Citation

Lesmana CB, Suryani LK, Jensen GD, Tiliopoulos N. Am. J. Clin. Hypn. 2009; 52(1): 23-34.

Affiliation

University of Sydney, School of Psychology Brennan MacCallum Building (A18), Room 448 Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Society of Clinical Hypnosis)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

19678557

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a spiritual-hypnosis assisted therapy (SHAT) for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children. All children, age 6-12 years (N=226; 52.7% females), who experienced the terrorist bomb blasts in Bali in 2002, and subsequently were diagnosed with PTSD were studied, through a longitudinal, quasi-experimental (pre-post test), single-blind, randomized control design. Of them, 48 received group SHAT (treatment group), and 178 did not receive any therapy (control group). Statistically significant results showed that SHAT produced a 77.1% improvement rate, at a two-year follow up, compared to 24% in the control group, while at the same time, the mean PTSD symptom score differences were significantly lower in the former group. We conclude that the method of spiritual-hypnosis is highly effective, economic, and easily implemented, and has a potential for therapy of PTSD in other cultures or other catastrophic life-threatening events.

Language: en