Taking the feeling out of emotional memories: A study of hypnotic emotional numbing: A brief communication

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jan 2008  by Wickramasekera, Ian II

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Bryant, R. J. & Fearns, S. (2007). Taking the feeling out of emotional memories: A study of hypnotic emotional numbing: A brief communication. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 55(4), 426-432. This is another interesting study of the lead author's investigations into the phenomena of hypnotically-induced emotional numbing.

In previous studies the author and his colleagues have used hypnotically induced emotional numbing to demonstrate how hypnotic suggestions can shape a hypnotic subjects' phenomenological experience of emotional content though directing them to diminish their emotional responsiveness to various types of emotionally provocative stimuli. In this study, 29 highly hypnotizable subjects were given hypnotic suggestions to diminish their emotional responsiveness to create hypnotically induced emotional numbing (or control instructions), and then were asked to recall autobiographical memories. The subjects were asked to recall either distressing memories or neutral memories to examine how the hypnotically induced emotional numbing affected memory recall. The subjects' phenomenological experience of their emotions was collected to examine how the emotional numbing affected their experience of the memory retrieval process. The subjects psychophysiological correlates of memory recall was also collected using electromyographical (EMG: muscle tension) sensors placed at the corrugator muscle sites. Finally, the subject's verbal descriptions of their emotional experiences during the memories was also recorded to assess their emotional experiences at the time when the original events were happening. The authors found that hypnotically induced emotional numbing did reduce the amount of emotional content that the subjects reported when recalling their distressing memories. They also found that hypnotically induced emotional numbing reduced the EMG and psychophysiological correlates of discussing a distressing memory. Interestingly, the authors found that hypnotically induced emotional numbing did not reduce the subjects verbal descriptions of their emotional states at the original time of the memory that they recalled. The authors used this finding to suggest that hypnotically induced emotional numbing may be able to differentially affect the affective and semantic aspects of a person's emotional response. This of course is somewhat illustrative of a common clinical situation in using age regression techniques when a person is directed to witness and report on a traumatic event without becoming distressed. The study seems highly relevant and useful reading for therapists using age regression techniques in general and is highly recommended reading due to its attempt to look at the phenomenological, psychophysiological, and semantic aspects of hypnotically induced emotional numbing. Address for reprints: Richard A. Bryant, Ph.D., School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, NSW 2052, Sydney, Australia. Email address: r.bryant@unsw.edu.au.

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