Hypnosis: A Case Study

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Sigmund Freud was interested into understanding the cause of nightmares so he immediately jumped into using hypnosis on his patients. Hypnosis is a state of consciousness where a person loses the ability of self-control but is responsible to following directions (Freud & Bonaparte, 1954). This technique was often questioned by others because it repressed traumatic memories that may have triggered people's bad dreams and make them want to escape a reality which they are not actually in. Freud suspected that the unconscious forces were at play since patients consciously wanted to change which are forces of which the individual is unaware. He called this phenomenon ‘resistance’ (1954). He also concluded that most memories are not available in consciousness which is why when you wake up, you immediately forget your dream because they are repressed by unconscious forces (1954). Hypnosis was used often by Freud to aid psychotherapy in people analyzing their dreams and explore painful feelings and dreams which actually wasn’t suited with everyone so he …show more content…
Free association is when a patient verbalizes whatever comes to mind in that exact moment (Freud & Bonaparte, 1954). Freud mentioned that this will eventually lead to thoughts, feelings, and emotions associated with unconscious conflict (1954). The analyst is expected to help the patient interpret content to free association and reflect them back to the client (Freud & Bonaparte, 1954). Both free association and dream analysis are techniques used to discover a person’s unconscious urges. Freud was convinced that dreams represented unsatisfied wishes that may be unacceptable to the conscious mind and society (1954). Uncovering the truth about dream analysis and unconscious feelings while we sleep is yet to be discovered, but the focus of it in the 1900s made a significant pathway for future