Illusory safeguards: Legitimizing distortion in recall with guidelines for forensic hypnosis-two case reports

Abstract

Two amnesic automobile accident victims remembered the information needed for their ongoing lawsuits during hypnosis. Meeting the recording requimments of the Hurd safeguards led to the admission of hypnotically influenced testimony in court in one case, whereas failure to record led to exclusion in the other. In both cases, closed-head trauma almost certainly prevented long-term memory consolidation. Thus adherence to guidelines for forensic hypnosis legitimized distortions in recall instead of preventing them. Hypnosis used to facilitate hypermnesia alters expectations about what can be remembered, makes memory more vulnerable to postevent information, and increases confidence without a corresponding increase in accuracy. Distortion of recall is an inherent problem with the use of hypnosis and hypnotic-like procedures and cannot be adequately pre vented by any set of guidelines.