Kavanaugh accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford co-authored a study published in May of 2008 that cites hypnosis as a way to retrieve memories from traumatized patients.
Ford, a California professor, has become the central figure in the circus-like confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Ford claims Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her sometime in the 1980s in suburban Maryland, though she is unsure exactly where or when it happened, and has repeatedly changed the details of her story. Everyone she has named as being at the “gathering” where the assault allegedly happened has denied that the “gathering” ever took place, and this includes Ford’s close friend Leland Ingham Keyser.
The academic study, entitled “Meditation with yoga, group therapy with hypnosis, and psychoeducation for long‐term depressed mood: a randomized pilot trial” and published by the Journal of Clinical Psychology, discusses “the therapeutic use of hypnosis to ‘assist in the retrieval of important memories’ and to ‘create artificial situations’ to assist in treatment,” reports The Federalist’s Sean Davis.
Davis continues, “Ford’s paper cited a controversial 1964 paper on the use of hypnosis to treat alcoholics and claimed that ‘hypnosis could be used to improve rapport in the therapeutic relationship, assist in the retrieval of important memories, and create artificial situations that would permit the client to express ego-dystonic emotions in a safe manner.'”
The study references a text that delves into “self-hypnosis” as a way to retrieve repressed memories, which the authors say can lead to “memory contamination,” Davis reports:
The 2004 text by Spiegel and Spiegel referenced by Ford and her fellow researchers discusses in detail the use of hypnotism, and even self-hypnotism, to recover memories from traumatic episodes.
“Remember that all hypnosis is really self-hypnosis,” the authors of the referenced 2004 text on hypnotism wrote. “[T]herefore, therapists are only tapping into their patients’ natural ability to enter trance state.”
The authors noted that hypnosis as a means of recovering traumatic memories could also lead to the “contamination” of those memories.
“Patients are highly suggestible and easily subject to memory contamination,” they noted.
Ford claims she told a therapist about the alleged sexual assault during a session in 2012 where she was accompanied by her husband, though she has admitted that Kavanaugh was never named. She also said on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she was unsure if she actually ever showed these therapist’s notes to The Washington Post or if she merely summarized what the notes allegedly said.
The therapist’s notes have still yet to be made public.
It remains unclear if Ford has ever used hypnosis or self-hypnosis to “retrieve” memories concerning Judge Kavanaugh.
To view the study, click here.
H/T The Federalist