Incidencias durante el protocolo

The data as finally obtained included complete experimental and

;ontrol results on three hypnotic subjects, nearly complete data on a fourth, confirmatory data from a single age regression on an additional

Age Regression ' VBO hypnotic subject, and control data on six nonhypnotic subjects, adequate in character but incomplete in quantity because of the significant character

of the first test performance by those subjects.

In addition to the experimental results many clinical observations were also made.All of them contributed significantly to the experimental findings, serving to clarify and to explain them and to give a better realization of the actual effects of the hypnotic suggestions and of the general problems to be met in this type of hypnotic experimentation.

However, for this report these will not be given except in genera! outline.

A summary of the findings of this investgation may be given briefly in the following paragraphs:

1. A total of four hypnotic subjects in a deep trance, reoriented to earlier age levels and subjected to intelligence tests, gave evidence of a definite approximation of the mental patterns of the specified age levels. Three of the four subjects were reoriented to the age levels of 8, 9, 10, 11,12,14,16, 17, and 18 years, and two of these to the additional years of 13 and 15. One subject was reoriented only to the age levels of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18. For these subjects the results obtained both in general behavior and in test performance were appropriate to the age levels suggested to them. Their performances on the test were straightforward and serious; it was taken always at face value, and the entire allotted period of 20 minutes was invariably utilized to the utmost. There was a distribution of correct and incorrect answers and of omitted questions appropriate to the various suggested age levels: For the earlier ages there were frequent evidences of juvenile misunder-standings and approximations in various of the wrong answers.

There was no evidence of any carrying over of memories from one test situation to another. The same subjects gave right and wrong answers to the same question, in keeping with appropriate age levels.

2. Of the same subjects asked to perform under normal waking conditions the task already completed in the hypnotic state, two actually made an attempt somewhat similar to their trance performance. A third, through a process of specious reasoning, gave a highly systematized adult performance, and when asked to perform the task again, but in a different fashion because of the falsity of his first attempt, found it too difficult. A fourth subject, on whom the trance data were incomplete, found the task entirely too difficult to be done in the waking state, despite repeated conscientious attempts. The results obtained on the first two subjects resembled the trance findings only in the mental age as

10 Hypnotic Investigation of Psychodynamic Processes derived from the test scores. The performance of each subject was entirely that of an adult, in full awareness of his adult mental state, seeking to limit his adult performance to a lesser one that was presumably appropriate to a specified age level. In no instance did there seem to be any recognition or understanding of what the task actually implied—namely, behavior appropriate to the specified age level. In brief, the test performance under the control conditions was characterized wholly by adult behavior;

responses were systematically calculated and organized in accord with a full adult conception of what might constitute the lesser performance appropriate to the specified age level. To this end the subjects arbitrarily restricted the amount of time used of the allotted 20 minutes to a period of three to eight minutes for the earlier age levels. Similarly, the number of questions answered at each age level was arbitrarily limited by the individual subject and systematically increased for each higher age level. In addition, all answers were correct; there seemed to be no realization on the part of the subjects that mistakes might and would be made at the various age levels. Also, there was little or no omission of specific questions because of their difficulty, except as a process of deliberate calculation, but there were mass omissions of questions for the sole purpose of limiting the total quantity of the performance. In brief, in the control examinations the subjects arbitrarily limited the time and quantity of their performance in accord with their adult understanding of what might be accom-plished at a specified age limit. There was no effort to attempt either the behavior or the test performance appropriate to the specified age level.

3. The performance of the nonhypnotic control subjects was charac-terized by the same type of adult behavior as had been shown by the hypnotic subjects in their waking control performance, and the findings obtained, boih as to method and actual results, were essentially comparable.

4. This experiment led to an attempt at testing the experimental results by reorienting a recovered mental patient to the time of the height of his acute mental illness more than a year previous, at which time a complete psychometric record had been obtained.

Psychometric examination upon reorientation served to secure results in remarkable agreement with those actually obtained more than a year previously. For example, on the Otis Intermedi-ate Test administered originally, his mental age was found to be seven years, ten months; on the same test, upon reorientation to that period, his performance scored seven years, eleven months.

Age Regression 11 Likewise his ratings on the Stanford-Binet, the Army Alpha, and various performance tests showed similar remarkable agreement.

In addition a psychometric examination made previous to the reorientation experiment disclosed his normal mental age to be 13 years, 6 months.

13. Past Weekday Determination in Hypnotic and Waking States

Milton H. Erickson and Allan H. Erickson

Since the mid-1920s, when the senior author first became interested in hypnotic age regression, periodically there has been propounded the proposition that any intelligent college student can readily and easily calculate the day of the week for any given past date. At the time researchers uncritically accepted this assumption1 as proof that any correct identification of the weekday by subjects who had been age-regressed hypnotically was not evidence of the reestablishment of earlier under-standings and patterns of behavior. In this regard the senior author had repeatedly regressed hypnotic subjects in age, had then asked them what day of the month it was, and had received an immediate answer. Without further pause they would be asked what day of the week it was, and an immediate reply would be given which, in the majority of instances, was correct. This had been regarded by the senior author as a significant finding that tended to validate age regression as a genuine phenomenon, particularly when numerous inquiries of fellow students in the normal waking state had disclosed a definite inability to perform such a task.

Thus, students in the awake state would be asked, "On what day of the week did your second, last [third, fourth, fifth] birthday come?" Or, "On what weekday did Christmas [New Year's, Fourth of July, Valentine's Day] come two [three, four, five] years ago?" A correct answer to this type of question was found to be a rarity. The usual answer was, "I just do not know" or "I'd have to work that out." Some accepted the question as an interesting problem and actually tried to devise calculation methods to determine the answer. On the whole, however, practically all failed in their calculations, so that a correct answer by a correct method was as much a rarity as was a correct spontaneous answer. Among the correct spontaneous answers were some invalidated by personal referents such as,

"That's easy, my birthday that year was the day after Thanksgiving, so it would be Friday." Sometimes a special event would permit a correct answer for a certain birthday. Thus, there might be a correct answer such as, "My birthday is exactly three weeks before Christmas. Last Christmas

Unpublished manuscript written with Allan Erickson, 1962.

'An experimental demonstration of the incorrectness of presented in the Appendix by Allan Erickson.

past Weekday Determination 113

Was on a Sunday because 1 had to go to work on a new job the next day, so my birthday last year was on Sunday." Even so, they would be confused and uncertain as to the date of the week for the preceding and the subsequent birthdays.