Treatment of sleepwalking: a controlled study.

A single-blind, rater-blind, modified crossover design was used to evaluate a simple, practical method of clinical treatment of sleepwalking. Subjects who had severe somnambulism, but were otherwise free of psychiatric illness, responded well to six brief sessions of specialized hypnotherapy. Follow-up at one year has revealed lasting improvement of both subjective and objective symptoms. A brief review of the subject of sleepwalking, as well as detailed information concerning histories of sleep symptoms and emotional problems in these and other sleepwalkers, is presented.