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Presenter: Michael Diamond, PhD

Dreamers, Schemers, Moonbeamers and Redeemers: Psychoanalytic Musings on the Benevolent Allure and Therapeutic Action in Hypnotically-augmented Psychotherapy

This plenary talk addresses the question of how hypnosis, when used in psychotherapy, facilitates curative action. The presenter?s extensive experience with hypnosis, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis orient this presentation towards the unconscious dimensions of the patient-therapist interaction. Consequently, after distinguishing between relief-oriented and evocatively transformative therapeutic aims in the psychotherapeutic use of hypnosis, he will discuss how skillful therapists make use of their own internal mental activities in order both to understand the patient?s psychic structure and subsequently formulate mutative interventions. In order to supplement more traditional ways of bifurcating hypnotic interventions as either direct or indirect hypnosis, the primordial factors that underlie hypnotic interventions will be further distinguished in accordance with their maternal and paternal dimensions. Dreaming, scheming, moonbeaming, and redeeming are figurative terms that help address the powerful unconscious factors in play for both patient and therapist within the benevolent allure of proficient and ethical clinical hypnosis.