Hypnosis in the Treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder and Allied States: An Overview and Case Study

Hypnosis played a prominent role in the first successful treatment of the condition now known as dissociative identity disorder (DID) by Antoine Despine in the 1830s, and continues to be employed in its treatment in the twenty-first century. Despite its venerable history as a therapeutic modality for this condition, controversy has often compromised the acceptance of hypnosis by the healing professions. In this article, it will be argued that given the nature of hypnosis and that hypnotizability, a genetically mediated capacity, is high in dissociative disorder populations, it is inevitable that hypnosis will play a role in the treatment of DID patients, whether this is acknowledged or not. Thereafter, the roles hypnotically facilitated techniques might play will be reviewed, and the application of several of these techniques in the treatment of a DID patient will be illustrated.