Matthew George Whalley

• PhD DClinPsy
• Managing Director at Psychology Tools

Background: Flashbacks are a form of multisensory memory that are experienced with a ‘happening in the present’ quality. Pain flashbacks are a re-experiencing of pain felt at the time of a traumatic event. It is unclear how common pain flashbacks are. Aims: The current study was designed primarily to assess the prevalence of pain flashbacks in a sa...

Objective Hypnotic suggestion is an empirically validated form of pain control; however, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Methods Thirteen fibromyalgia patients received suggestions to alter their clinical pain, and 15 healthy controls received suggestions to alter experimental heat pain. Suggestions were delivered before and after hypnot...

Persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD; previously termed "chronic subjective dizziness") is a frequently observed disorder in patients who present with dizziness to audiology; ear, nose, and throat; or neurology clinics. The primary symptoms are persistent nonvertiginous dizziness, and hypersensitivity to motion and visual stimuli. These o...

Rationale: Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has a history of use as a psychotherapeutic aid in the treatment of mood disorders and addiction, and it was also explored as an enhancer of mind control. Objectives: The present study sought to test the effect of LSD on suggestibility in a modern research study. Methods: Ten healthy volunteers were...

Flashbacks are a defining feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but there have been few studies of their neural basis. We tested predictions from a dual representation model of PTSD that, compared with ordinary episodic memories of the same traumatic event, flashbacks would be associated with activity in dorsal visual stream and related...

Flashbacks are involuntary, emotion-laden images experienced by individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The qualities of flashbacks could under certain circumstances lead to source memory errors. Participants with PTSD wrote a trauma narrative and reported the experience of flashbacks. They were later presented with stimuli from flas...

Depression is associated with three distinct alterations in memory functioning: mood-congruent recall, over-generality, and intrusive memories. These concern the autobiographical memory system, yet no previous studies have examined the neural correlates of autobiographical memory function in depression. In the present study we used functional magne...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is reliably associated with reduced brain volume relative to healthy controls, in areas similar to those found in depression. We investigated whether in a PTSD sample brain volumes in these areas were related to reporting specific symptoms of PTSD or to overall symptom severity. Structural MRI scans were obtaine...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression are reliably associated with reductions in brain volume in markedly similar areas. To our knowledge, no volumetric studies have directly contrasted these conditions. We investigated which, if any, grey matter reductions would be uniquely associated with each disorder. We also investigated mo...

This article reports a consensus that was reached at an Advanced Workshop in Experimen-tal Hypnosis held as part of the joint annual conference of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis (BSMDH) and the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hyp-nosis (BSECH). The unanimous consensus was that conventional definitions of hypnosis an...

Imaginative suggestibility, a trait closely related to hypnotic suggestibility, is modifiable under some circumstances. Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is commonly used for sedation in dentistry and is reported to be more effective when combined with appropriate suggestions. The aim of this study was to determine whether nitrous oxide inhalation alter...

The neuropsychological status of pain conditions such as fibromyalgia, commonly categorized as 'psychosomatic' or 'functional' disorders, remains controversial. Activation of brain structures dependent upon subjective alterations of fibromyalgia pain experience could provide an insight into the underlying neuropsychological processes. Suggestion fo...

In the present study, we used fMRI to assess patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression, and trauma-exposed controls, during an episodic memory retrieval task that included nontrauma-related emotional information. In the study phase of the task neutral pictures were presented in emotional or neutral contexts. Partic...

In the present study, we used fMRI to assess patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression, and trauma-exposed controls, during an episodic memory retrieval task that included non-trauma-related emotional information. In the study phase of the task neutral pictures were presented in emotional or neutral contexts. Parti...

Flashbacks in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are commonly experienced as visual, auditory, olfactory or tactile re-livings of a previously experienced traumatic event. We present the case report of one survivor of the July 7th 2005 London underground bombings who was diagnosed with PTSD and who experienced painful flashbacks. We present retro...

We review the current literature relating to mental health following terrorist attacks. Studies assessing symptoms of stress in the general population and those assessing the mental health of direct victims are considered. Use of mental health services following an attack is reviewed and recommendations are offered.

Symptoms which are experienced in the absence of a clear biomedical diagnosis, after appropriate investigation are commonly labelled as 'functional', A theoretical model encompassing functional pain and conversion disorder within a framework of 'auto- suggestive disorder' provides the starting point for the studies reported here. Direct hypnotic su...

The continuing absence of an identifiable physical cause for disorders such as chronic low back pain, atypical facial pain, or fibromyalgia, is a source of ongoing controversy and frustration among pain physicians and researchers. Aberrant cerebral activity is widely believed to be involved in such disorders, but formal demonstration of the brain i...

Hypnotic suggestions designed to induce a sensation of pain were given to 11 highly hypnotizable participants and produced the intended effect in six of them. Subjective aspects of the pain experiences were investigated using conventional pain questionnaires and a multidimensional scaling technique. The implications are discussed in terms of a mode...

The continuing absence of an identifiable physical cause for disorders such as chronic low back pain, atypical facial pain, or fibromyalgia, is a source of ongoing controversy and frustration among pain physicians and researchers. Aberrant cerebral activity is widely believed to be involved in such disorders, but formal demonstration of the brain i...