Can hypnosis aid recall

I remember this question being asked a lot in research psychology and eyewitness testimony, but it's ten years since I had anything to do with that. From memory (ha!), it appears that hypnosis is a very controversial subject and there are no clear answers to this. One thing that is clear, however, is that people who are easily hypnotised tend to be quite suggestible; and hypnosis makes them even more open to suggestion. This effect is liable to make them take on other peoples ideas and suggestions, including of course the hypnotiser's. So, to cut a long story short, you run the risk of taking on board and adopting the implicit and explicit assumptions of the person performing the hypnosis regarding your past, and truly believing them, independently of whether they happened or not.

On the other hand, there are other ways of reconstructing memories for specific names. One tried and tested technique which I can vouch for, and which has pelenty of support in psychological research, is to reconstruct the facts surrounding this name. Write them all down. For example, where did you meet them? What were they wearing? What did they say? What day was it? What was the weather like? And so on. No detail should be considered too trivial. You should keep reconstructing context for as long as you can. With a bit of luck, following this method, eventually you will suddenly remember their name.

Hypnosis is unreliable. It's like the unconscious speaking directly, but of course the unconscious is an unreliable narrator. I'm not sure about getting small pieces of information like a name or number, but you may end up with something like "Bill" because the shirt the person was wearing looked expensive which reminded you of having spent too much on a restaurant "bill" when you were on a vacation in 1982!

I should mention something else - if you remember nothing about their context, work backwards from what you do remember, even if it was a year later.

There's some very interesting experiments where researchers asked their subjects, 'What were you doing at 12pm on November 11, 1983' or some such question. One's first reaction is to think such a question is ridiculously hard to answer! However, using the reconstructive method, most subjects were able to recall, given time. Their thinking might go along these lines: 'Well, that's a Tuesday, and at the time I was working as a baggage handler, and I liked to take my lunch break at 12pm. I never took lunch in to work. There was only one cafe nearby, and they sold toasted sandwiches which I used to like, so...' - once the context is in place, the rest becomes easier.

like findin yr car keys

You could try asking other people. If the name from your past was a mutual acquaintance of your friends at the time, perhaps you could ask them--hey do you remember that person who etc etc. Remembering the 5 degrees of separation theory you should be able to locate the name of the person with some luck.