title: Incorporating hypnosis into the psychotherapy of patients with multiple personality disorder.
abstract: Psychotherapeutic treatment of persons with multiple personality disorder frequently includes judicious use of hypnosis. The author outlines widely accepted essential features of this form of treatment: developing self-soothing techniques, "mapping" the system of alternate personalities, facilitating communication between alters and with the therapist, managing abreaction, and--when possible and appropriate--aiding the process of fusion. The author shows how dissociative processes that originally were used for sheer psychic survival can be drawn on to improve psychological health.
authors.affiliation: Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry and Mental Health Sciences, Topeka, KS.
authors.forename: W H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D004213:Dissociative Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D009105:Dissociative Identity Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006990:Hypnosis; D008297:Male; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011613:Psychotherapy