Treating the Trauma of Abortion

The author describes a technique to ease the trauma of abortion to the mother
by attempting to communicate with the fetus using hypnotic visualization. As a result, women who employed the
technique experienced little or no guilt following abortion, with some having spontaneous miscarriages. Each
one reported the experience as positive, and appeared to have opened the grieving process prior to the loss of
the fetus, leading to an increased sense of continuity and completeness in the experience. Also discussed is a
case of attempted but uncompleted abortion. The trauma to the fetus is seen in the adult through techniques of
age regression. The theory of ego states, their formation and development, has significant implications in the
treatment of early trauma. These include the trauma to a fetus of an attempted abortion as well as the trauma to
a mother who has a completed abortion. I have employed hypnoanalytic ego-state therapy effectively in both
types of traumas in a number of cases. If thoughts and feelings can have a negative effect upon the body, they
can also have a positive one, since influence is not unilateral