Posthypnotic amnesia
[clarification needed][4] Similarly, 19th century French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot focused solely on post-hypnotic amnesia.
Spontaneous post-hypnotic amnesia represents a slight memory impairment that results as a consequence of being put under hypnosis or being tested.
[14] In a typical study examining this type of amnesia, individuals are administered a hypnotic induction procedure which is immediately followed by a series of questions concerning unfamiliar facts, for example "what year was Freud born in?".
This temporary disruption in retrieval is typically due to the induced amnesic suggestion that a hypnotists or therapist will usually give during the session.
Results support this theory by indicating that effective retrieval cues, such as the temporal sequence of events, may not be being used successfully while under hypnosis compared to when they are used by individuals in a normal, waking state.
[17] This theory on post-hypnotic amnesia argues that individuals who have been hypnotized actually do have the ability to remember material from their hypnosis sessions.
However, much research on explicit and implicit memory in post-hypnotic amnesia has shown that if they are separate areas, they interact often and in a variety of ways.
Previous fMRI studies indicate that individuals suffering from functional amnesia show reduced frontal lobe activity that could impair working memory and lexical tasks involving one's native language.
[20] The majority of what is understood on the neurological bases of post-hypnotic amnesia stems from an integral study completed by Mendelsohn et al. Two groups of participants viewed a narrative documentary.
After one week participants were hypnotized while placed in an fMRI scanner and initiated into a suggestive post-hypnotic amnesia state where they were told to forget the details of the movie until they received a reversal cue.
These results identify specific circuits within the brain that regulate the suppression of long-term memory retrieval during post-hypnotic suggestion.
It can be used to limit the magnitude of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (vivid memories and dreams), feelings of criminal victimization, the aftermath of natural disasters or the theory of UFO abductions.
[21] The amount of scientific research on the effectiveness of hypnosis as a treatment for different types of pain (e.g. burns, cancer-related) is extensive.
Landolt and Milling (2011) completed an exhaustive literature search that investigated the efficacy of hypnosis on reducing labor and delivery pain after pregnancy, in comparison to alternative interventions.
They found that self-induced hypnosis was consistently more effective than standard medical care, counselling and education classes in relieving pain.
This may be due to ethical barriers of inducing amnesia to individuals who are pregnant as they tend to be classified under "vulnerable" participant criteria.
The use of hypnosis and suggestion for individuals with neurological disorders should be investigated more thoroughly to discern whether this potential treatment is of a generalized nature.
[23] The influence of hypnosis and amnesia has been present in the media for decades, with more television shows and movies involving the phenomenon than ever before.
Some examples of these shows and movies include The Mentalist, Memento, 50 First Dates, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Captain Newman, M.D.
Subjects who were hypnotized were told that the experiment had media-recognition testing, also known as the experiential analysis technique has also been used to breach post-hypnotic amnesia.
The video replay is typically shown before the amnesia during hypnosis is lifted, which, according to the experiential analysis technique, should cause the most inflexible and rigid hypnotic demands to breach.
The first observes that those individuals who may have poorer memory retrieval in general have higher likelihood of post-hypnotic amnesia.
Psychologist A.G. Hammer found that those who were poor at word associations in two successive tests were likely to be more amnesic in hypnosis experiments.
This idea poses the possibility of using hypnosis and suggested post-hypnotic amnesia for coercion, such that the woman may be induced into a state that limits her future recall of any negative experiences had at the hand of the hypnotist.
For example, an interesting study conducted in 1964 involved the use of post-hypnotic amnesia to protect patients from the aftermath of "alien abductions".
Following suggested post-hypnotic amnesia to a couple that had apparently experienced abduction by extraterrestrials, results indicate that the recalled memories may have actually been unconsciously influenced by the nightmares of one of the subjects, leading to more controversy on the matter of abductions and the reliability of suggested post-hypnotic amnesia procedures[21]
