Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/abduct/abduc042.txt

Text File | 1993-07-25 | 14KB | 272 lines

                          Abduction Digest, Number 11

                           Thursday, April 25th 1991

Today's Topics:

                                 Rima Laibow (4)
                            Rima Laibow (Conclusion)
                                    Lebow.txt

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From: [e-mail] (sm)
Subject: Rima Laibow (4)
Date: 20 Apr 91 07:44:00 GMT

<<<<Continued from previous message>>>>

        If the abduction material is indeed archetypal or fantasy generated in
nature, this is a new class of archetypes.  These archetypes demand rather
exact representation and mythic presentation since the activities and behavior
of the aliens is rather invariant within a narrow latitude regardless of the
other dream and fantasy themes of the patient.

        3. ABDUCTION SCENARIOS AND HYPNOSIS.    Members of both the lay and
professional communities frequently assume that material referring to UFO
abduction scenarios is retrieved under hypnosis.  Since it is generally
believed that people under hypnosis are open to the implantation of
suggestions through the overt or covert influence of the hypnotist it is
concluded that this material reproduces the hypnotists' expectations or
interests.  It is further concluded that since the hypnotist "put it there"
the abduction could not be accounted for as material which emerges solely from
the patient's end of dyad.

Thus, the abduction scenarios are commonly dismissed as merely representing
the production of desired material by compliant subjects. The abductees strong
sense of personal conviction that this really happened to him during the
session itself and upon recall of the session is similarly dismissed as an
artifact of the process by which the fantasies were generated.

        Several compelling factors mitigate against the facile dismissal of
data in this way.  Firstly, about 20% of these highly concordant abduction
scenarios are available spontaneously at the level of conscious awareness
prior to hypnosis.  (13,14)  These accounts may be enhanced or subjected to
further elaboration through the use of hypnosis or other recall enhancement
techniques, but in a significant number of people producing abduction
scenarios the recall is initially produced without recourse to such
techniques.  If their stories were substantially different from the concordant
abduction scenarios produced under regressive hypnosis, a different phenomenon
would be taking place.

       However, given the perplexing clinical presentation of similar stories
from dissimilar people who are uninformed about one another's experience, this
presents another highly interesting area of discrepancy.

        Hopkins has classified patterns of abduction recall into five
categories:

        Type 1.  patients consciously recall parts of the full abduction
scenario without hypnotic or other techniques designed to aid recall. The
emergence of this material may be delayed.

        Type 2.  patients recall the UFO sighting, surrounding circumstances
and/or aliens, but do not recall the abduction itself. Only a perceived gap in
time indicates any anomalous occurrence.

        Type 3.  patients recall a UFO and/or hominids but nothing else.
There is no sense of time lapse or dislocation.

        Type 4.  patients recall only a time lapse or dislocation.  No UFO
abduction scenario is recalled without the use of specific retrieval
techniques.

        Type 5.  patients recall noting relating to UFO or abduction
scenarios.  Instead they experience discrepant emotions ranging from uneasy
suspicions that "something happened to me" to intense, ego-dystonic fears of
specific locations, conditions or actions.  They may also exhibit unexplained
physical wounds and/or recurring dreams of abduction scenario content which
are not fixed in their experience as to place and time. (15)

        Examination of the transcripts of hypnotic sessions which yield
abduction material reveals that although subjects are sufficiently
suggestible to enter the trance state as directed by the therapist, they
resist having material "injected" into their account.  They customarily
refuse to be "lead" or distracted by the therapist's attempts to change
either the focus or content of their report.  The subject characteristically
insists upon correcting errors or distortions suggested or implied by the
hypnotist during the session.  Hence it is difficult to account for the
similarities and concordances of these scenarios through the mechanism of
suggestibility when these subjects so steadfastly refuse to be lead by
hypnotists.

        In fact, it is even more striking that while these patients feel the
material which they are producing both in and out of hypnosis as
experientially "real", nonetheless they frequently seek to discount or
explain away this bizarre and frightening material.  This remains true even
though sharing it regularly results in a significant remission of anxiety-
related symptoms and discomfort.  These abduction scenarios are so ego-alien
that they have frequently not shared the material with anyone at all or with
only a highly select group of trusted intimates. In the vast preponderance of
cases patients are reluctant to allow themselves to be publicly identified as
having had these experiences since the perceive that the abduction scenario is
so highly anomalous that they expect to experience ridicule and repudiation if
they become associated with it publicly.  It therefore functions like a guilty
secret in the way that rape has (and, unfortunately still does in some cases).

<Concluded in next message..>

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From: [e-mail] (sm)
Subject: Rima Laibow (Conclusion)
Date: 20 Apr 91 07:45:00 GMT

<<<<<Continued from previous message>>>>>

        After the material is produced and explored, these subjects often
experience a marked degree of relief.  This is true with reference both to
previously identified symptomatic behaviors and other anxiety manifestations
not noted on initial assessment.  These other symptoms may remit after
enhanced recall of the scenario and its details takes place.  It is
interesting to note that while the scenarios may contain a good deal of highly
traumatic material specifically related to reproductive functioning, these
episodes are nearly uniformly free of subjective erotic charge when either the
manifest or latent contents are examined.

        4.  POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) IN THE ABSENCE OF
EXTERNAL TRAUMA:        PTSD was first described in the content of battle
fatigue (16).  Although it may present in a wide variety of clinical guises
(17) PTSD is currently understood as a disorder which occurs in the context of
intolerable externally induced trauma which floods the victim with anxiety
and/or depression when his overwhelmed and paralyzed ego defenses prove
inadequate to the task of organizing unbearably stressful events.  In the
service of the patient's urgent attempt to still the tides of disorganizing
anxiety, fear or guilt<18> which accompany the emergence of cognitive, sensory
or emotional recall of these traumatic events, the trauma itself may be
either partly or completely unavailable to conscious recall. <19>...Both
physical and psychological responses to the trauma are profound and pervasive.
PTSD follows overwhelming real-life trauma and is not known to present as a
sequel to internally generated fantasy states.<20>

        This fourth area of discrepancy between predicted and observed data is
perhaps the most striking and challenging. Patients who produce alien
abduction material in the absence of psycopathology severe enough to account
for it often show the clinical picture of PTSD. This is remarkable when one
considers that it is possible that no traumatic event occured except that
rooted only in fantasy.  These trauma are, in large measure, split off, denied
and repressed as they are in other occurrences of PTSD.

        As discussed above, these scenarios frequently appear in individuals
who are otherwise free of any indication of significant emotional and
psychological instability or pre-existing severe psycopathology. On careful
clinical assessment, these memories do not appear to fill the intrapsychic
niches usually occupied by psychotic or psycho-neurotic formulations. The
abduction scenarios do not encapsulate or ward off unacceptable impulses, they
do not define <or defend against> split off affects, they are not used either
to stabilize or to divert current or archaic patterns of behavior nor do they
provide secondary gain or manipulative control for the individual.

        Instead, this material, experienced by the patient as unwelcome and
totally ego-dystonic, seems quite consistently to be woven into the fabric of
the patient's internal life only in terms of his reactive response to the
stress inherent in these experiences and the contents of the repressed
material related to the stressful memories.  But the extent of this secondary
response can be extensive.  It should be noted that PTSD has not previously
been thought to occur following trauma which has been generated solely by
internally states.  If abduction scenarios are in fact fantasies, then our
understanding of PTSD need to be suitably broadened to account for this
heretofore unexpected correlation.

        In addition, there are significant clinical implications to the
finding of abduction scenario material in a patient who shows PTSD but is
otherwise free of significant psychopathology.  Since abduction scenario
material presents several crucial areas of anomaly and discrepancy between
what is known and that which is observed.  It is very important for the
therapist to refrain from the comfortable (for the therapist, at least)
description of psychotic functioning to the patient who produces this material
until such disturbance is, in fact, demonstrated and corroborated by the
presence of other signs beside the UFO-related material.  It is imperative for
the therapist to adopt a non-judgemental stance.  He can attend to the
distress of the patient without attempting to confirm or deny possibilities
which are outside the specific area of his expertise.  The clinician should
adopt as his therapeutic priority the alleviation of the PTSD symptomology
through the use of appropriate and acceptable methods specific to the
treatment of PTSD.  In addition, the therapist must remember that while he may
have strong convictions pro or con the abduction actually having occurred, it
is not within either his capability or expertise to make such a judgement with
total certainty.  Furthermore, as the clinical psychologist who evaluated the
nine abductees pointed out in her addendum, the sophistication of the
psychotherapies has not advanced to the point at which this determination can
be made on the basis of currently available information (21), although the
treatment of post traumatic symptomology is currently understood.  Hence, it
is important for the therapist to retain the same non-judgemental and helpful
stance necessary to the successful treatment of any other traumatic insult.
When a therapist labels material as either unacceptable or insane, the
burden of the patient is increased.  If the therapist is reacting out of
prejudices which reflect his own closely-held beliefs rather than his
complete certainty, he unfairly increases the distress of the patient.

        SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS:        Although it has long been the
"common wisdom" of both the professional and lay communities that anyone
claiming to be the victim of abduction by UFO occupants must be seriously
disturbed, thoroughly deluded or a liar, careful examination of both the
reports and their reports calls this assumption into question. Clinical and
psychometric investigation of abductees reveals four areas of discrepancy
between the expected data and the observable phenomena and suggests further
investigation.  These discrepant areas are:

        1. ABSENCE OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY   An unexpected absence of severe
psychopathology coupled with the high level of functioning found in many
abductees is a perplexing and surprising finding. Psychometric evaluation
of nine abductees revealed a notable heterogeneity of psychological and
psychometric characteristics.  The major area of homogeneity was in the
absence of significant psychopathology.  Rather than consulting a subset
of the severely disturbed and psychotic population, there is clinical
evidence that at least some abductees are high functioning, healthy

END
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From: [e-mail] (Clark Matthews)
Subject: Lebow.txt
Date: 21 Apr 91 08:57:00 GMT


Mike, at first reading, Lebow.txt seems indicate an approach to
studying abductees that is far from "amateurish".  It
*may* just be putting some respectable psychiatric gloss on a
less-than-systematic approach to the problem, but it does seem
pretty thorough.

I'll study it more.

Best,
  Clark


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