hypnotherapy is memory. Hilgard says, “No matter how
one dips into the recesses of the mind, one stumbles
on the same problems – the storage and retrieval of
information, some true, some false.”
From examining
the research on memory, social psychologist Carol
Tavris concludes:
Memory is, in a word, lousy. It is a traitor at worst,
a mischief-maker at best. It gives us vivid recollections
of events that could never have happened,
and it obscures critical details of events that did.
The Harvard Mental Health Letter states:
In reality, all memory is a reconstruction rather
than a reproduction, and it is almost always deeply
unreliable, threaded with fabrications and distortions.
Hypnosis multiplies and magnifies the
occasions for errors of recollection. Hypnotic subjects
readily confuse real with imaginary events
and at the same time become overconfident about
their memories.3
People have devised various experimental situations
to examine the authenticity of hypnotically aided
memory. One such experiment involved eyewitnesses
responding to “a lineup recognition task and a structured
recall task.” What the researchers found was
that:
Relative to a normal-state control group, subjects
responding under the influence of hypnosis were
significantly less accurate on both tasks. Heightened
susceptibility to misleading implications was
shown to be the major source of hypnotic inferiority.4
In his book They Call It Hypnosis, Baker says, “Confabulation
shows up without fail in nearly every context
in which hypnosis is employed.”5
Confabulation is the
tendency to remember past events to be different from
the way they actually were and even to remember
fantasized events as having actually happened. Even
ordinary people, who are not under the influence of
hypnosis, will have to recreate a memory, especially if
they need to remember details of past events. Memory
is not like a tape-recorder with all details remembered;
instead one has to reconstruct past events. Baker refers
to the song “I Remember It Well” in the movie Gigi, in
which a husband and wife have distinctively different
memories of their courtship and says:
We remember things not the way they really were.
. . . We blur, shape, erase, and change details of
70 Hypnosis
the events in our past. Many people walk around
with their heads full of “fake memories.” Moreover,
the unreliability of eye-witness testimony is
not only legendary but well documented. When all
of this is further complicated and compounded by
the impact of suggestions provided by the hypnotist,
as well as the social-demand characteristics
of the typical hypnotic situation, it is little wonder
that the resulting recall bears slight resemblance
to the truth.6
Memory expert Dr. Elizabeth Loftus declares,
“There’s no way even the most sophisticated hypnotist
can tell the difference between a memory that is real
and one that’s created.”7
The Council on Scientific Affairs of the American
Medical Association reports:
The Council finds that recollections obtained
during hypnosis can involve confabulations and
pseudomemories and not only fail to be more
accurate, but actually appear to be less reliable
than nonhypnotic recall. The use of hypnosis with
witnesses and victims may have serious consequences
for the legal process when testimony is
based on material that is elicited from a witness
who has been hypnotized for the purposes of
refreshing recollection.8
Regarding memory, the Council says:
The assumption, however, that a process analogous
to a multichannel videotape recorder inside
the head records all sensory impressions and
Hypnotic Memory 71
stores them in their pristine form indefinitely is
not consistent with research findings or with
current theories of memory.9
Many people believe that hypnosis enables people
to remember things that they have forgotten and that
are outside conscious memory or awareness. However,
it is now well known that when hypnotic memories
are objectively examined, many are false and some are
total fabrications. In discussing hypnotic age regression,
Baker says:
Confabulations, i.e., making up stories to fill in
memory gaps, seemed to be the norm rather than
the exception. It seems, literally, that using
“hypnosis” to revive or awaken a person’s past
history somehow or other not only stimulates the
person’s desire to recall and his memory processes,
but it also opens the flood gates of his or her imagination.
Everything the person has experienced,
seen, heard, or read seems to suddenly become
available and is woven into a comprehensive and
credible story. A story that, in many cases, the
teller or narrator is convinced is something that
actually happened.10
The best-selling book The Search for Bridey Murphy,
published in 1956, was a boon for hypnotic regression.
The book tells about an amateur hypnotist hypnotizing
a woman who, under hypnosis, became a woman
who had lived about 150 years earlier. Bridey Murphy’s
story about her life in Ireland was supposedly revealed
through numerous hypnotic sessions. Many people
believed this story proved that hypnosis could enable
72 Hypnosis
people to remember events completely outside their
own conscious memory.11
Of course there have been critiques and exposés of
the Bridey Murphy claims as well as other books
making similar claims. Nevertheless such books have
influenced people’s beliefs about both hypnosis and
reincarnation. Baker says:
All of these books either accept reincarnation as a
fact, or maintain in a pseudoneutral manner that
a belief in reincarnation is lent additional credence
by the material uncovered by way of hypnotic
regression.12
The Orlando Sentinel reports that “according to a
1990 Gallop poll, 21 percent of Americans believe in
reincarnation.”13
Therapists who encourage memory work in therapy
may actually be leading clients into a trance state without
realizing it. Others who have a narrow definition
of hypnosis may actually deny using hypnosis, when
in fact they are. Michael Yapko, a psychologist and
author of Trancework, which is a widely-used text, says:
Many times therapists aren’t even aware that
they’re doing hypnosis. They’re doing what they
call guided imagery or guided meditation, which
are all very mainstream hypnotic techniques.14
No matter how memories are accessed, the following
statements from “Recovered memories: Are They
Reliable?”15 should be kept in mind:
Hypnotic Memory 73
“The use of recovered memories is fraught with
problems of potential misapplication.” The American
Medical Association, Council on Scientific
Affairs, Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse,
1994.
“It is not known how to distinguish, with complete
accuracy, memories based on true events from
those derived from other sources.” American
Psychiatric Association, Statement on Memories
of Sexual Abuse, 1993.
“The available scientific and clinical evidence
does not allow accurate, inaccurate, and fabricated
memories to be distinguished in the absence
of independent corroboration.” Australian Psychological
Society, Guidelines Relating to the Reporting
of Recovered Memories, 1994.
“At this point it is impossible, without other
corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true
memory from a false one.” American Psychological
Association, Questions and Answers about
Memories of Childhood Abuse, 1995.
“Psychologists acknowledge that a definite
conclusion that a memory is based on objective
reality is not possible unless there is incontrovertible
corroborating evidence.” Canadian
Psychological Association, Position Statement on
Adult Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual
Abuse, 1996.
74 Hypnosis
“Research has shown that over time memory for
events can be changed or reinterpreted in such a
way as to make the memory more consistent with
the person’s present knowledge and/or expectations.”
American Psychological Association, 1995.
An article in the Calgary Herald describes the
complexities of memory reconstruction very well. It
says:
Recently, courts have become embroiled in
debates over the validity of amnesia claims,
recovered memories, false-memory syndrome and
other quirks of the human mind.
We all know the paths long-ago events take in
our memories. They fade and we pick up the crayons
and colour them in again a little brighter than
before and in slightly different hues. The edges
unravel and we embroider them anew. Faces blur,
events jumble and rearrange themselves, the
timbre of voices heard long ago is lost forever and
when we try to pin down distant details they
dissolve into shimmery pools of doubt.
Remembering is not a simple straightforward
act. It is reconstruction, and in that subconscious
tearing down and building up, events are altered
and scenes subtly shift. Some memories are
erased, others created.16
Yes, memories can even be created, not from remembering
true events, but by implanting imagined events
into the mind. In fact, it is possible for implanted and
enhanced memories to seem even more vivid than
memories of actual past events. Under certain condiHypnotic
Memory 75
tions a person’s mind is open to suggestion in such a
way that illusions of memory can be received, believed,
and remembered as true memories. Exploring the past
through conversation, counseling, hypnosis, guided
imagery, and regressive therapy is as likely to cause
a person to create false memories as to remember
accurate accounts of past situations. In a state
of heightened suggestibility a person’s memory can
easily be altered and enhanced.
Bernard Diamond, a professor of law and a clinical
professor of psychiatry, says that court witnesses who
have been hypnotized “often develop a certitude about
their memories that ordinary witnesses seldom
exhibit.”17 Diamond states that hypnotized persons
“graft onto their memories fantasies or suggestions
deliberately or unwittingly communicated by the
hypnotist.” Diamond then reveals that “after hypnosis
the subject cannot differentiate between a true recollection
and a fantasy or a suggested detail.”18 Thus the
hypnotized subject does not even know he is fabricating.
In examining memory and the use of hypnosis,
the California Supreme Court concluded that “the
memory does not act like a video tape recorder, but
rather is subject to numerous influences that continuously
alter its contents.”19 One might say that memory
is guilty by reason of humanity.
Research shows that hypnosis is just as likely to
dredge up false information as true accounts of past
events.20 In addition, studies have shown that individuals
can and do lie under hypnosis.21 Because memory
is so unreliable, any method of cure which relies upon
memory is generally unreliable. The certainty of
pseudomemories and the uncertainty of real memo-
76 Hypnosis
ries render hypnosis a questionable practice when
memory is involved in the cure.
Diamond asks and answers a number of questions
about hypnosis in the California Law Review. Some of
the questions and portions of their answers follow:
Can a hypnotized person be free from heightened
suggestibility? The answer is no. Hypnosis is,
almost by definition, a state of increased suggestibility.
Can a hypnotist, through the exercise of skill and
attention, avoid implanting suggestions in the
mind of the hypnotized subject? No, such suggestions
cannot be avoided.
After awakening, can the hypnotic subject consistently
recognize which of his thoughts, feelings,
and memories were his own and which were
implanted by the hypnotic experience? No. It is
very difficult for human beings to recognize that
some of their own thoughts might have been
implanted and might not be the product of their
own volition.
Is it rare for a subject to believe that he was not
hypnotized when in fact he was? No. On the
contrary, very often hypnotic subjects refuse to
believe they actually went into a trance.
Can previously hypnotized persons restrict their
memory to actual facts, free from fantasies and
confabulations? No. . . . Out of a desire to comply
with the hypnotist’s suggestions, the subject will
Hypnotic Memory 77
commonly fill in missing details by fantasy or
confabulation.
After the hypnotic subject is awakened, do the
distorting effects of the hypnosis disappear? The
evidence . . . is that the effect of suggestions made
during hypnosis endures.
During or after hypnosis, can the hypnotist or
the subject himself sort out fact from fantasy in
the recall? Again the answer is no. No one,
regardless of experience, can verify the accuracy
of the hypnotically enhanced memory.22
The above information should have an extremely
sobering effect upon anyone interested in using
hypnosis. How many of these possibilities affect a
hypnotized person even if the sole purpose of the
hypnosis is pain relief, sleep enhancement, sexual
adjustment, or any one of the hundreds of promises
associated with hypnotism?
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