By Rima Laibow.
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.
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-judgemental 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 theorital 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.
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 interpersonal realm; (4) a certain orientation towards alertness which is manifest alternately in a certain perceptual sophistication and awareness or in interpersonal 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 impairment 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 richness 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:
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 they 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<18> 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. (19) ...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. (20)
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
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.
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 psychologic 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.
