Brief hypnotherapy of severe depression linked to sexual trauma: a case study

Traumatic events of many sorts result in the now familiar symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many accounts have been published of the helpful role of hypnosis in symptom amelioration when the symptom onset is immediate, or even delayed,following the trauma. For some patients, though, a virtual collapse of adaptive functioning occurs after long periods of relatively symptom-free functioning. For such individuals, the relevance of the earlier trauma to their current problems may not be recognized, either by those treating them or by themselves. This case study is an attempt to illustrate treatment strategies that may be helpful in such cases, based on a good treatment outcome with a seriously ill woman, where hypnosis was an integral part of a brief, but intensive, in patient treatment program.