Reply to Lynn: The Trojan Horse is Alive and Well

In his brief communication, Lynn represents himself as providing additional “caveats regarding the potential risk of pseudomemories and the dangers of reifying metaphors offered to clients in the process of clinical hypnosis,” correcting an oversight in a previous communication on the hidden observer (Lynn, Mare, Kall, Segal, & Sivec, 1994). He indicates that phenomena that he designates as metaphors, such as hidden observers, inner advisors, and ego states, etc., are “in no way true personality fragments or independent identities with distinct past histories.” Instead, they are “merely metaphors for the fact that different experiences and perspectives...can be accessed when situational demands are conducive to examining one’s life in fresh ways.” He wants to be sure that patients are unlikely to perceive these phenomena as more than metaphors before any intervention using such phenomena as metaphors is undertaken. He believes that such metaphors should never be used in the context of age regression for memory recovery and that age regression should not be used in the exploration of memory. By implication, many venerable hypnotic techniques should be eliminated from our armamentarium, or their use should be reduced drastically and/or surrounded with special caveats and additional exercises in the obtaining of informed consent.