Past Ego States Emerging in Hypnoanalysis: By Edith Klemperer. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas. 1968.

This book will be of interest to those concerned with techniques of research and treatment of mental disorders other than that of psychoanalysis. The author describes one such technique, hypnoanalysis, and the therapeutic results and theoretical conclusions obtained with its use. It should be appreciated from the outset that one of the important differences between hypnoanalysis and psychoanalysis as a therapeutic tool is not simply the fact that in the former the patient is in a hypnotic trance state but that there is no, or extremely limited, analysis of the transference relationship between patient and hypnotist. The clinical material given in the book shows that the author is often well aware of the transference implications but they are hardly ever made explicit to the patient, particularly those of negative transference. This tends to confirm my own experience that consistent interpretation of the negative transference will destroy the hypnotic trance state of the patient. Thus other techniques than transference interpretation must be used to enable unconscious material to emerge and be understood.

The author achieves this by enabling the hypnotized patient to regress to childhood by suggesting that he dreams and remembers being a very small boy and that he should visualize this situation and, if possible, re-experience the memories—the process of revivification.

In hypnoanalysis, much of the intricacy of the procedure may be simplified by the patient's seeing his early life history with its conflicts, complications, and misunderstandings unfold in front of him, as in