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Biomedical subjects

H H Watkins

Publications and source records attributed to H H Watkins.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1993

Ego-state therapy: an overview.

Ego-state therapy is a psychodynamic approach in which techniques of group and family therapy are employed to resolve conflicts between the various "ego states" that constitute a "family of self" within a single individual. Although covert ego states do not normally become overt except in true multiple personality, they are hypnotically activated and made accessible for contact and communication with the therapist. Any of the behavioral, cognitive, analytic, or humanistic techniques may then be employed in a kind of internal diplomacy. Some 20 years experience with this approach has demonstrated that complex psychodynamic problems can often be resolved in a relatively short time compared to more traditional analytic therapies.

Dissociative Disorders↗
PubMed1993

Accessing the relevant areas of maladaptive personality functioning.

Personality functions in different dimensions: perceptual, cognitive, and affective (emotional). It can be manifested in different areas--overt (conscious), covert (unconscious), or in some relative degree of each. Personality segments can operate independently of one another, as in multiple personalities or with varying degrees of mutual dependence and intercommunication, as in normal "ego states." Therapeutic interventions will be more efficient if focused within the problem dimension, area, or segment. The essence of Alexander and French's "corrective emotional experience" was a restructuring of the patient through release and interpretation within the "emotional" sphere. When their concept is extended to other dimensions of personality functions, such as behavioral, perceptual, and cognitive, it allows interventions to be more specifically focused in the regions that are most relevant. In this paper we present specific techniques using this extended concept. Rapid and significant change followed in the patient so treated.

Ego↗
PubMed1990

Dissociation and displacement: where goes the "ouch?".

Hypnosis is widely used to relieve pain. Current theory emphasizes its dissociative features. Multiple personality patients can eliminate pain in the primary personality by displacing it into underlying alters. The Hilgards demonstrated that normal hypnotized subjects can similarly dissociate pain into a covert cognitive structural system which they called the "hidden observer." The Watkins discovered that "hidden observers" appeared to be the same phenomenon as "ego states." "Ego-state theory" assumes that human personality develops through integration and differentiation. At one end of the continuum, "differentiation" is adaptive. Ego states possess relatively permeable boundaries as in normal moods. At the other end ego-state boundaries become less permeable. Normal "differentiation" becomes maladaptive "dissociation" and multiple personalities may be created. In the intermediate range of the differentiation/dissociation continuum, "covert" ego states can be found in many normal subjects who volunteer for hypnotic laboratory experiments. Normal individuals, like multiple personalities and "hidden observer" subjects, can displace (dissociate) pain into "covert" ego states. The pain is not eliminated. This suggests that when we remove pain by hypnosis we may not be getting away "scot-free."

Dissociative Disorders↗
PubMed1984

Hazards to the therapist in the treatment of multiple personalities.

It is vitally important that the therapist be cognizant of the dangers inherent in treating some patients with multiple personality disorder. The authors offer sound, detailed advice on every facet of the clinician's interaction with the patient--from keeping on good terms with each ego state to guarding against physical violence and sexual seduction.

Dangerous Behavior↗