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The author recently had occasion to treat a patient who was troubled by a repetitious head movement of acute onset and several days duration. Hypnotherapy was employed for relief of this disability. The second hypnotic trance involved the recall of a dream entailing the apparent source of conflict and the main purpose of this paper is to present the data regarding this aspect of the case.
The patient was a twenty-two year old soldier who had been in the Army a few years. He had never been in combat. On awakening from sleep one morning he was troubled with a severe, repetitious, horizontal jerking of his head, occurring every few seconds. Evidently no time interval had elapsed between his emergence from sleep and the onset of the head shaking. This motor activity continued virtually unabated for a period of ten days, varying in severity from hour to hour but persisting to some degree nevertheless. Conscious attention on his part to the phenomenon might lessen its severity but the tic returned in force as his thoughts wandered elsewhere.
The patient naturally regarded the situation as acutely disturbing and obviously it was one which demanded as rapid treatment as possible. This was especially necessary for the author in view of the working conditions at this military installation as would be evident to persons familiar with the existing physical set-up. (Additional details about the latter have been presented in a paper as yet unpublished.
After a history was obtained and various aspects of the problem and the patient's personality evaluated, hypnotherapy aimed at suppression of the symptom without employing an uncovering technique was decided upon. This method was selected because it was felt at the time that therapy of greater depth could not be planned under the circumstances. The element of time was the main factor involved in this decision.