* Recent Experiences with Gestalt, Encounter and Hypnotic Techniques

I HAD been treating a 35 year old professor for about two years. Among his most disturbing concerns were his homosexual compulsion to visit restrooms and his inability to complete the manuscripts required for his professional advancement. For one year he had been attending group therapy sessions once a week in addition to individual psychotherapy sessions every second week.

The incident described here occurred during his 40th group session which took place immediately following one of his individual analytic hours.

During the latter hour, the patient was hypnotized, for perhaps the thirtieth time. Under hypnosis he regressed to a level where at first he indicated that he could not talk and, finally, with much sobbing and gasping, expressed, very dramatically, his feeling that he had killed his mother being born. Feeling that he was on the verge of some sort of “breakthrough” a post-hypnotic suggestion was made that, during the very next group session, he would express very essential feelings which would lead to some crucial insights for him.

During his year of group therapy he had generally remained a silent observer or had limited himself to detached, intellectualized comments on the behavior of others. On this day he was, typically, silent for forty-five minutes, and appeared to be occupied with his own thoughts. When he made a comment about the behavior of one of the young women in the group, I took the opportunity to challenge him to stand up, walk across the room and express his feelings towards this woman. He insisted that he could not even stand up. The group then spent 20 minutes urging, challenging and encouraging him to try. He seemed to shrink further and further into his seat. Then, when attention to him was momentarily diverted, he quickly got up, made a half-hearted show of hugging the girl and then sat in silence for another twenty minutes. Finally, while someone else was talking, he suddenly interjected with five minutes r