Dissociation : Volume 10, No. 1 (March 1997)

Permanent URI for this collection

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

Open Access
Dissociation : Volume 10, No. 1, p. 011-020 : A case study: electromyographic correlates in the hypnotic recall of a repressed memory
(Ridgeview Institute and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation, 1997-03) Wickramasekera, Ian E.; Wickramasekera, Ian Edward, II
This is a controlled case study of a 22-year-old female with a four year history of episodic nausea, vomiting, tachycardia and social anxiety resistant to medical and psychiatric therapy. Systematic desensitization for social phobia with psychophysiological monitoring (electromyogram, skin temperature, skin conductance level (SCL), and heart rate) was associated with a decline in somatic symptoms, muscle tension (EMG), and subjective distress. At the tenth session, an EMG spike sustained for at least 33 minutes was associated with a forgotten traumatic dream from the previous night. Hypnotic recall of the traumatic dream during therapy was associated with an immediate collapse of the EMG spike and an abrupt increase in subjective distress. The dream contained recall of a repressed memory of a possible sexual exposure to HIV five years previously. This case study may illustrate the utility of psychophysiological monitoring (PPM) in the psychotherapy of somatoform disorders. It may also illustrate the value of electrophysiological and autonomic measures to identify repressed traumatic somatized memories and to demonstrate objectively the distinction between implicit and explicit memory.