November 2007, VOLUME 35, NUMBER 2, Abstract 7
HYPNOSIS IN HANDLING UNFINISHED BUSINESS IN BEREAVEMENT
Salina Ho, Clinical Psychologist, Hong Kong
Kim suffered from complicated bereavement due to her husband’s sudden death in a traffic accident and her mother’s suicide within a few months. Hypnosis was used with deep relaxation and grief psychotherapy to achieve imaginative involvement, subjective reality, and constructive memory to help her to complete the unfinished business. After two hypnotic sessions, there was significant improvement in her emotional distress and fixation. On the grief journey, Kim was able to achieve a psychological closure to the multiple losses. She learned to let go of sorrow and to divert energy to other positive life aspects.