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Chapter 28: Psychotherapies
Indications
A patient’s degree of hypnotizability and the technique of hypno-
sis are clinically useful in diagnosis and in treatment, respectively.
The existence of spontaneous, trance-like states in everyday
life and the potential of individuals to uncritically accept emo-
tions and information in these states make a person’s degree
of hypnotizability a factor in the way the world is viewed and
processed. A relation is seen between various conditions and
hypnotizability. For example, patients with paranoid personality
disorder are low and patients who are histrionic are higher on
the hypnotizability spectrum. Patients with dissociative identity
disorder are highly hypnotizable. Patients with eating disorders
are difficult to hypnotize.
Figure 28.9-1
Administration of the Hypnotic Induction Profile can be a routine
part of the initial visit and evaluation. The test begins with the eye-
roll sign, a presumptive measure of biological ability to experience
dissociation. In the test procedure for eye-roll sign measurement,
the patient is told “Hold your head looking straight forward; while
holding your head in that position, look upward, toward your
eyebrows—now toward the top of your head [up-gaze]. While con-
tinuing to look upward, close your eyelids slowly [roll].” The up-
gaze and roll are scored on a 0 to 4 scale by observing the amount
of sclera visible between the lower eyelid and the lower edge of the
cornea. If an internal squint occurs, the degree is scored on a 1 to
3 scale. The squint score is added to the roll score. This procedure
takes about 5 seconds. The eye-roll is a part of the hypnotic induc-
tion, which is also scored as an initial indicator of the potential for
hypnotic experience. (Courtesy of Herbert Spiegel, M.D., Marcia
Greenleaf, Ph.D., and Davig Spiegel, M.D.)
If you have followed my suggestions, right at this very moment,
when I lift your hand and let it drop into your lap, it will drop like a
wet cloth, heavy and limp. That’s very, very good.
You now have good physical relaxation, but medical relaxation
consists of two phases: physical, which you now have, and mental,
which I will now show you how to achieve.
When I ask you to and not before, I want you to start count-
ing backward from 100. I know you can count; that is not what
we’re after. I just want you to relax mentally. As you say each num-
ber, pause momentarily until you feel a wave of relaxation cover
your whole body, from the top of your head to the tip of your toes.
When you feel this wave of relaxation, then say the next number,
and each time you say a number, you will double the relaxation you
had before you said the number. If you do this properly, an inter-
esting thing will happen—as you say the numbers and relax, the
succeeding numbers will start to disappear and vanish from your
mind. Command your mind to dispel these numbers. Now, aloud
and slowly, start counting backward from 100.
Patient:
One hundred.
Doctor:
Very good.
Patient:
Ninety-nine.
Doctor:
Make them start to disappear now.
Patient:
Ninety-eight.
Doctor:
Now they’re fading away, and after the next number
they’ll all be gone. Make them disappear. Let the numbers go.
Patient
: Ninety-seven.
Doctor:
And now they’re all gone. Are they gone? Fine. If there
are any numbers still lurking in your mind, when I lift your hand and
drop it, they will all disappear. (Courtesy of William Holt, M.D.)
A 32-year-old man presented to the emergency department
with a severe headache. He was a chronic migraine sufferer and
had been unable to control the pain on this occasion with his pro-
pranolol (Inderal). The emergency department recognized that he
had high hypnotic capacity. The imagery of an icepack being placed
on his forehead was suggested. Initially some real ice was placed
on his forehead to help. The patient was able to control his pain
completely with this imagery. He did not require narcotics, as he
had on previous visits. On follow-up several weeks later the patient
reported being able to use this strategy to control, as well as prevent,
migraine attacks, and he no longer had to rely on frequent emer-
gency department visits for pain relief. (Courtesy of A. D. Axelrad,
M.D., D. Brown, Ph.D., and H. J. Wain, Ph.D.)
A 22-year-old male patient was brought to the emergency room
with bilateral blindness. Following an evaluation by ophthalmology,
it was determined that the blindness was psychogenic. After initial
evaluation by psychiatry, a therapeutic alliance was developed, and
hypnosis was used to take the patient to a safe place and then back
to the time immediately prior to the blindness. After two sessions the
patient was able to describe seeing his wife in an adulterous rela-
tionship. At that moment the patient vocalized a desire to harm his
wife and her suitor. Immediately after this vocalization, he became
amnesic for the event and blind. On describing this under hypnosis,
he was given a suggestion that when he became alert “He would only
remember what he felt comfortable remembering.”Subsequent to the
patient becoming alert, he had no idea what had occurred, and each
day after the hypnotic intervention was initiated the patient’s anger
was reframed. When the patient felt comfortable he then confronted
his wife. The patient became aware that the amnesia was being used
to prevent him from acting out. Use of a psychodynamic, cogni-
tive reframing approach with a hypnotic milieu helped this patient to
gain control and understanding of his symptoms. The patient and his
wife were then referred for marital counseling. (Courtesy of A. D.
Axelrad, M.D., D. Brown, Ph.D., and H. J. Wain, Ph.D.)
