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THE PSYCHODYNAMICTREATMENT
OF
COMBATNEUROSES (PTSD)WITH
HYPNOSIS DURING WORLDWAR
11'
JOHN
G.
WATKINS'
University
of
Montana
Abstract:
In
a
largeArmyhospitalduringWorldWar
11,
a
full-timepro-
gram in hypnotherapy
for
battle trauma caseswas developed. Symp-
tom
included severe anxiety, phobias,conversions,hysterias, and dis-
sociations. Many hypnoanalytic techniques were used, especially
includingabreactions.Good therapeuticresultswere frequent,
as
dem-
onstrated
by
typical cases. There was no evidence that the abreactive
procedure tended to retraumatize patients
or
initiate psychotic
reactions.
DuringWorld War
11,
the
U.S.
Army had expected a large number of
battle casualties. Experienced psychologists and psychiatrists at that
time were in short supply
in
all the Armed Forces, and they were quite
unprepared whenmany of the casualtieswerenot surgical,but psychiat-
ric. InWorldWar
I,
thesecaseswerecalled "shell shock."
In
WorldWar
11,
we referred to them as "war neuroses," or "battle fatigue." Today, they
would be diagnosed as Posttraumatic StressDisorder (PTSD).
In
1945,
I
served as chief psychologist at the Army's WelchConvales-
cent Hospital
in
Daytona Beach, Florida, and treated soldiers suffering
from these "war neuroses." For 15years afterWorldWar
11, I
applied the
same techniques to patients in veterans' clinics and hospitals, most of
them combat-related.
From 1972 to 1997, through hypnoanalysis and Ego State Therapy
(Watkins
&
Watkins, 1997), my wife, Helen Wa t hs , and
I
treated
numerous patients with dissociative disorders. Many of these cases
involved severe childhood abuse that had occurred some 20
or
more
years earlier, theDSM-Ndiagnosisforwhichwould probablyhavebeen
PTSDwith delayed onset. Between my wife and
I,
we have treated sev-
eral hundred patients who sufferedsevere traumas within a wide range
of acute, chronic,
and
delayed onset duration.
'From anaddresspresented at the
14th
Congress
of
the InternationalSocietyofHypno-
sis inSanDiego,June
21,1997,
titled, "ThePsychodynamicTreatment
of
PTSD:
50
Years
of
Experience."
The
International
Journal
of
Clinical
and
Experimental Hypnosis,
Vol.
48,
No.
3,
July
2000
324-335
0
2000
The
International
Journal
of
Clinical
and
Experimental Hypnosis
'Address correspondencetoDr.John
G.
Watkins,
413
EvansStreet,Missoula,
MT,
59801.
324
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