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 🙂
RIMA E. LAIBOW, M.D. Child and Adult Psychiatry Cerridwen 13 Summit Terrace
Dobbs’ Ferry, NY 10522 (914)693-3081 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-judgmental 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 theatrical 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 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. …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. 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 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 psychological
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.
Credits:
(1)Westrum, R., Social Intelligence About Hidden Events, Knowledge:Creation,
Diffusion, Utilization, Vol 3 No 3, March 1982, p.382
(2)Hopkins, B. Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions. New York,
Richard Marek 1981.
(3)Slater, E., Ph.D. “Conclusions on Nine Psychologicals” in Final
Report on the Psychological Testing of UFO Abductees” Mt Ranier, MD, 1985
(4)Slater, E., Ph.D. Addendum to “Conclusions on Nine
Psychological” in Final Report on the Psychological Testing of UFO “Abductees”,
op.cit. (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.
(6)Hopkins,B. Missing Time: A Documented Study of UFO Abductions. op.cit.
(7)Druffel,A. “Harrison Bailey and the ‘Flying Saucer Disease'” in
Rogo, S.D., ed., op.cit. pp. 122-137
(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 — -* Don Allen *- InterNet: [email protected] // Amiga..for the rest of us.
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