Using abreactive Ego State Therapy (EST), 36 patients meeting DSM-IV-TR and PTSD checklist (PCL) criteria were exposed to either 5-6 hours of manualized treatment or placebo in a single session. EST emphasizes repeated hypnotically activated abreactive "reliving" of the trauma experience combined with therapists' ego strength. Both the placebo and EST treatment groups showed significant reductions in PTSD checklist scores immediately posttreatment (placebo: mean 17.34 points; EST: mean 53.11 points) but only the EST patients maintained significant treatment effect at 4-week and 16- to 18-week follow-ups. Abreactive EST appears to be an effective and durable treatment for PTSD inclusive of combat stress injury and acute stress disorder.
Alternative descriptors of the capacity to experience hypnosis, intended to describe the same phenomenon, appear in the current literature. Published members of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) were surveyed to determine their preferences. The descriptors were empirically derived from recent International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis articles and input from the executive committee of SCEH. Participants also indicated their primary theoretical conceptualization of hypnosis. Hypnotizability was chosen nearly 4 times more frequently than the next most favored choice (susceptibility) as a descriptor of hypnotic talent. Hypnosis as an "identifiable state" was chosen more than 4 times more frequently than the socio-cognitive version. This latter finding suggests that the notion of the continued debatability of hypnosis as primarily a state is now shared by only a few.
The effects of tailored versus scripted hypnotic inductions were tested with the intention of shedding light on age regression phenomena. From an initial pool of 31 volunteers, 10 males and 10 females who scored 3 or better on the Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale, participated in this study. Participants were assigned to either scripted or tailored hypnotic induction conditions for regression to age 5. The age specific developmental task was to indicate for each of 10 abstract figure pairs, which of each pair "was upside down". Both groups showed significant focal point dependency. However, the tailored induction group showed significantly greater focal point dependency characteristic of 5-year-old children, in contrast to the scripted induction group. It appears that tailored hypnotic inductions may provide a better avenue for the ego to regulate its own degree of regression. The better match to personality style takes advantage of the naturally occurring ego-syntonic capacities of the participant, thereby facilitating greater hypnotic responsiveness.
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