A clinical application of subliminal psychodynamic activation. On the stimulation of symbiotic fantasies as an adjunct in the treatment of hospitalized schizophrenics.

This study attempted to utilize the subliminal psychodynamic activation method as an aid in the treatment of hospitalized schizophrenics. More specifically, we inbestigated whether the subliminal activation of a fantasy of symbiotic gratification would produce an increment in the degree of improvement that schizophrenics manifested as a result of hospitalization. Forty male patients were seen individually for three weekly sessions over a 6-week period for a fantasy expression task carried out by a psychology graduate student. Both at the beginning and at the end of each session and whenever during the session anxiety was in evidence, the patient was exposed to subliminal stimulation. The patients were divided into two groups equated for intelligence, pathology level, and other pertinent variables. For one group, the tachistoscopically presented stimulus consisted of MOMMY AND I ARE ONE, a verbal message which, in several prior studies, produced a significant reduction in ego impairment within a laboratory session. The other group served as a control, and their stimulus was PEOPLE ARE WALKING. The subjects in each group were subdivided in order to investigate the effects of two other interventions in addition to the subliminal symbiotic stimulation. One of these was aggressive expression consisting of an attempt to elicit specifically aggressive fantasies in the fantasy expression task. The other was self-focuing, designed to strengthen self-boundaries. All patients were blindly assessed for seven measures of ego impairment before and after the intervention period and for the number of rehospitalizations over a 9-month follow-up period. Of the three types of interventions impairment measures. For on of the variables, the symbiotic group showed significantly more improvement than the control group, while for two others the results approached significance. In addition, on an overall measure of ego impairment, there was significantly mor improvement for the symbiotic group than for the control patients.