Date of Award

8-1982

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Counseling and Personnel

First Advisor

Dr. William A. Carlson

Second Advisor

Dr. Mal Robertson

Third Advisor

Dr. Bob Oswald

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Michael Stoline

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to compare Rorschach results of hypnotically age regressed subjects with three groups of controls: deeply hypnotized, hypnotizable simulators, and minimally susceptible simulators. The study tested the null hypothesis that hypnotically age regressed subjects differ significantly from subjects in deep hypnosis, hypnotizable simulators, and minimally susceptible simulators on Rorschach scores when scored by the Exner Comprehensive System. A second null hypothesis was that there would be no difference between the age regressed subjects and the three control groups in correspondence to the Exner age norms.

The 24 volunteer subjects were screened for psychological problems, then administered the Stanford Hypnotic Clinical Scale-Adult and based on their score assigned to the experimental or one of three control groups. Rorschach testing was counterbalanced for the six subjects in each group; three taking a preexperimental waking Rorschach, and three a postexperimental test. The subjects in the age regression and deep hypnosis groups then practiced attaining their respective hypnotic states in three practice sessions. All subjects were administered a Rorschach in their respective experimental condition. The Rorschachs were given by a second experimenter, blind to the experiment. The Rorschachs were scored by the experimenter and another experimenter, also blind to the experiment; differences in scoring were arbitrated.

An Analysis of Variance for change scores based on differences between waking and respective experimental condition Rorschach score means for the four groups yielded only change differences. The hypothesis that there would be no differences between the groups in correspondence to children's age norms could not be rejected. It was tested by using Rorschach variables where the children mean differed by two standard deviations from the adult mean.

It was concluded that the experiment did not demonstrate a difference between age regressed, deeply hypnotized, hypnotizable simulator, and minimally susceptible simulator groups on Rorschach variables. However, the small number of subjects in each group provided a low level of statistical power for detecting possible significant differences.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

Download

Share

COinS