, during which volunteer witnesses and victims were interviewed by the hypnotist investigators. "In 77% of cases, important information was elicited that had not been available by routine interrogation. Approximately 16% of cases were solved with the aid of hypnosis" (p. 76). "Follow-up with the involved witnesses and victims has not revealed any instance of ill effects stemming from the hypnosis program, while 39.8% of the hypnosis subjects reported some relief or benefit resulting from the hypnosis session" (p. 77). Jean Holroyd
1979
Ault, R. L. Jr. (1979). FBI guidelines for use of hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 27 (4), 449-451.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation uses hypnosis as a tool for investigative purposes in selected cases where further leads are needed and witnesses or victims are willing to participate in a hypnotic interview. All sessions are tape recorded, preferably by video. A hypnotic interview cannot necessarily provide accurate leads, and therefore careful investigative work is done to verify the accuracy of any information obtained in hypnosis. Psychiatrists, psychologists, or physicians specially trained in hypnotic techniques have been employed to add protection for the witnesses or victims being questioned under hypnosis.
Orne, Martin T. (1979). The use and misuse of hypnosis in court. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 27, 311-341.
The various forensic contexts in which hypnosis has been used are reviewed, emphasizing its advantages and pitfalls. The technique may be helpful in the context of criminal investigation and under circumstances involving functional memory loss. Hypnosis has no utility to assure the truthfulness of statements since, particularly in a forensic context, subjects may simulate hypnosis and are able to willfully lie even in deep hypnosis; most troublesome, actual memories cannot be distinguished from confabulations either by the subject or by the hypnotist without full and independent corroboration. While potentially useful to refresh witnesses' and victims' memories to facilitate eyewitness identification, the procedure is relatively safe and appropriate only when neither the subject, nor the authorities, nor the hypnotist have any preconceptions about who the criminal might be. If such preconceptions do exist -- either based on information acquired before the hypntotic procedure or on information subtly communicated during the hypnotic procedure -- hypnosis may readily cause the subject to confabulate the person who is suspected into his "hypnotically enhanced memories." These pseudomemoreis, originally developed in hypnosis, may come to be accepted by the subject as his actual recall of the original events; they are then remembered with great subjective certainty and reported with conviction. Such circumstances can create convincing, apparently objective "eyewitnesses" rather than facilitating actual recall. A number of minimal safeguards are proposed to reduce the likelihood of such an eventuality and other serious potential abuses of hypnosis.
1978
Schafer, D. W.; Rubio, R. (1978). Hypnosis to aid the recall of witnesses. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 26, 81-91.
14 cases are presented of interrogation under hypnosis of witnesses and victims of crimes. Videotaping is considered essential for use of the court, if necessary. Interrogation of indicted people should be done only as an exception, if at all. The ideal case for hypnosis interrogation is with a witness or a victim where information is obtained which leads to evidence which itself will stand up in court without the need of the hypnosis interrogation to be presented as such. Guidelines for such interrogation are presented.
1954
Dittborn, Julio (1954). Dehypnotization and associated words. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2 (2), 136-138.
NOTES 1:
Author tested Freud's hypotheses about signs of emotional conflict gleaned from a word association test. A highly hypnotizable subject who had been accused of theft was tested with the word association test repeatedly. He had been given the suggestion, while in deep hypnosis, that any word provoking emotional conflict would automatically bring him out of hypnosis. That is, "dehypnotization was used as a new method to investigate the conflict-provoking quality of certain stimulus-words in an association word test" (p. 139). Freud's predictions were only partially supported.
Schneck, Jerome M. (1954). The divided personality: A case study aided by hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2 (3), 220-232.
NOTES 1:
Summary. Amnesia as a symptom assumes proportions more complex than would appear on the surface and the role of memory loss with specific reference to hypnotic recovery methods has been presented in several reports. Hypnotherapy would appear to be a preferred technique for resolving the symptom and at times for more extensive investigation of the underlying problems. The case reported now involved an extensive memory loss for past life, including personal identity. This was followed after nearly a year by recall and concurrent amnesia for the intervening time period. The latter amnesia was dispelled by recall at first under hypnosis and then by post-hypnotic extension and elaboration of the nuclear material. The patient's history was outlined and several facts of apparent importance in relation to the memory loss were revealed. The purposive and motivational features were stressed. Therapy was conducted in a medico-disciplinary setting with limitations based on administrative requirements. Military-legal complications of the patient's personality disorder and functioning were outlined. The concept of the divided personality was introduced and related to multiple personality and to another type of behavior which is quite similar to the divided personality except that periods of amnesia are not involved. The divided personality involves major cleavages in the continuity of living with amnesia and the establishment of the individual in a setting where he undergoes extensive, significant operations relating to work, general activities, and even courtship and marriage. Unlike the generally accepted attributes of multiple personality involving considerable overt behavior, affect, and attitude alterations, the divided personality continues to function with his accustomed overt attitudes, interests, affect, and method of relating on an interpersonal level. Descriptively and overtly he is not too different if at all, but he seems to begin life anew in terms of setting and personal contacts. Cases of this type should be studied further with care, whenever possible, for further elicidation [sic] of psychodynamics. Hypnosis as a tool in treatment and investigation should prove helpful and is to be considered important.
FRANCE
1989
Van der Hart, O.; Friedman, B. (1989). A reader's guide to Pierre Janet on dissociation: A neglected intellectual heritage. Dissociation, 2 (1), 3-16.
A century ago there was a peak of interest in dissociation and dissociative disorders. Janet (1859-1947) was the most important scientific and clinical investigator of this period, whose work is reviewed in this article. The evolution of dissociation theory and its major principles are traced throughout his writings. His introduction of the term 'subconscious' and his concept of the existence of consciousness outside of personal awareness are explained. The validity and reliability of dissociation as the underlying phenomenon in a wide range of disorders is presented. It is proposed that Janet's theory and methodology of psychological analysis and dynamic psychotherapy are cogent and relevant for today.
1985
McConkey, Kevin M.; Perry, Campbell (1985). Benjamin Franklin and mesmerism. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 33 (2), 122-130.
This historiographical note reviews Benjamin Franklin's involvement with the practice and investigation of Mesmerism. A survey of material about Franklin's period in Paris (e.g., Lopez, 1966; Lopez & Herbert, 1975) indicates that he had a higher degree of personal involvement with, and a more detailed opinion of, Mesmerism than has been generally considered.
1980
Weitzenhoffer, Andre M. (1980). What did he (Bernheim) say? A postscript and an addendum. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 28 (3), 252-260.
When Bernheim (1917) made his pronouncement, "There is no hypnotism, there is only suggestibility" at a scientific congress in London in 1892, he shocked the scientific community, which turned against him for what amounted to heresy. Clearly, his colleagues understood him to deny existence to hypnosis as a state. That he only meant to shock them into viewing suggestion as being the primary agent and hypnosis as being one of its products rather than the other way around, as then held, was made fully clear by him in 1917 in one of his last writings. Recognizing there had been a misunderstanding, Bernheim made this very point and explained further that although hypnosis is sleep, it is only so in an incomplete form, one allowing the subject to be responsive and suggestibility to be elicited. From there he went on to develop the thesis that hypnotic behavior is the result of an integration of elicited automatisms (nonvoluntary acts) and conscious voluntary behavior, and not entirely a pure, non-conscious, nonvoluntary automatism. Bernheim also proposed in this later work that suggested behavior results from automatisms rendered possible by the "credivity," that is, the implicit belief of suggestible persons in the reality of whatevr the suggestor states, a belief which is limited to the suggestor. (In contrast, the credulous person believes everyone.) Credivity is a particular outgrowth of the hypnotist-subject relationship. In his final writings, Bernheim thus called attention to the importance of interpersonal factors in hypnotism.
1965
Ellenberger, H. F. (1965). Charcot and the Salpetriere School. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 19, 253-267. (Abstracted in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 1965, 8:2, 148)
Under the influence of Charles Richet, Charcot, in 1878, undertook a scientific study of hypnotism, using as subjects several female hysterical patients out of a hospital population of 5,000. As a result of the French Academy of Sciences' acceptance of his findings in 1882, hypnosis reached the dignity of a scientific modality. Other facets of Charcot's life, including esoteric disappointments and successes, are also mentioned by the author.
1962
Schneck, Jerome M. (1962). William Alanson White on Hippolyte Bernheim - a historical note. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 10, 115-117.
(Author''s Abstract) At the turn of this century, William Alanson White visited Hippolyte Bernheim and his hospital at Nancy. He commented briefly on both in his autobiography. The latter is not widely known, so it seems appropriate and of interest to publish the account in a journal devoted to hypnosis. White achieved a position of stature as a psychiatrist and served as President of the American Psychiatric Association. Bernheim, a prominent psychotherapist of his day, was associated with Liebeault as a leader of the Nancy School in the Paris-Nancy hypnosis controversy. White''s account of Bernheim is reminiscent of the better known description of Liebeault by J. Milne Bramwell in the latter''s classic volume on hypnotism.
1957
Conn, Jacob H. (1957). Historical aspects of scientific hypnosis. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 5 (1), 17-24.
The author relates the history of hypnosis beginning with pre-historic therapeutic suggestion, the trances of Persian Magi and Indian Yogi, and incubation or temple sleep in Egypt and Greece. Touching on practices among Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and the Middle Ages in Europe, he writes in more detail about Mesmer, John Elliotson, James Braid, Ambroise Auguste Liebault, Hyppolyte Marie Bernheim, and Jean Martin Charcot.
Bertrand, A. J. F. (1826). Du magnetisme animal en France et des jugements qu'en ont portes les societes savantes;... (See Notes field for full title). Paris: J. B. Balliere.
NOTES
Entire book title is: Du magnetisme animal en France et des jugements qu'en ont portes les societes savantes; avec le texte des divers rapports faits en 1784 par les commissaires de l'Academie des Sciences, de la Faculte et de la Societe Royale de Medecine, et une analyse de dernieres seances de l'apparition de l'extase, dans les traitements magnetiques. Seconde partie: du somnambulisme artificiel considere comme une variete de l'extase
1785
Mesmer, F. A. (1785/1958). Aphorismes de M. Mesmer [Maxims on animal magnetism]. Paris, France/Mt. Vernon NY: French publisher not given/American publisher Eden Press.