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EITAN G. ABRAMOWITZ ET AL.
To our understanding, this kind of patient often needs “de-hypnotiza-
tion” interventions, rather than learning how to dissociate even more.
The participants were all treated rather intensively and this is not a
reflection of daily practice wherein subjects receive a diluted menu of
treatments in most public settings. Participants had been suffering
from PTSD for many years and so are representative of a group that
suffers from chronic sleep disturbances. Selection of patients suffering
from recent exposure to trauma may have added to our knowledge
about intervening during the acute phase of the disorder.
Finally, we have demonstrated a positive effect of hypnotherapy
across all outcome measures possibly reflecting a nonspecific effect of
treatment.
In conclusion, we found that symptomatic hypnotherapy is an
effective adjunct to psycho- and pharmacotherapy for chronic insom-
nia and sleep disorders in a group of patients suffering from chronic
combat-related PTSD. PTSD patients are more susceptible to hypnosis
than healthy controls thus negating the need to test for this feature
prior to hypnotherapy in future studies (Spiegel, 1992). As this is the
first report ever to demonstrate the usefulness of hypnotherapy in
sleep disturbances in PTSD, further trials are called for with larger
samples as well as the use of hypnotherapy as the only treatment
modality and the practice of self-hypnosis between and following the
structured sessions.
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