The first session

You: "Sarah, are you still with me?"

Sarah: "Yes."

You: "I want you to think back to a time you watched Renee. What do you see?"

Sarah: "Renee at the state volleyball championship last year. I took pictures of the girls - Renee with Terri & Jo - right before they went onto the court."

You: "Let the memory flow. The image is becoming sharper and clearer. You see the girls walk out onto the court. You can hear the crowd cheer as the game starts, the announcer calling the plays. The smell of the food mixed with the sweat of the players."

She breathed deeply. "Yes... I can hear it...smell it..."

You: "Now focus on Renee. You see her on the court in her uniform. What is she doing?"

Sarah: "She's serves the ball. The other team bumps, then gets it over the net. Jo spikes it for a point!"

You: "Good. Now your perspective is changing. You're not watching Renee but instead seeing the game from her perspective. YOU are standing on the court, the ball in your hand. Do you feel it? You're getting ready to serve."

Sarah: "Yes, I...I'm hitting the ball. It's an ace!"You: "Great. Now I want you to hold on to this feeling but we're stepping back from this scene. The game is fading. But when you remember anything of Renee, I want you to keep this perspective. You will remember it from Renee's point of view."

You paused a few seconds to catch your breath. "Now Sarah, while staying in this relaxed state I want you to open your eyes."

She followed your order. You reached over and brought up the set of videos she had chosen.

You: "I'm going to show you a set of videos of Renee. As you watch them you will commit them to memory. At first they will feel like forgotten things that happened to you. But as you watch them over and over, you will remember them more clearly, picturing yourself as Renee in all of them. Understand?"

Sarah: "Yes."

You: "Focus on the way Renee talks and acts. How she moves. As you watch her you'll study her behavior in the videos. Compare that to how you remember her. Any little quirk of her personality that you remember. As you watch the videos I want you to try to mimic those - her body language, her tone, everything that makes Renee distinctive."

You then spent the next couple hours going through the videos with her. It became a bit tedious - and exhausting - for you, but Sarah seem enthralled and completely focused. She was still very suggestible but you guessed that her strong desire for this to work was in effect self-fulfilling; you were able to so easily guide her in large part because she was **** to learn how to 'be Renee.' Fortunately Renee had a huge number of videos she and her friends recorded - at the beach, in class, at games - so Sarah got to see Renee's behavior in many different situations.

You then had her read Renee's journals while still in the trance. You planned to go over her social media but you actually dozed off while Sarah was reading. When you awoke, hours had passed. Sarah was out of the hypnotic state by that point but she was still reading.

"Sarah, are you still at it?" you asked gently.

She looked up briefly to give you a smile. "Yep. It's crazy how much this helps," she said. You were surprised. Her tone and cadence sounded alot like Renee in that moment. "Maybe we should call it quits for the day? Get some dinner and relax?" you suggested.

She hesitated briefly, then gave in. "Okay. But let's do this again tomorrow."