22. Suicidal psychosis

PERSON: adult girl.
DESCRIPTION: psychosis, endless tendency to self-destruction, horrible self-aggressions against her body, innumerable forced hospitalizations, first attempt of suicide at the age of four years; behavior clearly very disturbed and definitely instable; referred by her family physician.
APPROACH: hypnotic training for about 2 months, avoiding the disturbing material; hidden hypnotic conditioning in order to get the subject more available for some work on her traumata; very careful attempts to access some awful memories, very intense abreactions of the woman, hypnotic work considered "beneficial but very hard"; gradual development of an ability to talk about her traumatic experiences without terror; great surprise for this ability; very brief hypnotic sessions (5-10 minutes) because of the very low tolerance of the subject.
RESULT: complete end of self-destructive impulses; disappearance of any suicidal attempt; end of the need to drink alcoholics in order to handle the anxiety; end of her delirium of terror; very evident stabilization of the personality; development of a surprising and new ability to make friends without drinking; self-discipline now sufficient to allow a part-time work, in order to integrate her invalidity indemnity.
UPDATE (3 years): persistence of a satisfactory balance (just thoughts about suicide, alcoholism, and self-injuries, but no actualization because of a "strange lack of motivation"), quality of life greatly improved, her psychiatrist no longer hostile to hypnosis; partial ability to socialize and work actively.

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