Evening star., 1940-09-05
RELIEVING a Period
OF Insanity Restores
Woman S Memory /.
Scientists Hear Strunqe
Stories Of Treatment
For Mental illnesses
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Stan Correspondent.

STATE COLLEGE. Pa, Sept. s.
The story of her voluntary return for
"a hours into the pit of madness to
recover three months lost memory
was told to the American Psyche
logical Association here today by a
woman, once insane.
She is a professional psychologist,
and is now on the staff Of a large
institution. A few years before, she
said, she suffered a psychosis, in
which there were three months of
extreme violence. She said she re-
covered, but had no recollection of
what had happened.
From nurses. physicians and hos
pltal records she got as much infor-
nation as possible. This was neager.
When she taxed her own memory it
came to a gulf of terrible noise and
confusion she could not penetrate.
She then asked permission to
spend a day and night in the ward
where she had been confined.
During this time she regained an
almost complete memory of the
three-month period. Objects which
had stirred different emotions dur
ing her violent stages once more
stirred the same emotions. and she
could recall what she had done in
response to them
Old Delusions Return.
There was door which had been
an object of terror. She no longer
experienced this terror, but remem-
bered it, and this in turn caused her
to recall how she had struggled with
nurses who tried to take her through
it. The nurses, who had forgotten
the incident, recalled it when she
described it to them. The ward
itself became ships cabin and she
had diffculty not returning to the
old delusion. The ceiling became
map of New York.
Memories she thus conjured, she
said, were chiefly subjective men,
ories Of feelings which nobody but
herself could have known and hence
there was no way to check on them.
She believes they were correct,
however, because when the men,
cries of feelings in turn brought
up memories of events which could
have been observed by others these
turned out, actually, to have hap
pened.
Strange tricks of memory follow
ing hypnosis were related to the
psychologists by DR.. Milton H
Erickson, psychiatrist Of Eloise,
Mich. 1t has been generally as
sumed, he said, that person for
gets nearly everything that has
happened while he is hypnotized,
especially if he has been ordered to
forget. Actually this may not be
true, he said, and the phenomenon
is extremely complex.
Hypnotic Tricks Related.
He described one patient who,
shortly after the hypnosis, described
correctly in great detail everything
that had happened. Unknown to
the man, a stenographic report was
taken while he was talking and
about an hour later he was asked
to correct it. He assumed that it
was a manuscript given him to
proofread. He became so interested
In it, as the account of the expert
ence of another person, that he for
got to make any corrections. He
had no recognition that it was an
account of his own conversation a
short time before.
Another subject of DR.. Erickson's
experiments was a nurse who, time
after time, had shown complete for
getfulness of what had happened
while she was hypnotized. One
morning she told about a dream
which was a perfect reproduction
of her hypnotic experience three
days before, but she stoutly main
tanned that no incident in the dream
ever had happened to her.
The chief incident in another
hypnotic experience was that man
was asked to smoke a cigarette.
Afterward he could not remember
the event. BY persistent question:
ing it was brought back to his men,
ory. An hour later he had forgot
ten it again. Then it was recalled
again and the man insisted he had
never forgotten. He had forgotten
that he had forgotten. In later
tests he forgot that he had forgot
ten that he had forgotten.
Metrozo1 tho drr,U ,1cad with in =.