ABSTRACT

In "Lines of Advance in Psycho-Analytic Therapy," Freud (1918/1955) said of hypnosis: "It is very probable, too, that the large-scale application of our therapy will compel us to alloy the pure gold of analysis freely with the copper of direct suggestion; and hypnotic influence, too, might find a place in it again, as it has in the treatment of war neuroses" (pp. 167-168). Compared with psychotherapy and perhaps also with psychoanalysis, hypnosis-at least permissive hypnosis, though not necessarily directive hypnosis-may be more "gold" than Freud was able to realize. In many cases it takes significantly less time to reach the same goals in hypnoanalysis than it would take in psychoanalysis. Hypnosis increases the efficacy of treatment in most instances where the patient is at least moderately hypnotizable (Wadden & Anderton, 1982) and where the patient presents with relatively circumscribed symptoms (Beutler, 1979).