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The recent review of Luria's book in this QUARTERLY (II, 1993. Pp. 330–336) makes it of interest to add a note on this beautifully controlled experimental study of the Luria method. This technique consists essentially of a study of verbal associations by means of the classical association test coupled to a simultaneous graphic registration of unintentional motions of one hand which rests on a tambour, and of the active pressure against a tambour which is maintained as steadily as possible by the other hand. In one group of Luria's original experiments the subjects were hypnotized, and in the hypnotic state were made to believe that they had taken part in some act which left them feeling anxious and guilty. This act then was completely "forgotten" in the post-hypnotic amnesia for the séance. The persisting emotional influence of the hypnotic experience was studied by means of these combined tests.
In the current investigation, the patients were studied before the hypnotic session, during hypnosis but before any hypnotic suggestions were given, under hypnosis but after the suggestion was given, again when they were out of the hypnotic state but before the suggestion had been removed, and finally after the removal of the suggested and disturbing idea. The purpose was to determine whether or not unconscious "complexes" (by which is meant here the hypnotically induced constellations of disturbing ideas) could reveal their presence by disturbances in motor coördination, studied under standard and constant conditions, in subjects in whom verbal responses alone would fail to reveal the presence of the complex.
As an outcome of these careful tests of the Luria method one is forced to conclude that the technique of motor registration adds singularly little information to that which is secured from the verbal responses alone. Thus, of nine who accepted the story told under hypnosis, three revealed the presence of a disturbing idea in their verbal responses alone and witho