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1
Introduction to Hypnoanalytic Techniques
Psychotherapists who have acquired the ability to hypnotize and apply hyp-
notherapeutic procedures will likely recognize their need to acquire more
complex ways of using hypnotic interventions. A few of the more advanced
techniques were introduced or hinted at, but not truly described, in Barabasz
and Watkins (2005). As promised in the introduction to that book, this one will
carry on where the first treatise left off.
This book teaches sophisticated procedures, practiced within the hyp-notic
modalities, which are aimed at a more fundamental reconstruction of a patient’s
personality. This is the goal of both hypnoanalysis and psychoana-lytic therapy.
Hypnoanalysis accepts the psychoanalytic principle that neurotic symptoms are
generally, although certainly not exclusively, the consequence of intrapsychic
conflict. Our aim as therapists is to eliminate or at least reduce symptoms by
emotional as well as cognitive restructuring, not merely by social influence,
placebo manipulations, or mere suggestion without actual hypnosis per se (A.
Barabasz & Christensen, 2006; see Barabasz and Watkins, 2005,
203–206). When the hypnoanalytic process is successful, it is usually
accom-panied by “insight.”
Accordingly, hypnoanalysis should be regarded as a form or variant of psy-
choanalysis in its broadest sense. Freud (1953a) explained that any treatment can
be considered psychoanalysis if its ef fectiveness comes from “undoing resistances
and interpreting transferences.” Given these criteria, hypnoanaly-sis is definitely
“psychoanalysis” in spite of Freud’s vacillating history with regard to the use of
hypnosis, which began with embracing the modality, then rejecting it, and finally
depending on it to manage the pain of his cancer in his final days. Hypnoanalysts
are very much concerned with undoing resistances and interpreting transferences.
The specific step-by-step techniques to accom-plish these goals will be made clear
as the chapters in this book unfold.
Hypnosis, when applied according to psychodynamic understandings, is a
part of the hypnoanalytic strategy. The therapy becomes “hypnoanalytic” when
its hypnotic aspects are so naturally applied by the practitioner as to become
secondary to the patient’s developing focus on the main objective of achieving
reconstructive understandings.
Hypnoanalysts, like psychoanalytic practitioners, attempt to reconstruct and
deal with memory material, lift repressions, release bound affects, and
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• Advanced Hypnotherapy: Hypnodynamic Techniques
integrate previously unconscious and unegotized aspects of the personality.
They are also concerned with factors of resistance, transference, and counter-
transference as are the psychoanalysts. Similar to Freud (1953a), many
hypnoanalysts see dreams as a “royal road to the unconscious” and dream
interpretation as a major hypnoanalytic technique. In that sense, their theo-
retical views of personality structure and neurotic symptom formation closely
parallel those of the classic psychoanalysts. The analysis of transference has
always been a major psychoanalytic method, along with free association and
dream interpretation. Freud simply emphasized its importance.
Free association may ultimately unearth early memory material and
ingrained interpretations of early experiences represented as reconstructed
memories. Unfortunately, many sessions are required to secure the same data,
which within a much shorter time may become apparent through hypnotic
hypermnesia, regression, and particularly regressive abreactive techniques.
Furthermore, in doing so, there is little if any evidence to support Freud’s
contention that the ego is bypassed by hypnosis and his notion that conse-
quently such personality changes would be only temporary. As early as 1979,
E. R. Hilgard and Loftus showed that memories reconstructed by hypnotic
regression can be distorted, but, of course, Freud had already found that
through “screening memories,” these recollections (more accurately termed
reconstructed memory material) secured by free association could also be
distorted. There is no evidence whatsoever that hypnosis is any more likely to
distort memories than numerous other commonly used therapeutic or
detective-like questioning techniques. Furthermore, there is no data extant
comparing the validity of hypnotically secured memory material versus those
elicited through free association.
Dream interpretation has been a valuable psychoanalytic tool, especially in
the hands of gifted and intuitive practitioners such as Wilhelm Stekel (1943c).
Hypnoanalysts also employ dream and fantasy analytic procedures (Barrett,
1998). The hypnotic modality provides greater flexibility in the activation,
analysis, and interpretation of these creations.
Transference reaction analysis is a very potent psychoanalytic procedure for
achieving reconstructive changes in the basic personality. Such reactions
appear during an analysis when the patient projects onto the analyst feelings
and attitudes that he or she once experienced toward earlier significant figures
such as a love for one’s mother or hatred toward a dominating father. As these
inappropriate reactions are pointed out and explained to the patient by the
analyst’s interpretations, new insights and growth can be achieved. However,
without hypnosis, many weeks and months will typically elapse before such
responses develop and become manifest in such a relationship.
More significant is the fact that the patient’s regression (Menninger &
Holzman, 1973) that brings this about can be far better achieved and appro-
priately controlled by the use of hypnosis because hypnosis itself is a form of

Introduction to Hypnoanalytic Techniques • 3
regression in the service of the ego (Gill & Brenman, 1959) or, as Hartmann
(1939/1958) termed it, “adaptive regression.” A personal communication (August
11, 2002, to A. Barabasz) from Erika Fromm is referred to in Barabasz and Watkins
(2005) (pp. 68–70). Fromm explained that a person suffering from a cold might
well curl up in bed “just like a child,” watching hours of senseless lightweight TV
programs, letting him- or herself simply be taken care of by others. This regression
helps the person to get well, healthy, and independent once again more quickly.
She further likened the activity to taking a vacation in which one engages in
entertainment, napping, or reading nondemanding materials. Clearly, these
regressions in the service of the ego are nonpatho-logical and healthy. Regressive
experiences in the hypnotherapeutic relation-ship can help to bring about self-
healing and facilitation of inner strengths (Frederick, 1999b). In a brief period of
time, of course, the patient might be willing to engage in the experience under the
guidance of the hypnoanalyst.
This book will also focus on hypnodiagnostic procedures and new, revised,
and updated approaches to abreactive techniques. Abreactive techniques,
which remedy the early criticisms voiced by Freud and Breuer (1953), are still
voiced by some hypnoanalysts. We will also explain the use of hypnogra-phy
and sensory hypnoplasty as methodologies to derive information about
unconscious processes that go beyond verbalizations alone. The reader will
learn how to hypnotically facilitate dissociative and projective approaches so
that an even greater degree of flexibility is offered to the psychoanalytic prac-
titioner. The latest developments in ego-state therapy beyond those described
by J.G.W. and H. H. Watkins (1997) will be presented, with extensions of dis-
sociative techniques that provide yet another dimension in psychoanalytic
theory. The theoretical origins of ego-state therapy (Frederick, 2005; Freder-
ick & McNeal, 1999; Emmerson, 2003; J. G. Watkins and H. H. Watkins,
1997) stem from the writings of both Paul Federn (1952a) and Edoardo Weiss
(1960). In this book, we approach it from the perspective of concepts
concerning the structure and functioning of the self as foreshadowed by Kohut
(1971) and Kernberg (1972). However, this book is primarily about treatment
techniques, not theory.
Hypnoanalytic techniques should not be regarded as competing with the
traditional practices of psychoanalysts or those employing psychoanalytically
oriented therapy, but rather as a means of complementing their work. Hypno-
analysis can be viewed as merely an extension and an elaboration of the meth-
ods by which Freud and his colleagues undertook to explore the fascinating
world of the human mind, one that continually influences our behavior and
well-being, but of which we are often so little aware.
The enormous time and cost required for traditional psychoanalysis (three
to fi ve times a week for several years) limits its use to a very special and
typically affluent population. Hypnoanalysis provides a much more rapid and
incisive form of psychoanalysis, while also dealing with deep-underlying

• Advanced Hypnotherapy: Hypnodynamic Techniques
conflicts. Hypnoanalysis, as described in this volume, is intended to achieve
genuine personality reorganization in a much shorter period of time, thus
making the enormous capacity of psychodynamic thinking and psychoana-
lytic therapy more widely available.
Hypnotherapy is much more than a collection of techniques, because its
success involves the very “self” of the doctor (A. Barabasz & Christensen,
2006). Therefore, we have attempted to place our procedures in a broad and
philosophical context. That is to say, two practitioners may employ “identical”
techniques, yet one achieves far better results than the other. In our chapter on
existential hypnoanalysis and the therapeutic self, we explain how to inte-grate
our two books using the concept that all “techniques” in psychological therapy
must be practiced within a constructive interpersonal relationship and that in
the final analysis, our success or failure may depend more on how we relate
with the patient than on what we do to the patient.
We hope that those skilled psychotherapists and analysts who have experience
in clinical hypnosis will find this book stimulating, in that a num-ber of new and
exciting therapeutic techniques can be added to their prac-tice. As behavioral
scientists, we must all continue to explore the inner human condition.
Hypnoanalytic techniques offer many sophisticated ways of accom-plishing this,
both in the clinic as well as in the hypnosis research laboratory.

2
Hypnoanalytic Insight Therapy
Rigorously controlled studies show hypnosis is not only an effective adjunctive
intervention but also superior to a number of widely employed treatment pro-
cedures when applied directly to influence symptoms as reviewed in Barabasz and
Watkins (2005) (also revealed by Lynn, Kirsch, A. Barabasz, Cardeña, &
Patterson, 2000). Perhaps it is because of this demonstrated efficacy, combined
with cost-efficiency in the face of soaring medical costs (Lang & Rosen, 2002),
that its potential for even greater contributions to the sophisticated recon-structive
therapies involving insight has not been fully appreciated.
Despite there being many variations of psychoanalysis, all are based on the
assumption that neurotic symptoms are the external manifestations of under-
lying conflicts and lifting the repression of unconscious factors and achiev-ing
“insight,” will resolve the symptoms. Indeed, the classical psychoanalyst
would likely hold that this is true of all neurotic symptoms and that unless
insight has been achieved into the underlying dynamic structure of a specific
neurosis, no permanent cure can be expected. In the face of now hundreds of
studies to the contrary (reviewed by J. G. Watkins, 1992a), this extreme posi-
tion is no longer tenable.
As discussed in Barabasz and Watkins (2005), many symptomatic conditions
respond favorably and permanently to direct hypnotic interventions. Hypno-sis has
enormous facilitative effects when used in conjunction with standard therapies. For
example, two meta-analyses (Kirsch, Montgomery, & Sapirstein, 1995; Kirsch,
1996) showed that the addition of hypnosis substantially enhanced treatment
outcomes, so that the average client receiving cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapy
showed greater improvement than at least 70% of the clients receiving nonhypnotic
treatment. However, there are often neurotic symptoms that do not seem to be
permanently relinquished unless unconscious conflicts, at their root, are brought
into conscious awareness and reintegrated through that kind of understanding
called insight. Therapies that aim at such insight, whether they are person-centered,
cognitive, cognitive-behavioral, psychoana-lytic, or any of numerous brief
psychoanalytic approaches, can often produce lasting results with the addition of
hypnotherapeutic interventions.
Intellectual and Experiential Insight
What is intended by the term insight? Much that appears to pass for insight in
therapeutic interventions turns out to be nothing more than intellectualizations
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