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It has been said by many researchers and clinicians that very occasionally they encounter a unique case in which fairly rare hypnotic phenomena are demonstrated. In this historical review, the differences between a spontaneous and an induced abreaction are articulated through the use of two different case studies. The first (spontaneous) was very uncharacteristic, as the patient had not verbalised, nor did she describe any content of the trauma in hypnotic and/or conscious state. This poses an interesting question about the validity of a concept of the "talking cure. " The second case, of (induced) abreaction, demonstrates the potential of hypnotic techniques in the psychotherapeutic process and highlights the value of the therapist's acquaintance with particular theories of personality.
AN ABRIDGED REVIEW OF THE RELEVANT LITERATURE
Meares (1972) describes abreaction as "uninhibited expression of emotion" (p. 393). In a therapeutic setting, it is common in regression and is almost always present in revivification. The value of abreaction has been debated since Breuer and Freud (Freud, 1943; Tinterow, 1970) and Uke suggestive psychotherapy and cathartic methods, abreaction has "undeservedly faUen into disfavor" (Meares, 1972, p. 393).
Meares (1972) describes "signs of impending abreaction, emotional and ideational content of abreaction" (p. 394). He emphasises that spontaneous abreaction "is characteristic of the hypnotic state [and] may occur when hypnosis has been induced for some other purposes. The reason for the tendency to abreact is clear ... in the Ught of atavistic theory of hypnosis . . . The mechanism which triggers off spontaneous abreaction is the thought of some matter which is emotionally charged" (p. 394).
Induced abreaction facilitates the process of hypnoanalysis (Hlywa, 2004; Wolberg, 1948). In order to control the emotions, the patient should be kept in as deep a hypnotic trance as possible. Abreaction provides repressed, otherwise inaccessible, material for general psychotherapy, and tends to occur with age regression and/or with revivification. "The mechanism of abreaction which brings about the disclosure of suppressed and repressed material is simply a shattering of the patient's defenses ...To use abreaction effectively, we need to be able to initiate it, to control it and to terminate it at wül." (Meares, 1972, pp. 396, 397). These conditions have been absent in the case of Heidi, described below.
Abreaction...