Dr. Jacques Vallee made some comments in a recent interview about abduction researchers and the use of hypnosis with which I am in full agreement:"I have studied over 70 abduction cases, in concert with psychiatrists trained in the use of the clinical hypnosis. These specialists were uniformly horrified when I showed them what some ufologists were doing and claiming on the basis of the regressions they were performing. In case after case, it becomes obvious that hypnosis is NOT a good way to bring back true memories. The psychiatric literature confirms this. In his famous book “The Fifty-Minute Hour,” Dr. Lindner explains why he considered, and then rejected, the use of hypnosis when asked by the FBI to treat a senior engineer who claimed to travel psychically to other planets. Hypnosis can turn a possible fantasy into an experience that becomes irreversible. I have received pathetic letters from famous UFO abductees asking me to help them find a new form of treatment, because they continue to experience traumatic experiences that do not fit into the rigid abduction model. Unfortunately these people cannot be re-hypnotized in a professional manner after they have been subjected to the ludicrous process routinely followed in ufology today in the name of “research.” Thousands of abductees have now been regressed hypnotically, and we know nothing more about the nature of the phenomenon, the alleged craft, or the entities associated with them. I still believe the abduction experience is part of the witnesses’ reality, as Dr. Simon told me when we spent two days with Betty and Barney Hill at their place in New Hampshire, but hypnosis, in most cases, is neither the therapy of choice, nor the best way to explore what really happened to them."
The complete interview can be found here. It's well worth a read.
Paul Kimball
4 comments:
I'm pretty familiar with the literature on recovered memories, pro and con. I think hypnosis, in rare cases, can be useful, but I think its usefulness is limited.
By and large, I side with Vallee.
all abduction researchers agree with the fact that hypnosis is not a too much reliable method.
But, like all walks of life, all methods need to be improved in order to get good results.
We all agree that at Chernobyl there was a very, very big catastrophe caused by the bad management of nuclear technologies. Does it mean that nuclear technology is useless?
Absolutely NOT.
I belive that if the ETH is really the ETF, then is almost sure the fact that abductions are real too.
Then the use of hipnosis must be enhanced. Abduction research is a good way that must be followed when one thinks that the ETH is a plausible scenario.
I suspect that he (Vallee) does not trust in abduction research just because if it demonstrates the ETH, then Vallee's UFO theories will be shown to be somewhat false.
I can not agree with Vallee. His theories are just to esoteric for me.
(excuse me for my bad english writing, i am not a native english speaker)
Respectfully
DM:
It's not just that hypnosis may not be very effective (it isn't) - it's that it may actually be doing a great deal of harm. That's the real problem.
Paul
Dr. Mack said hypnosis is a good tool for investigating abdcutions.
Many others say similar things. If they are right, may be in 10 years or more, the 'greatest ufologist ever' poll you made would change dramatically, putting the abductologists in the first places...
i am saying may be, just may be.
On the other hand, i am not convinced that hypnosis treatment causes harm.
Post a Comment