Symptom Removal: The Twentieth Century Experience

Abstract

The twentieth century hypnosis literature regarding the use of direct symptom removal with hypnosis is in strong contrast with that of the nineteenth. It shows much ambivalence about the use of symptom removal. Objections, largely based on conclusions drawn from psychoanalytic theory, led many twentieth century psychotherapists to reject direct symptom removal. However, a certain amount of empirical evidence, scattered through the literature, has accumulated during the twentieth century to support this rejection. The lack of satisfactory twentieth century statistics and of nineteenth century details concerning hypnotic interventions that were used, makes it impossible to satisfactorily account for the discrepancy in experiences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although therapists did not altogether abandon working directly with symptoms, many opted instead for modifying and manipulating them by suggestion instead of completely removing them, usually allowing the patient to retain a psychodynamically suitable substitute. Here again a lack of adequate statistics prevents one from being able to properly appraise the effectiveness of this approach which has remained the preferred one for a number of therapists.

Key Words:

• Adverse reactions
• removal
• substitution
• symptoms