Date of Award

Fall 12-1-1997

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Michael J. Murphy

Second Advisor

Veanne Anderson

Third Advisor

Leslie Barratt

Abstract

This study addresses the question of whether a second language learned in early childhood and later forgotten is lost forever or is situationally unretrievable. The focus of this case study is the examination of hypnotic age regression as a means of retrieval and the use of posthypnotic suggestion in recapturing and maintaining a lost language. A multi-session single subject design was employed in this study. The participant was a nine-year-old American female who was exposed to Hungarian in a Budapest pre-school setting from age three years nine months to age four years seven months. The subject became as fluent as a native speaker in the language (Barratt & Kassai, 1988), and then experienced a rapid and near total loss of Hungarian after she left Budapest at age four years seven months. Upon demonstration of adequate hypnotizability skill, the participant was presented a series of tasks to assess comprehension and expression while in a pre-hypnotic state, a hypnotic state, an age-regressed hypnotic state, and again in a post-hypnotic state. The results did not support the effectiveness of hypnosis or age regression in retrieval of lost language use. Implications for future research in this field are discussed, as well as aspects of the childhood hypnotic experience.

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