Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/misc1/misc074.txt

Internet Message Format | 1995-10-20 | 40KB

From [e-mail] Wed Apr 10 15:14:43 1991
From: [e-mail] (Don Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.conspiracy
Subject: INFO: Clinical Analysis of UFO Abductions
Keywords: PTSD
Date: 10 Apr 91 02:02:45 GMT
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL

What follows is a report given on the Psychiatry and evaluation of
UFO abducted victims by RIMA E. LAIBOW, M.D. This report is not
considered "light" reading.

As usual, my *disclaimer* will be to read and make up your own mind :-)

------ Begin Included Text --------------------------------------------

                             RIMA E. LAIBOW, M.D.
                          Child and Adult Psychiatry

                                             Cerridwen
                                     13 Summit Terrace
                                Dobbs' Ferry, NY 10522
                                         [phone]

     CLINICAL DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN EXPECTED AND OBSERVED DATA IN PATIENTS
             REPORTING UFO ABDUCTIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR TREATMENT

  ABSTRACT:  IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THIS PAPER MAKES NO ATTEMPT TO ASSIGN OR
WITHHOLD EXTERNAL VALIDITY RELATIVE TO UFO ABDUCTION SCENARIOS.

        Patients who believe themselves to be UFO abductees are a
heterogeneous group widely dispersed along demographic and cultural lines.
Careful examination of these patients and their abduction reports presents
four areas of significant discrepancy between expected and observed data.

        Implications for the treatment of patients presenting UFO abduction
scenarios are discussed.

        INTRODUCTION

        If a patient were to confide to a therapist that he had been abducted
by aliens who took him aboard a UFO and performed a series of medical
procedures and examinations on him it is not likely that the patient would
find either a receptive ear or a respectful and non-judgemental response from
the therapist.  The material presented would lie so far outside the confines
of our personal and cultural belief system that it would seem intolerably
anomalous to most of us.  We would probably dismiss or repudiate it using a
few comfortable and familiar assumptions which hold so much obvious wisdom
that they do not require specific examination.

        When events which are too anomalous to allow their incorporation
into our world schema are presented to us, we are likely to dismiss them
by using assumptions based in out currently operative world view.  This
effectively precludes the open evaluation of the anomaly.  Hence, the
"expressible" response of most clinical and lay individuals upon hearing a UFO
abduction account would be an immediate dismissal of even the possibility that
such an episode might occur.  Close upon the heels of that determination the
rapid and complete pathologization of the person offering such an account
would follow.  Dream states, suggestibility, poor reality testing, outright
dissembling or frank psychosis are customarily offered and accepted as evident
and reasonable organizing models by which the production of this material may
be understood. These are typical maneuvers by which the presentation of
information which challenges schematic assumptions is dismissed or screened
out before the assumptions can be adequately tested for predictive reliability
and accuracy.  Such testing is highly desirable, however, because it offers
us the opportunity to apply the scientific method to our current level of
theorital sophistication and thereby refine our understanding of reality
further still. Of course, this process is severely impeded when the new data
is excluded from consideration strictly because it is too anomalous for
assessment.

        Westrum has offered a model by which events become "hidden" and
therefore remain anomalous to the perception of society in a circular
process: the hidden event is disbelieved and its disbelief helps to keep it
hidden.  Citing the lengthy period during which battered children and their
battering parents remained hidden, Westrum states:

                "An event is hidden if its occurrence is so implausible
                that those who observe it hesitate to report it because
                they do not expect to be believed.  The implausibility
                may cause the observer to doubt his own perceptions,
                leading to the event's denial or mis identification.
                Should the observer nonetheless make a report, he/she
                can expect to be treated with incredulity or even
                ridicule.  Since the existence of a hidden event is
                contrary to what science, society, and perhaps even
                the observer believes, the event remains hidden because
                of strong social forces which interfere with
                reporting.  The actual degree of underreporting is
                sometimes difficult to believe, a skepticism which
                itself acts as a deterrent to taking seriously
                those reports which do surface." (1)

        But for the clinician who spends a moment before reaching these
"obvious" and "intuitive" conclusions, several fascinating and potentially
productive questions present themselves.  If we refrain for a short period
>from dismissing this material out-of-hand, we find that there are at least
four areas of puzzling and important discrepancy between our intuitive sense
of order and the data presented by the patient.  These discrepancies force us
to re-examine our assumptions in light of a demonstrated failure of the theory
to account for the observed phenomena.  This process, while taxing and
challenging, is nonetheless, the way we systemize our understanding of human
health and pathology.  Noting the previously un-noted and using it to refine
our conceptual framework leads to better prediction and therefore to better
treatment.

        It is not the purpose of this paper to ascribe relative reality to the
experience of abduction reported by some patients. Rather, precisely because
it lies outside the realm of clinical expertise to assess with certainty
whether these events actually occurred or if they are mere fantasy, it is
mandatory for the clinician to examine the impact of these experiences,
whatever their source, upon the patient. This must be done in a clear sighted
and open-minded fashion so that the impact of the experiences may be dealt
with rather than made into hidden events.

        AREAS OF DISCREPANCY

        1. ABSENCE OF MAJOR PSYCHOPATHOLOGY:    It is intuitively
seductive (and perhaps comfortable) for us to assume that psychotic-level
functioning will necessarily be present in a person claiming to be a UFO
abductee.  If this level of distortion and delusion is present, a patient
would be expected to demonstrate some other evidence of reality distortion.
Pathology of this magnitude would not be predicted to be present in a well
integrated, mature and non-psychotic individual.  Instead, we would expect
clinical and psychometric tools to reveal serious problems in numerous areas
both inter- and interpersonally.  It would be highly surprising if otherwise
well-functioning persons were to demonstrate a single area of floridly
psychotic distortion.  Further, if this single idea fix were totally
circumscribed, non-invasive and discrete, that in itself would be highly
anomalous.  Well-developed, fixed delusional states with numerous
elaborated and sequential components are not seen in otherwise healthy
individuals.  Prominent evidence of deep dysfunction would be expected to
pervade many areas of the patient's life.  One would predict that if the
abduction experience were the product of delusional or other psychotic states,
it would be possible to detect such evidence through the clinical and
psychometric tools available to us.

        This points to the first important discrepancy:  individuals
claiming alien abduction frequently show no evidence of past or present
psychosis, delusional thinking, reality-testing deficits, hallucinations or
other significant psychopathology despite extensive clinical evaluation.
Instead, there is a conspicuous absence of psychopathology of the magnitude
necessary to account for the production of floridly delusional and presumably
psychotic material.(2)

        In order to test this startling and anomalous information, a group of
subjects who believe they have been abducted by aliens (9, 5 male, 4 female)
were asked to participate in a psychometric evaluation. An experienced
clinical psychologist carried out an investigation using projection tests
(Rorschach, TAT, Draw a Person and the MMPI) and the Wechler Adult
Intelligence Scale.  The examining clinician was told "the subjects were being
evaluated to determine similarities and differences in personality structure,
as well as psychological strengths and weaknesses".  All of the subjects
actively refrained from sharing UFO-related experiences with the examiner and
she was unaware of this theme in their lives.

        The investigator found that commonalties were not strongly present and
that:
                "while the subjects are quite heterogeneous in their
                personality styles, there is a modicum of homogeneity
                in several respects: (1) relatively high intelligence
                with concomitant richness of inner life; (2) relative
                weakness in the sense of identity, especially sexual
                identity; (3) concomitant vulnerability in the inter-
                personal realm; (4) a certain orientation towards
                alertness which is manifest alternately in a certain
                perceptual sophistication and awareness or in inter-
                personal hyper-vigilance and caution.... Perhaps the
                most obvious and prominent impression left by the
                nine subjects is the range of personality styles
                the present.... There is little to unite them as a
                group from the standpoint of the overt manifestations
                of their personalities.... They [are] very distinctive
                unusual and interesting subjects. [But] "Along with
                above average intelligence, richness in mental life,
                and indications of narcissistic identity disturbance,
                the nine subjects also share some degree of impair-
                ment in personal relationships.  For [some] subjects,
                problems in intimacy are manifest more in great
                sensitivity to injury and loss than in lack of
                intimacy and relatedness.  [Ad] "...The last salient
                dimension of impairment in the interpersonal realm
                relates to a certain mildly paranoid and disturbing
                streak in many of the subjects, which renders them
                very wary and cautious about involving themselves
                with others.  It is significant that all but one of
                the subjects had modest elevations on the MMPI paranoia
                scale relative to their other scores.  Such modest
                elevations mean that we are not dealing with blatant
                paranoid symptomology but rather over-sensitivity,
                defensiveness and fear of criticism and susceptibility
                to feeling pressured.  To summarize, while this is a
                heterogeneous group in terms of overt personality style,
                it can be said that most of its members share being
                rather unusual and very interesting.  They also share
                brighter than average intelligence and a certain rich-
                ness of inner life that can operate favorably in terms
                of creativity or disadvantageously to the extent that
                it can be overwhelming.  Shared underlying emotional
                factors include a degree of identity disturbance, some
                deficits in the interpersonal sphere, and generally
                mild paranoia phenomena (hypersensitivity, wariness,
                etc.)" (3)

        Her findings demonstrate a uniform lack of the significant
psychopathology which would be necessary to account for these experiences if
abduction experiences do represent the psychotic or delusional states
predicted by current theory.

        When the examiner was informed of the true reason for the selection of
the subjects for this evaluation (i.e., their shared belief that they had been
exposed to alien abductions), she wrote an addendum to the original report re-
examining the findings of the testing in the light of the new data.  In it she
states:
                "The first and most critical question is whether our
                subjects' reported experiences could be accounted
                for strictly on the basis of psychopathy, i.e., mental
                disorder.  The answer is a firm no.  In broad terms,
                if the reported abductions were confabulated fantasy
                productions, based on what we know about psychological
                disorders, they could only have come from pathological
                liars, paranoid schizophrenics, and severely disturbed
                and extraordinarily rare hysteroid characters subject
                to fugue states and/or multiple personality shifts...
                It is important to note that not one of the subjects,
                based on test data, falls into any of these categories.
                Therefore, while testing can do nothing to prove the
                veracity of the UFO abduction reports, one can conclude
                that the test findings are not inconsistent with the
                possibility that reported UFO abductions have, in fact,
                occurred.  In other words, there is no apparent
                psychological explanation for their reports." (4)

        2. CONCORDANCE OF REPORTED DATA:        The second point of
intriguing discrepancy follows from this surprising absence of evidence
of a common thread of severe and reality-distorting psychopathology to
account for the patient's bizarre assertions.  They claim that they have
been abducted, sometimes repeatedly over nearly the whole course of their
lives, by aliens who have communicated with them and carried out procedures
much like medical examinations.  Persons reporting these experiences are seen
to be psycho-dynamically varied.  They are also demographically varied.
Reports of this basic scenario, numbering in the hundreds, have now been
recorded.  Even though the reporters range from individuals as diverse as a
mestizo Brazilian farmer(5),an American corporate lawyer (6), and a Mid-
Western minister(7), there is a perplexing and intriguing concordance of
features in these reports.  Certain details of the scenarios repeat themselves
with disturbing regularity no matter what the educational, national, social,
experiential or other demographic characteristics of the reporter.  In the
production of dreams, reveries, poetry, fantasies and psychotic states, while
the general themes of concern may be identified easily between individuals,
the specific symbolization, concretion, abstraction and representation of
those themes is relatively indiosyncratic for each individual.  This of course
necessitates careful empathic and attentive listening on the clinician's part
to gather both the general flavor and specific meaning of the elements of the
fantasy state.  This careful listening often means that a personal symbolic
representational system can be unraveled and its contents can be rendered less
mysterious to the patient.  In the abduction scenarios however, both specific
details and themes repeat themselves with surprising regularity:  In general,
the appearance and modus operandi of the aliens, their effect and procedures,
their tools and interests, their crafts and physical features all tally from
report to report with a high rate of concordance. (8,9,10)  This intriguing
fact seems impervious to the socio-economic, educational, national, or
cultural background of the abductee.  Similarly, whether the individual has
had previous contact with the literature of abduction seems to make little
difference in this vein since the reports of individuals who can be shown to
have had no exposure to abduction literature also contains these common
features.  Skilled practitioners and investigators report in these cases that
they are convinced that each of these subjects was being wholly truthful in
his/her report.

        The concordance of both content and event in these reports makes
them unlike any other fantasy-generated material with which I am familiar.
Indeed, investigators like Hopkins and others claim they have intentionally
withheld dissemination of certain important, frequently reported aspects of
the abduction scenarios in order to provide a "check" on the material being
presented to them by individuals who may have had access to this literature
since abductees may have been influenced at either the conscious or the
unconscious level by it.  In these cases as well, the features which have
previously been published as well as those withheld are both produced by the
abductee (11).  In instances in which the patient has read some of the
abductee literature, this previously withheld material may be offered to the
investigator with a sense of personal invalidation, apology and embarrassment.
He often expresses concern that this information is less likely to be
believed than the other material with which he is already familiar. (12)

        Jung and others have written widely about the use of archetypes
and the collective awareness of themes and images which are asserted to
present themselves in a world-wide and multi-personal way.  The amount of
individual variation and creative latitude demonstrated within the closed
system of archetypes and collected creativity is vast.  Those who pose such
universals detect their presence in the complex and highly idiosyncratic
presentations and guises which they are given by the unconscious mind of the
patient and the artist.  This disguise is idiosyncratic, they hold, precisely
because a set of available images is being used to work and rework the
personal realities of the individual against the background of the collective.
But the abductee does not seem to be involved in the reworking of personal
mythologies against the canvas of the race's mythology.  The details and
contents of the scenarios seem, upon extensive investigation, to bear little
thematic relevance to the issues inherent in the life of the abductee.
Intensive follow up investigation frequently yields no thematic, archetypical,
primary process symbolic meaning to the shape or activities of the abductors
and the scenario of the abduction itself. Instead, therapeutic work in these
cases centers around the issues inherent in the powerlessness and
vulnerability of the individual even is this were not a prominent theme in his
life before the putative abduction.  In other words, the customary richness of
association and creativity found in the examination of dreams and other
fantasy material is lacking with regard to the scenario and presentation of
the aliens who abduct and manipulate the patient in the abduction story.

        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).

        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
individuals.  This interesting discrepancy requires further investigation.

        2. CONCORDANCE OF REPORTS       Highly dissimilar people produce
strikingly similar accounts of abductions by UFO occupants.  The basic
scenarios are highly concordant in detail and events.  This is surprising in
light of the widely divergent cultural, socio-economic, educational,
occupational, intellectual and emotional status of abductees.  Further, the
scenarios themselves do not seem to show the same layering of affect and
symbolic richness present in other fantasy endowed material.  Instead,
symbolic and conceptual complexity centers around the meaning of the
experience for the individual, not around the shape, form, activity, intent,
etc., of the aliens and their environment.  This is in stark contrast to the
expected complexity and diversity of thematic and symbolic elaboration found
in our fantasy material.

        3. RESISTANCE TO SUGGESTION UNDER HYPNOSIS      Abduction scenario
concordance is frequently attributed to the introduction of material into the
suggestible mind of a hypnotized patient.  Examination of abduction reports
indicates that a significant percentage of these reports emerge into conscious
awareness prior to the use of hypnosis or other techniques employed to
stimulate recall.  Furthermore abductees resist being lead or diverted during
hypnosis and regularly insist on correcting the hypnotist so that their report
remains accurate according to their own perceptions.

        4. PTSD IN THE ABSENCE OF TRAUMA        Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD) has not been previously reported in patients experiencing
overwhelming stress predicted only in internally generated states such as
psychotic delusional systems or phobias.  But patients reporting abduction
frequently show classic signs and symptoms of PTSD. Like other kinds of PTSD
it is subject to clinical intervention which frequently leads to substantial
clinical improvement.  But in order for this improvement to occur, the patient
must be treated for the PTSD he exhibits rather than the psychotic state he is
presumed to display by virtue of his abduction report.  If the abduction
scenarios represent only a fantasy state, then it is worth investigating why
(and how) this particular highly concordant and deeply disturbing fantasy is
involved in the pathogenesis of a condition otherwise seen only following
externally induced trauma. Further, if this is found to be the case, the
nature of PTSD itself should be re-examined in light of this finding.
Alternatively, it may be that the trauma is, in fact, an external one which
has taken place and the post traumatic state represents an expected response
on the part of a traumatized patient.

        It is not within the area of expertise of the clinician to make an
accurate determination about the objective validity of UFO abduction events.
But it is certainly within his purview to assist the patient in regaining a
sense of appropriate mastery, anxiety reduction and the alleviation of the
clinical symptomalogy as efficiently and effectively as possible.  This is
best accomplished through an assessment the patient's *actual* state of
psycho-dynamic organization, not his *presumed* state.  In other words, in
order to make the diagnosis of a psychotic or delusional state, findings other
than the presence of a belief in UFO abduction must be present.  In the
absence of other indications of severe psychopathology, it is inappropriate to
treat the patient as if he were afflicted with such psychopathology.  It lies
outside the realm of clinical expertise to determine with absolute certainty
whether or not a UFO abduction has indeed taken place. Patients should not be
viewed as demonstrating prima facie evidence of pervasive psychotic
dysfunction because of the abduction material alone nor should they be
hospitalized or treated with anti-psychotic medication based solely on the
presence of UFO abduction scenarios. Instead, they should be assessed on the
basis of their overall psychologic state.  Unless otherwise indicated,
treatment should be focused on the PTSD symptomatology and its repair.

        The areas of discrepancy which arise from the examination of UFO
abductees between the expected clinical finding and the observed ones
highlight interesting questions which require further investigation into
the nature and impact of fantasy on psycho-dynamic states and symptom
formation.
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(1)Westrum, R., Social Intelligence About Hidden Events,
Knowledge:Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, Vol 3 No 3,
March 1982, p.382
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(2)Hopkins, B. Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions.
New York, Richard Marek 1981.
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(3)Slater, E., Ph.D. "Conclusions on Nine Psychologicals" in
Final Report on the Psychological Testing of UFO Abductees"
Mt Ranier, MD, 1985
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(4)Slater, E., Ph.D. Addendum to "Conclusions on Nine Psychological"
in Final Report on the Psychological Testing of UFO "Abductees", op.cit.
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(5)Creighton, G. "The Amazing Case of Antonio Villas Boas" in
Rogo, D>S>, ed., Alien Abductions. New York, New American
Library, pp. 51-83, 1980.
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(6)Hopkins,B. Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions. op.cit.
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(7)Druffel,A. "Harrison Bailey and the 'Flying Saucer Disease'" in
Rogo, S.D., ed., op.cit.  pp. 122-137
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(8)Strieber, W. Communion. New York, Avon, 1987
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(9)Fowler, R. The Andreasson Affair. New York, Bantam Books, 1979
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(10)Fuller, J. The Interrupted Journey. New York, Dell, 1966
---------------------------------------
(11)Hopkins, B. Intruders: The Incredible Visitation at Copley Woods.
New York, Random House, 1987
--------------------------------------
(12)Hopkins, B. Personal communications with the author about the more
than 200 abductees whom Mr. Hopkins has investigated both with and
without the use of hypnosis.
---------------------------------------
(13)Westrum, R. personal communication with the author.
---------------------------------------
(14)Hopkins, B. personal communication with the author.
---------------------------------------
(15)Hopkins, B. "The Investigation of UFO Reports" in The Spectrum
of UFO Research. Proceedings of the Second CUFOS Conference
(September 25-27, 1981), Hynek, M. ed., pp 171-2, Chicago,
J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, 1988.
---------------------------------------
(16)Kardiner, A., The Traumatic Neuroses of War. New York,
P. Hoeber, 1941
---------------------------------------
(17)van Der Kolk, B.A., Psychological Trauma. Washington, DC, American
Psychiatric Press, 1987
---------------------------------------
(18)Horowitz,M.J., Stress Response Syndromes. New York, Jason Aronson,1976
---------------------------------------
(19)van Der Kolk, op.cit.
---------------------------------------
(20)American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed. Washington, DC,
American Psychiatric Association, 1980
---------------------------------------
(21)Slater, op.cit.
---------------------------------------

EOF

--
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