title: Enhancing the hospital treatment of dissociative disorder patients by developing nursing expertise in the application of hypnotic techniques without formal trance induction.
abstract: Many symptoms suffered by dissociative disorder patients are unresponsive or incompletely responsive to medications. This poses a unique challenge to the staff of specialized dissociative disorder units, in which many such patients who require hospital care suffer serious distress that may not respond predictably to the pharmacological interventions that are available. However, the majority of their symptoms are dissociative in nature, and dissociative disorder patients generally are quite hypnotizable. Anticipating the need for nonpsychopharmacological interventions that we could use in the absence of the treating psychiatrist, we taught the unit's nursing and social work staff to rely on the inherent trance-proneness of these patients to utilize hypnotic techniques without the formal induction of hypnosis. Their implementation facilitated crisis resolution, led to a greater sense of safety on the part of the patients, enhanced the staff's sense of mastery, and minimized the need for emergency sedation and restraints.
authors.affiliation: Dissociative Disorders Program, Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia 19139.
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Kluft
mesh_terms: D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D009105:Dissociative Identity Disorder / Q000628:therapy; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000639:trends; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis / Q000379:methods; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000193:education*; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000193:education