Edgar A. Etkin
HANDBOOK OF ERICKSONIAN HYPNOTHERAPY
Published by Milton H. Erickson Institute of Buenos Aires, 2011
1
INDEX
Introduction
4
Chapter I: Clinical Rapport
8
Rapport structure
10
Practices for rapport construction
18
Microdynamics of trance and suggestion
26
First interview
27
Interview (reduced questionnaire)
32
Chapter II: Hypnotic Language and Indirect Suggestion
35
Zeigarnik effect
44
Characteristics of the Unconscious
45
Defense mechanisms
46
Oxymoron
47
Non sequitur
47
Chapter III: Consultancy interview with a patient
47
Synthesis of the analysis for the understanding of the case 53 Note for the induction
55
Constants
55
Strategies for this case
57
Metaphors
59
Words or phrases utilized by the patient for its utilization 60 in the induction Autohypnosis
60
Multifunctional induction
61
Multifunctional induction in the practice with the patient
72
2
Application of Ericksonian hypnotherapy (or subliminal
80
communication) in groups, couples, families and children Bibliography
81
Contacts
82
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Introduction This introduction is based on the presentation of some concepts that have a primary function in the hypnotherapeutical approach developed by Erickson and Rossi, lightly modified so as not to contradict the authors at all. In 1948 Erickson stated that most of the people, professionals or not, were convinced that if a state of hypnotic trance is induced by suggestions, everything that might happen after the hypnosis should logically be the result and the first expression of the suggestions. In fact, the hypnotized person goes on being the same person with his/her altered mind, which is a repetition of similar or equal states to the ones that occur in everyday life, in meditation situations, yoga moments, reflections, silences, recalls, etc. This alteration in the patient’s behavior comes from his/her life experience. The induction and trance maintenance helps the therapist facilitate a special psychological and sustainable state for the patient to have the opportunity of re-associate and reorganize his/her psychological unconscious complexity and utilize his/her own abilities according to his/her personal life experience. Hypnosis neither changes the person nor solves none of his/her present or past problems; indeed, it is one of the means that allows the patient to learn something more about himself/herself and to express in a more adequate way. If somebody thinks that what is developed in hypnosis is due to the suggestions exclusively, this would imply that the therapist has the miraculous power of producing therapeutical changes in the patient. Thus, the fact that therapy is the result of an unconscious re-synthesis of the patient’s behavior is what concludes in a cure, and the patient himself/herself does it. The cures, generally temporary, achieved through classical hypnosis with suggestions are, in fact, an answer to suggestions and they do not mean reassociation of ideas, awareness, and recalls, so essential for a real cure. What concludes in 4
a cure – or in the overcoming of the learnt limitations - is that experience of re-associating and reorganizing his/her own life of experiences and not the behavior manifestation as an answer to direct and authoritarian suggestions, which at best would only satisfy the therapist.
One of the most effective ways of helping patients is by means of words, which organized by the patients themselves according to their own psychological and experience conditions, will produce feasible transformations in their everyday life. For all this, we resort to linguistics utilizing Noam Chomsky’s studies related to generative and transderivational grammar. In 1996 (November 7th, 8th and, 9th) I attended a seminar in charge of this author in Buenos Aires, University of Buenos Aires, called “Linguistics, Philosophy and Psychology”. The author changed some of his initial concepts such as deep and surface structure in the language, which were replaced by the concept of interphase. It is easier and more operative for us to use the former concepts. Bandler and Grinder connected Chomsky’s studies with the use of therapeutic language and Erickson’s sensory representation channels, achieving an Ericksonian transaction systematization applied to communication in general, which can be taught and learnt with the contribution of the concepts developed by Erickson-Rossi in the book they wrote together: Hypnotherapy-An Exploratory
casebook.
This handbook has the basic learning objective of the following “instruments”:
1 – Rapport: how it is built up and utilized; and the several techniques that can be used to acquire abilities and some other alternatives regarding communication as a psychotherapist.
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2 – The first interview: decoding (comprehension of the consultancy motive) and possible therapeutical strategies and metaphors.
3 – Some linguistic elements of constant use in hypnotherapeutical work:
A) Causative Nexuses: “and”, “while”, “will do”, “will produce”. E.g.: “and, you are reading the beginning of this Handbook, and while you have the expectation of learning, this will produce a stronger interest to learn Ericksonian therapy”.
B) Sensory Representation Channel Utilization (Bandler y Grinder) E.g.:“You see (visual
channel)
and listen (auditory
channel)
and
also
can
feel (cenesthesic
channel) a smell (olfactory channel) or a taste (gustatory channel) and ask yourself (internal dialogue) where you will go tonight”. It has to do with using sensory channels in communication to full extent.
C) “What is there”, component which is referred to what is observable in an objective way. E.g.: “I don’t know if you have realized that you have one hand upon the other”.
D) Indirect Speech Acts. E.g.: “It is getting very hot in this room”, instead of saying “Could you open that door?” or similar phrases.
4 - Indirect language learning which Doctor Erikson used, as it was systematized by Richard Bandler y John Grinder.
5 – Indirect suggestions learning, the ones produced by Erickson and Ernest L. Rossi.
6 – Learning of metaphors and personalized strategies building-up for each patient. 6
7 – Inclusion, in a systematized way for its comprehension and utilization, of the hypnotic language, indirect suggestions and metaphors (anecdotes, etc.) in the five moments of trance dynamic and therapeutic suggestion , according to Ericsson and Rossi’s design.
8 – Multifunctional case presentation, utilizing all the elements mentioned in its analysis.
Once the process structure is available, you can change the contents to obtain inductions and use them for different communicative purposes. This is wonderful news and only achieved after years of hard work, which is introduced here for the first time!
9– We add (in the self-training kit offer ) two books written by Milton H. Erickson and Ernest L. Rossi together, called Hypnotherapy- an Exploratory Casebook and Hypnotic Realities: clinical hypnosis induction and forms of indirect induction to deepen the techniques taught in this Handbook, a DVD of two sessions of hypnotherapy performed with Dr. Erickson’s intervention and two of his patients, called: “The Artistry of Milton H. Erickson”, with a step-by-step analysis of all the procedure in charge of Bandler and Grinder and Models of Milton Ericsson, book written by Richard Bandler and John Grinder and The Microdynamics of Trance and Suggestion, Erickson and Rossi’s hypnotherapy systematization, which is, in my opinion, a dynamic innovation, very important for the understanding and practice of Dr. Erickson’s work, never before being entirely utilized, as far as I know.
10 – No other material is necessary for an effective training in the truly Ericksonian techniques. The self-training kit or the material can be acquired separately, one at a time.
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Edgar Etkin B.A. in Psychology MP 599 City of Buenos Aires Argentina, 2011
8
CHAPTER I
CLINICAL RAPPORT
“This rapport, which constitutes a fixed phenomenon of hypnotic trances, may be defined as a state of harmony between the subject and hypnotist, with a dependence of the former upon the latter for motivating and guiding stimuli, and is somewhat similar to the “transference” of the psychoanalytic situation”. (Erickson, 1934)
Bandler and Grinder, based on M. H. Erickson’s techniques, defined his main procedure as “step making”, imitating, mirroring, or a patient’s verbal and non-verbal pacing, regarding his/her individual psychotherapy. When there are more than two persons, it should be applied to each participant’s expressions, which implies more flexibility on the part of the therapist.
The rapport objective is to achieve more collaboration from the patient for whatever task proposed for his/her benefit. To equal what the patient does is a way of entering his/her pattern of world, without making subjective mistakes. The person will be more eager to collaborate if he/she feels accepted or understood by the therapist.
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RAPPORT STRUCTURE
A) Vocal Behavior
1-Linguistic: verbs, adverbs and adjectives (verbal predicates) –Digital–
2-Paralinguistic: tone-tempo and voice volume; noises and typical sounds -Analogical–
B) Kinetic behavior.
1- Body movements: facial expressions, brows, blinking, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, legs, feet, ocular globe directions.
2 - Neuro-vegetative system elements: skin tone, pupil dilatation, visceral activity, heart beats, pulse, blood pressure and, breathing.
3- The posture.
C) Tactile behavior.
D) Proxemic or Territorial behavior.
E) Other Communicative behaviors (not so much studied, for example: noise, perfume or smell emission, etc.)
F) Behavior with respect to clothes, cosmetics, ornamentation, environment, etc. 10
A- VOCAL BEHAVIOR
1. - LINGUISTIC
Language is one of the models best studied to represent the external world and its repercussions on the subjective world. In spite of its neurological, cultural and individual limitations it is the most complete means we count on to communicate. To utilize the words the patient use is very important for the therapeutical communication to incorporate naturally to his/her world. In this way a possible resistance gets null, due to the fact that there is nothing to be against.
2. - PARALINGUISTIC
The voice
Tone: The therapist “imitates” the tones the patient uses in the communication from a high to a lower pitch.
Tempo: it is in reference to fastness in speaking.
Volume: high or low voice volume. This item is very important because the content has a relation, congruent or not, with what it is wished to be signified through vocal associations.
Noises: they can emanate from the patient (cough, sniffing, breathing, etc.), from the therapist, or from the environment (all what is heard in the consulting-room). They are
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utilized by the therapist to be integrated to the session and/or the subject-matter that is being dealt with.
B- KINETIC BEHAVIOR
1-BODY MOVEMENTS
Facial expression: it is sometimes the first personal contact between the therapist and the patient and, therefore, it is very important for the start of the relationship. The therapist should pay attention to facial expression all the time to mirror it correctly.
He will do the same with the movements of the brows, blinking, neck, arms, hands, legs and feet. Glance or gaze direction, in most cases, points out a neurological process, isolated by the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (Bandler and Grinder, inspired by M. H. Erickson). According to these authors, ocular globe movements are not hazardous but they point at the sensory representation channels at the cerebral cortex level while information contents are processed. The following classical scheme can be considered:
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Visual Recalled Eidetic Visual
Visual l constructed Visual projected
Auditory Projected
Auditory Recalled
Cenesthesia Kinesthesia Olfactory Taste Sensations Feelings
Internal Dialogue
The therapist can accompany mirroring the patient’s look. Other alternatives to detect these sensory representation channels functioning can be through the hand movement observation when pointing at dots in the space, when touching the chin (internal dialogue), hands in the body mid-line (cenesthesia, olfactory, taste); a hand upon an ear (auditory). The stare signals visual images (recalled or constructed). When talking or writing these representations of sensory channels turn up, which should be isomorphic with what the therapist says when he/she needs to communicate in this way. Examples of sensory representation channels when speaking or writing:
VISUAL
AUDITORY
CENESTHESIA
INDETERMINATE
it is seen
it is heard
it is felt
perceive
it is looked at
it is listened to
it is touched
experiment
observe
sound
grasp
understand
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show
harmonize
attract
think
demonstrate
dissonant
repel
learn
reveal
babble
captivate
process
appear
to be all ears
slip
decision
aim
alarm ring
contact
motivate
vision
silence
reject
considerate
clear up
whispering
hard
change
elucidate
murmuring
soft
observe
blinking
stentorian
cold
insensitive
clear
tune
warm
different
unclear
fall on deaf ears
sour
conceive
shiny
good tone
sweet
to be conscious
transparent
musicality
acid
know
twinkle
stridence
bitter
get to know
image
screech
to find support
simplicity
picture
silence
rigid
project
overview
noise
heavy
examine
perspective
auscultate
light
meditate
map
noisy
tiredness
think up
light
screaming
relaxation
judge
shadow
sharp
to have a
belief
presentiment proportion
sounded
moan
abstract
glance
resonance
deplore
suppose
at a glance
whistle
aching
try
watch
grind
being moved
concentrate
examine
explosion
alter
speculate
sight
outburst
to excite
intention
catch a glimpse of
bustle
sympathize
suspicion
vision
uproar
to be impressed
malice
optics
clamor
emotion
cerebration 14
review
listener
cordiality
subtlety
landscape
consonance
tenderness
idealize
EXAMPLE OF VERBAL UTILIZATION OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION CHANNEL
“It is seen and it can be looked at watching, and when it is shown, to demonstrate revealing when appearing, aiming at a vision, what it could be cleared up elucidating a very clear blinking, remaining all the unclear or shiny far away, making a twinkle transparent, an image turning up as a picture, tracing an overview with a perspective as a map with its lights and shadows giving proportion with a unique glance or at a glance, watching when it is examined, how to sight or catch a glimpse of a vision, the optics of a quick look reviewing
while
conjuring
that
landscape”.
EXAMPLE OF VERBAL UTILIZATION OF AUDITORY REPRESENTATION CHANNEL
“It is heard when it is listened to attentively what sounds harmonizing all what is dissonant as babbling. It is necessary to be all ears, as an alarm ring, opposed to the whispering silence as a murmur, tuning a stentorian sound syntonizing the phrase ‘if you fall on deaf ears…’, with good tone and musicality, avoiding stridence and sharp screaming screeches, making the resonance sound like that whistle or teeth grinding, opposing to the explosion
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and the outburst, the bustle, the uproar, the clamor, while like a hammering that announces the great chime in consonance with all the listeners who are willing to hear”.
EXAMPLE OF VERBAL UTILIZATION OF CENESTHESIC REPRESENTATION CHANNEL
“It can be felt and even touched, grasping the attraction, attracting what repels, captivating when slipping, rejecting what is hard and what is soft, what is cold and what is warm, what is sour and what is sweet, what is acid and what is bitter. To find support on what is rigid and heavy, making weariness and relaxation light, having a presentiment on moans when deploring the ache, being moved without getting alter and becoming impassioned when sympathizing with the affectionate impression, as an irritating emotion of affectivity, cordiality and tenderness”.
2- ELEMENTS WHICH COME FROM THE NEUROVEGETATIVE SYSTEM
Breathing is one of the most important expressions when mirrored by the therapist. Basically, we can consider three different types of breathing:
a) High in the breast: corresponds to the visual images and hysteric personalities.
b) At diaphragm height: corresponds to auditory phenomena and paranoid personalities.
c) At abdomen level: corresponds to cenesthesias and depressed personalities.
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The changes in the skin tone (darkening), pupil dilatation, changes in blood pressure and visceral activities demand a subtle observation on the part of the therapist.
3- THE POSTURE
It indicates how a person gets situated in the world. The attitude that he/she adopts can be primarily of attack, of escape or immobility.
C- TACTILE BEHAVIOR
Shaking hands in our culture constitutes a “functional unit”, a complete act. The therapist can accompany the patient’s pressure with a similar one.
D- TERRITORIAL OR PROXEMIC BEHAVIOR
It is the adequate distance the patient needs during the interpersonal communication. Depressed personalities prefer a minimum distance; whereas hysteroids, paranoids and schizoids prefer greater distances.
E- OTHER BEHAVIORS
17
Perfume and smell emission, for example, should be taken into account when building up rapport. A neutral smelling environment in the consulting-room would be the most adequate.
F- CLOTHES, COSMETICS, ORNAMENTATION, ENVIRONMENT, ETC.
It can be adjusted to the type of patients attended. It is possible sometimes to produce certain adjustment to a patient in particular, when he/she expresses so.
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RAPPORT CONSTRUCTION PRACTICES
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
1) Practice the described elements one or two items daily until they have been dominated automatically, without a conscious effort on your part.
2) On reading what goes before, divide your experience as follows:
a- Items that you believe are utilized in everyday practice;
b- Items you doubt about doing them or not;
c- Items whose practice you believe is difficult.
3) Start with one or two items which are difficult to practice (for example, observe the breathing, pupil dilatation, changes in the blood stream paying attention to the veins, changes in the color of the face skin, etc.). Continue with the doubtful items and finish with those you do daily, as a way of confirming them.
4) When meeting pathological items (asthmatic breathing or stammering, for example) instead of mirroring them, utilize the movements of one of your fingers, following your patients’ rhythm, or start practicing some other similar procedure. Do not mirror pathological behaviors directly but indirectly – using other sensory representation channels, for example -. The patient will grasp unconsciously your action attributing it to your understanding of his/her pattern of world as a therapist.
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5) Keep the rapport in all the sessions and with all your patients. To verify rapport setting, the therapist could perform a different item with the patient and he/she will change his/her behavior when “mirroring” the therapist. This will confirm your ability to establish rapport.
6) As you spontaneously get hold of an item, this will go to your unconscious and it will turn into an automatic routine.
7) Observe how the members of your family, friends, children, adolescents, old age people establish rapport or not. When reading a text, observe how the author establishes rapport with his/her readers utilizing the different sensory representation channels.
8) A month is enough for the therapist to dominate rapport construction for its professional and personal utilization. Practice, practice, practice.
A- VOCAL BEHAVIOR
Mirror verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the communication with your relatives, acquaintances or strangers and patients. Take the necessary time to detect these predicates and return the communication with words that contain the same predicates or other similar ones. It is not necessary to repeat the same predicates but only a representative part of them.
For example,
“– Today it is a beautiful day” 20
“– A wonderful day like this invites to go out”
The tone, the tempo and the volume of the voice and the typical sounds can be mirrored independently of the communication contents. Take into account that you can change the intention of what you say changing the tone, the tempo and the volume of your voice.
B- KINESIC BEHAVIOR
1- BODY MOVEMENTS
a) Facial expressions: they can denote the expression of authentic emotions: joy, sadness, fear, wrath; or substituted emotions: for example, depression (false sadness) instead of wrath; false fears (phobias-panic) for joy; false wrath (irritable personalities) instead of positive affects; false happiness (through denial, despise and success) , negative attitudes facing
reality, that prevent its elaboration). Practice observing the others’ facial
expressions mirroring them. You could practice your own facial expressions in a mirror, taking into account the description of the diverse possibilities of carrying them out that have just been analyzed.
b) Movements of eye brows, blinking, neck, shoulder, arms, legs feet, look direction, will not be difficult to be mirrored. Take two items at a time and practice constantly until you incorporate these abilities to your daily observation.
2- ELEMENTS WHICH COME FROM THE NEUROVEGETATIVE SYSTEM
21
What is important and outstanding are the diverse forms that breathing can adopt which we observe in correspondence with clearly different ways of speaking. For example: a high breathing in the breast corresponds to words pronounced clearly and bright. In case patient’s breathing does not correspond this shows us incongruence – a discordance between his/her way of speaking and his/her unconscious breathing. Teach your patient to be congruent recovering the agreement between the way of speaking and breathing, modeling this behavior with your example.
Breathing, at the level of diaphragm corresponds to words of different modulations and everything that is related to musicality; whereas, when produced at abdomen level, it corresponds to a low voice. Practice the three types of breathing with yourself at the beginning so as to mirror it with the patients afterwards. Remember that the pathological breathings should be indirectly mirrored so as not to alter your therapeutical intervention.
The remaining items are the most difficult ones to observe, and, therefore, they will demand your effort in the practice. In fact, mirroring is indirect when it has to do with the other sensory representation channels. For example, this is so when there is a change in skin coloration. A patient can blush, his/her skin may turn pale or darker (it depends on what he/she is processing). An indirect way of mirroring these changes could be utilizing color paper that matches patient’s skin aspect: red, white, or grey, or black. It will be enough to use the adequate paper color to draw the patient’s attention with dissimulation for mirroring the patient’s altered states.
With respect to the other observations of this aside, everything will depend on your creativity to build up alternative ways of matching. Another example: when related to pupil 22
dilatation, to match it you could do a gesture with your hands, putting your palms together and then separate them, symbolizing a dilatation.
The patient will grasp this gesture
unconsciously as an attitude of understanding from the therapist. Or the therapist can mirror patient’s heartbeats through a finger movement which follows the patient’s thorax, as an indirect signal of the phenomenon that is taking place at blood stream level.
3-THE POSTURE
Adopt a body posture similar to your patient’s. You could practice postures with your relatives whenever there is an opportunity to do so.
C - TACTILE BEHAVIOR
Press your patient’s hand the way he/she is used to doing so and with the same pressure. Take into account that the tactile contact also triggers unconscious processes by means of the so called “anchors”; therefore be careful with these contacts to avoid inadequate contents that would not match the patient’s world model.
D- TERRITORIAL OR PROXEMIC BEHAVIOR
Find out which the best distance for each patient during communication is. A neutral distance would be that one in which one of the parts remains independent of any body contact possibility. At a time in his career, Erickson “used to invade” the patient’s territory 23
when practicing inductions; in view of this uncomfortable situation, the patient would always choose to close his eyes and enter trance to “escape” from this.
E y F – OTHER BEHAVIORS
The environment is basics for rapport building up and for the influence upon the others. For example, a priest giving a mass in the middle of the countryside is different from a priest in a majestic church. Therapy in a consulting-room is different from therapy in a seminar as well. The environment is adequate in a therapeutical session when it matches the task and the patient. Check your consulting-room, having into account, among others, the following details:
a) Ornamentation b) Lighting c) The chairs d) Your own look as a therapist
Anton Chekhov wrote that if there was a weapon hanging from a wall, it should be shot during the play. Erickson would sometimes utilize some objects that were in his consultingroom (paperweight, clock, etc.) to incorporate them in the therapy and to indirectly interact with the patient by means of metaphors and metonymies. With respect to the therapist, his/her clothes, his/her cosmetics, etc. should match the task and the patient. In most cases, this is to favor a constant environment to avoid variables which, even being unseen by the therapist, could have a negative influence, conscious or unconscious, in the patient, without 24
being controlled by the therapist.
FINAL OBSERVATIONS
Rapport construction and maintenance favor your collaboration in the therapy and accelerate the processes of change. Rapport breaking-up on the part of the therapist bring about the patient’s abandonment of the therapy and his “defenses” turning out to be stronger. In general, it is probable that the defense mechanisms and the abandonments are the therapist’s unconscious creation more than the patient’s. Independently of the contents, the therapist could ask himself/herself operatively: which answer from the patient do I expect he will need?; What did I say or do to obtain this answer from the patient?; What did I say or do so as not to obtain this answer from the patient?
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MICRODYNAMICS OF TRANCE AND SUGGESTION (Erickson-Rossi)
(1) Attention fixation
1. Stories which motivate interest, fascination , etc.
(2) To diminish the potential of the conscious disposition of the response 1. Shock, surprise, the unreal and the unusual
(3) (4) (5) Unconscious Unconscious Hypnotic response (new search. Indirect processes datum or response in the suggestion form of behavior forms. experimented as hypnotic or that fully occurs by itself 1. Allusions, puns, jokes
1. An amount of : a. Spread suggestions b. Literal associations c. Individual associations
2. Standard eye fixation
2. Reference frame change; resistance and failures displacement, both determined 3. Approaches 3. Distraction by pantomime 4. Approaches 4. Dissociation and determined by unbalance the imagination and visualization 5. Levitation 5. Cognitive of the hand saturation. 6. Relaxation 6. Confusion, non and all forms sequitur of experience emotional,
d. Multiple word meaning 2. Metaphor, 2. Perceptive, analogy, popular sensory, language autonomous processes 3. Implication
4. Implicit directive
5. Double binds
3. Freudian primary process 4. Defense mechanisms characteristic of personality
5. Zeirganic effect
6. Words that 6. etc. start exploratory sets
26
perceptive, sensorial, internal. 7. Etc.
7. Paradox
8. To Condition via voice dynamics
9. Structured Amnesias 10. Etc.
7. Questions and tasks which require unconscious searches 8. Pause with therapist’s attitude of expectation 9. Open-ended suggestions 10. To cover all response possibilities 11. Compound statements 12. Etc.
I – FIRST INTERVIEW
Names and last names Date of birth Identity card Place Address Telephones Degree of education Activities Marital status (name, age and couple occupation) Children (name, ages and activities) 27
Other data of interest
1- INFORMATION – PRESENT STATE
a) Semiconducted interview: its objective is to allow spontaneous associations and causal connections. Surface structures of the patient’s history are used to be connected afterwards with the therapist’s deep professional structures. The therapist’s surface structures are also utilized to make transderivational searches easier (deep structures of his/her personal history).
b) Conducted interview: language meta-model questions to gather the best information from the patient, inquiring about his/her present state. Question examples to be asked:
1- What is your consulting purpose? It defines the situation as patient’s options: problems, change, help, etc.
2- How am I going to help you? It defines the situation as one in which the therapist is ready to do something with what happens to the patient. It is a technical double bind, in which the patient’s answer will leave a part of the question being questioned.
3-What is your problem? The situation is defined as a communication referred to problems and it is generally in accordance with the patient’s expectations.
It is convenient to make several of these questions throughout the interview, choosing the right moments to formulate them and choosing the first in agreement with the patienthistory-therapist.
Examples of language meta-model questions (present state): 28
4- How is your … (problem, life, situation, etc.)?
5- As from when…?
6- Where…?
7- What for…?
8- Always…? Never…? Sometimes…?
9 – What happens before…?
10 – What happens after…?
11- Who (…) in your family…?
12- How is it constrained…?
13 – What would happen if …?
14 - How do you know it…?
15 - What do you feel with respect to your problem…?
16 - What do you feel about what you feel…?
II RESOURCES AND PATIENT’S CONTEXTS
(THE FOUR ROLES TO BE PERFORMED) 29
17- I COUPLE
18- II FAMILY RELATIONS
19- III WORK-STUDY
20- IV ENTERTAINMENTS-HEALTH CARE- SOCIAL RELATIONS: daily activities, incomes, aspirations, learning, general physical-clinical state.
Questions to be made and not to be made with respect to the personal patient’s history, according to operative needs: the therapist will decide if that information will be relevant or not for its hypnotherapeutical utilization.
III DESIRED STATE
Type of questions:
21- What changes would you like to achieve?
22- What do you expect to obtain with this treatment?
23- How do you know it?
24- What for?
25- How?
25- When? 30
26- Who with?
27- What would happen if you had already achieved it?
28- What would you like to happen? (“people were always told what they should do”, Virginia Satir)
29- What is the least you are willing to accept?
30- When did you achieve it?
31- Who you know or knew does it or did it?
32- How long do you expect changes?
33- What are you willing to do to achieve them?
34- Pretend you do not want to change and express in which sense you do not want a change (secondary benefits)
35- What would happen to the persons important to you when realizing your changes?
36- What would happen to the persons important to you when realizing your changes?
37- Utilize your fantasy, directed towards checking internal programs or imagine yourself changing and verify how different your life would be.
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In this first interview, fundamental and unique, it is important the Observation; for example, the congruency between what the patient answers and the therapist’s confirmation of the use that the patient does of his/her sensory representation channels, likewise any other guideline that would attract the therapist’s attention, according to the preparation of each therapist, his/her ideology, theories, paradigms, etc. This is only one of the models the therapist could utilize, who may be utilizes others with the same purpose. Our guidance may constantly change.
The purpose of the first interview is to decode-understand what actually happens to the patient –his/her true motives related to the problems to solve–, the strategies to follow to achieve therapeutical targets when applying hypnotic language: indirect suggestions, and metaphors, and/or anecdotes, etc. the patient made (utilizing his/her own language, motivations, etc.). These are the two most important and difficult tasks of any therapist.
The following questionnaire is an abridged version of the former one so as to utilize the data obtained to build up therapeutical effect inductions.
INTERVIEW (REDUCED QUESTIONNAIRE)
Names and last names Date of birth Identity card Place Address 32
Telephones Studies (Degrees) Activities Marital status (name, age and couple occupation) Children (name, ages and activities) Other data of interest
PRESENT STATE
1- What is your consulting? 2- How can I help you? 3- As from when? 4- Who in your family has something similar? 5- What impels this learnt limitation to be overcome? 6- What would happen if you had already overcome it? 7- How do you know it is possible to overcome that limitation? 8- What do you feel about what it is happening to you? 9- What do you feel about what you feel?
RESOURCES AND CONTEXTS
10 -Work. Study. 11- Entertainments. What do you like most in life?
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12 - Description of your family, your opinions and feelings. 13 - Social groups (friends, companions) 14 - Couple 15- Your complete activities throughout a day. 16- Your economic income (high-medium-low-without income) 17- Learning: degrees, courses, etc. 18- Your clinical history in detail: important diseases, medication, etc. 19- Projects
DESIRED STATE
20- What changes would you like to achieve? 21- What do you expect to get here for your benefit? 22- How do you know it? 23- Did you achieve it at some time in your life? 24- How long do you expect these changes to be produced? 25- What are you willing to do in order to achieve them? 26- Pretend you do not want a change and explain the benefits this would bring you, etc. 27- What would happen to the persons who are important to you when realizing your changes?
We have sent this reduced questionnaire to some patients to obtain answers by e-mail with aleatory results. Some patients broadly answered it and others did it insufficiently. We advise to use it only exceptionally (for example, when a patient lives in another country). 34
CHAPTER II
HYPNOTIC LANGUAGE AND INDIRECT SUGGESTIONS
1 - PHRASES WITH PERVASIVE REFERENCE INDEX
“All of us human beings have own resources to solve problems”.
2 - PHRASES WITH PERVASIVE REFERENCE INDEX WITH SUGGESTED NAME
“José, all of us human beings (José) have own resources (José) to solve problems (José)”.
NOTE: the subject tends to retain the words closet o his/her name.
3 - NOMINALIZATIONS
“The attraction of the positive is convenient”. “Goodness is appreciated”.
NOTE: nominalizations are, grammatically, verbs and adjectives converted into nouns for the subject to take them into action.
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4 - DELETIONS a) Grammar deletions: “He was relaxed”. b) Non-grammar deletions: “Yes, so it is, then…”.
5 – SELECTION RESTRICTIONS “Trees seem to fill the change of seasons”.
NOTE: selection restrictions of the word “tree” are defied here when granting the object human features that do not correspond. The subject will attribute this to himself/herself.
6 - AMBIGUITIES
a. Of punctuation: “Punctuation is necessary, it begins to be distracted”.
b. Phonologic: “He came from Asia and he got near a friend to drink wine”. c. Syntactic: “If psychologists are hypnotized, it can be interesting”. d. Within reach: “Men and women in constructive searches”.
7 – MINOR STRUCTURES EMBEDDED
a. Questions: “a father asked himself …”; “I don’t know if…”.
b. Orders: “a friend obeys reasonable orders, such as “take it easy!”. 8 – DERIVATED MEANINGS
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a. Typical postulates of conversation: “Have you got the time?”
b. Pre-suppositions: “even more comfortable”.
9 – INTERPERSAL TECHNIQUES You can better take advantage of your communication to achieve more success”.
NOTE: Highlight one or more words changing tempo, volume or voice tone.
9.1 - INDIRECT ASSOCIATIVE FOCUSING
A friend’s father was ready to listen to attentively.
NOTE: this technique employs indirect references.
9.2 - INDIRECT IDEODYNAMIC FOCUSING
“I met a person in Bahía who walked as if he were dancing, with slow and undulating movements”.
10 - IDEO-MOTOR PROCESSES
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“A muscle sometimes gets contracted and all of a sudden we realize that it is an involuntary action”.
10.1 - IDEO-SENSORIAL PROCESSES
“Everybody indulges a nice perfume”.
10.2 - IDEO-AFFECTIVE PROCESSES
“We smile when seeing the smile on another person”.
10.3 - IDEO-COGNITIVE PROCESSES
“When we recall some dreams we seek meanings”.
11 - TRUISMS UTILIZING TIME
“Your symptom can disappear anytime. As soon as your unconscious finds a healthier way”.
12 - NOT DOING, NOT KNOWING
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“It is not necessary that your conscious tries to understand unconscious attitudes”.
“We do not know many things we think we know only because we explain them subjectively. Sometimes, it is necessary to accept not knowing as it turns up”.
13 – OPEN-ENDED SUGGESTIONS
“We are endowed with multiple possibilities related to the fact of choosing alternatives leaving aside the learnt limitations and, it is surprising to discover them and apply them to everyday life”.
14 – COVERING ALL THE POSSIBILITIES OF A CLASS OF RESPONSE
“You can open a door with your right hand, with your left one and with both. Or you can not open it, imagining the sensations you would have if you did it in those ways”.
15 – QUESTIONS THAT FACILITATE NEW POSSIBILITIES OF RESPONSE
a) Guided questions due to the subject’s conscious choice:
39
1- “Could I choose to look at a point somewhere?” 2- “And why not concentrating on the point you chose?”
b) Questions which can be answered in to levels (consciousunconscious):
1.
“And displacing that point to another place looks easy, doesn’t it?”
2. “And also changing its color?” c) Questions which can only be answered unconsciously:
3. “And is your unconscious ready for you to relax much more?” 4. “And can you realize comfortably that the best your unconscious can do is that you sleep?”
16 - COMPOUND SUGGESTIONS
With conjunctions and other coordinating expressions: and, but, or else, either…or, neither…nor, one…another, ones…others…
With conjunctions and other subordinating expressions: after, why, since, as from, from (the moment), until…
40
“A patient told his personal history and the therapist answered him, but in another sense, or in other words, although the patient did not understand if he made it unconscious. Therefore, while his unconscious will react afterwards, the therapist was sure (pause), because from the moment he made an induction until the patient seemed perplexed consciously he knew he had transmitted ideas and understandings”.
NOTE: two clauses joined by a grammatical conjunction or a pause that communicate them mutually.
16 a – THE YES SET AND REINFORCEMENT
“You achieve it and you can go on step by step”. “Step by step you can go on TO ACHIEVE YOUR OBJECTIVE”.
16 b - CONTINGENT SUGGESTIONS AND ASSOCIATION NETWORKS
“Each time you breathe in, your thorax will make your resting arms rise slightly”.
NOTE: it has to do with joining a suggestion to an inevitable behavior.
16 c – THE APPOSITION OF OPPOSITES
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“If you feel a pain and a more intensive one appears, the first one can remain unnoticed”.
16 d - THE NEGATIVE
“And you want, don’t you?” “And you can, can’t you? Can you?” “You can do it, can’t you?” “Why not letting it happens?”
16 e - SHOCK, SURPRISE AND CREATIVE MOMENTS
“Your affective intimate life (shock) … (creative moments of unconscious searches) what you need to think and understand for your well-being” (relief)
17 –IMPLICATION AND IMPLIED DIRECTIVE
(if…, then…)
“Now IF you close your eyes, and your hands rest comfortably, THEN you will find out something interesting in the relaxation IF THEN it seems to be important for you”.
17 a – IMPLIED DIRECTIVE
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Part 1: an introduction binding to time:
“As soon as…”
Part 2: binding suggestion:
“your unconscious has found new alternatives…”
Part 3: the answer under the form of a behavior that indicates that the implied suggestion has been accomplished:
“a slight smile could appear in your face”
18 – BINDS MODELLED ON AVOIDANCE-AVOIDANCE AND APPROACHAPPROACH CONFLICTS
a. “Would you choose entering into a light, medium or deep trance?”
b. “Do you prefer to study hard for a few days to pass the exams or study during your holidays?”
18 a -THE CONSCIOUS-UNCONSCIOUS DOUBLE BIND
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“Your unconscious can do things that you conscious can also do in a similar way. You could raise a hand consciously while raising the other by itself, without noticing it unconsciously”.
18 b - THE DOUBLE DISSOCIATION DOUBLE BIND
“Now in a moment, memories will appear but you can forget them as they are appearing… (pause)… or you can remember important facts that will help you and not know that you had remembered them before”.
NOTE: described by Ericsson and Rossi in 1976, it confuses the conscious mind and depotentiates its referential frames, erroneous ideas and learned limits to facilitate unconscious searches of new resources for behavior changes).
19 - EXPRESSION OF IDEAS AND UNDERSTANDINGS
“Erickson defined accurately what he wanted to achieve for himself and revised all the objective and concrete alternatives to obtain it, taking always into account time and action for that purpose. Then he could allow his unconscious to do it for him, if then he entered into a very deep trance taking the proposals suggested consciously, proposals that should always be very simple, clear, intense and important”.
44
20 - ZEIGARNIK EFFECT
“It will continue…” expression used a lot in different backgrounds (TV series, serial stories in newspapers, etc.) which creates expectations and increases the recalls of what has been experienced.
“and the therapeutic effects during this session will continue by themselves”.
“for the time being we will interrupt your interesting statement to resume it the next time we see each other”.
NOTE: Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik (1900-1988) psychologist and soviet psychiatrist (Prienai) stated that “the persons tend to better recall the incomplete chores, or the interrupted ones than those that have already finished”. In 1927 she published a research paper related to this: she gave a group of subjects a set of 18 to 21 successive chores (enigmas, mathematical problems, poems, etc.). Half were interrupted before they had been finished. The interrupted chores were better recorded, while the rest were ignored or less recalled.
21 - CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UNCONSCIOUS (in dreams and in the wake)
1 – Absence of chronology (it only recognizes the present).
2 – Absence of the contradiction concept (no does not exist).
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3 – Symbolic language (to reach the top of a mountain can be a symbol of success in a dream).
4 – Pleasure principle predominance (tendency to avoid displeasure without caring about means).
5 - The internal reality perception is more intense and real than the external.
22 –DEFENSE MECHANISMS (forms of maintaining the balance)
1 - REPRESSION (to avoid reality) 2 - PROJECTION (to alleviate guilt taking tension away) 3 - DISSOCIATION (an object that can be good or bad) 4 - ISOLATION (to satisfy pulsions in a virtual way) 5 - SUBSTITUTION (to change a situation or person for a more acceptable one. Example: The boss reprimands him and then he ill-treats his wife) 6 - SUBLIMATION (negative pulsion changes into social values) 7 - RATIONALIZATION (to justify errors) 8 - NEGATION (to deny real or painful imagined aspects) 9 - FANTASY (creation of worlds of one’s own with consensus) 10 - DISPLACEMENT (to transfer negative impulses on other persons or objects. Example: a child that sucks his thumb when a brother is born) 11 - REGRESSION (to assume a childish position to obtain benefits) 12 - COMPENSATION (to compensate limits with other actions)
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13 -IDENTIFICATION (to imitate others)
23 – OXYMORON
Example: “zero tolerance-empty head-funny clumsiness of the bear’s walking”. “My books are full of vacuums” (Augusto Monterroso, 1921-2003)
NOTE: (technical term composed of two words of Greek origin that mean, respectively, acute, pricky and soft, blunt, foolish). It consists of harmonizing two opposed concepts in only one expression.
24 - NON SEQUITUR
(from Latin “it does not follow” )
1 – If he is a man, then he is a mammal. 2 – He is a mammal. 3 - Therefore, he is human.
NOTE: Fallacies in which the conclusion is not drawn from the premises.
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CHAPTER III
CONSULTANCY INTERVIEW WITH A PATIENT
PERSONAL DATA NAME: José ………. DATE OF BIRTH: 12-12-1940
IDENTITY CARD ……………
PLACE OF BIRTH: Río IV, Province of Cordoba, Argentina. Telephone: …………… e-mail: ………………. www. ……………………… EDUCATION: University of Buenos Aires Year: 1976 DEGREE: Sociologist OCCUPATION: reduced activities (pensioner) MARITAL STATUS: married. CHILDREN: 2. GRAND-CHILDREN: 3
INFORMATION
a) SEMICONDUCTED INTERVIEW:
T: …Go ahead…
P: Well…I need professional help to solve my crisis that consists of wishing to make projects to earn more money and not make it happen. I lack motivation as well. May be my age influences in my personal development as if there would be nothing more for me. I 48
don’t try to find creative solutions and professional competition stopped motivating me. Besides, I’m a loner, that is why I don’t try to get into any social group or have friends. I only have what my professional activity provides me: to give some individual classes, some piece of advice every now and then. Every day seems to be lost; filled with sleeping in the morning, routine red tape, Internet information, TV and Revista Ñ, a weekly cultural magazine. I don’t know if I could do other things than the ones I do…
b) CONDUCTED INTERVIEW
1. T: What is your consultancy? P: I have too many ideas or projects and, I don’t know what to decide on so as to feel and confirm myself that I do useful and money-worthy things.
2. T. Could you give an example of one of those ideas? P: To create a systematization about the sociological use through a model that the others learn. I don’t know where to start. And time goes by and by.
3. T: How can I help you? P: Actually I don’t know. I trust you can help me if I can express my difficulties as clearly as possible.
4. T: What am I going to help you in? P: To help take concrete and feasible decisions.
5. T: What changes do you need to achieve?
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P: Pleasant and measurable changes to get better situated in my context. Mainly earning more money as easier as possible and enjoying while I am doing it so.
6. T: What are you here for? P: To chat with a professional to achieve some objectives that help me overcome my crises.
7. T: How is that situation? P: between starting something new and leaving aside all the projects, leaving them stand by, in suspense, always for the future.
8. T: As from when? P: After some projects ending up in failure and, giving in creating other possibilities. As from my pension, to fix a date.
9. T: Where? P: In my work and technical environment. 10. T: What for? P: To reassure myself, as a full and constant certainty. 11. T: Always…never…sometimes…? P: Hardly ever in the social reality. 12. T: What happens to you a moment before? P: I think I am more realistic now and I do away with or attenuate the attitude of “counting the chickens before they are born”. But that does not allow me, instead, to fulfill the plans that follow the way of my concerns. 13. T: What happens to you afterwards?
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P: Emptiness. Resignation. 14. T: Does this happen to anybody in your family? P: It could be my mother basically, though hers is simpler because she never made money. 15. T: How is it stopped? P: The social background due to my isolation and lack of information. 16. T: What would happen to you if obtained what you want? P: I would take it as something natural. 17. T: How do you know it? P: I don’t know. I feel that way. 18. T: What do you feel with respect to your questioning? P: That it is too late for new successful undertakings. 19. T: What do you feel about what you feel? P: Not much interest in general. Sometimes sadness…
DESIRED STATE
20.
21.
22.
T:
What changes do you want to achieve?
P:
Use the information to earn money easily.
T:
What do you expect from this professional bind with me?
P:
An objective guidance to achieve targets.
T:
How do you know?
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23.
24.
25.
T:
I don’t find any other reasonable explanation.
P:
What for?
T:
To demonstrate myself that it is possible.
T:
How much time?
P:
A job of three months or so.
T:
Who with?
P:
Me as owner and hire help for what I cannot do or I don’t know in informatics.
26.
27.
28.
T:
What would happen if you had already achieved it?
P:
I don’t consider it as a heavy task but rather something funny.
T:
What benefits do you want for you?
P:
Achieve it comfortably and enjoy it while getting money.
T:
What for?
P:
For my safety and to distribute it among the people I love, my wife, my children and my grandchildren.
29.
30.
31.
32.
T:
What is the least you would be willing to accept?
P:
To be constant in insisting on the search for new alternatives.
T:
When in your life did you achieve it?
P:
I can’t state it precisely.
T:
Who you know or you knew made something similar?
P:
Several. People who work in sales in Internet.
T:
How could you make it up to now?
P:
In a very irregular for, asystematic.
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33.
34.
35.
36.
T:
How long do you expect changes?
P:
In three intense months.
T:
What are you willing to do to achieve it?
P:
Accept beliefs that can be operative.
T:
Imagine how different your life could be.
P:
With more freedom.
T:
Could you pretend that you don’t want these changes to be produced and explain what would happen?
P:
It would be more comfortably for me apparently and it would be all justified due to my pensioner condition…What can be economically demanded to a pensioner, to the one who is offered a seat on the bus?
37.
T:
What would happen to the persons who are important to you when realizing your changes?
P:
They would be pleasantly surprised.
SYNTHESIS OF ANALYSIS FOR THE CASE UNDERSTANDING
I -The patient answers for the action of seven unspecified verbs connected with ideas that remain in projects and a commitment of “what do I do”, , and a without 53
an ego and a “knowledge”…where the apparent necessity of “what is useful for the others” occupies the first place and, the second place “what is remunerative”: who for?, what for?, for himself and/for the others? And it is in this point where it seems to be all? stored, or part and besides the energy, strength, libido, attraction, positive focusing, passion with the risk of turning into frustration, envy, loneliness, abandonment…: “there’s nothing more for me”, no effort, this is what prevents him from creative searches to be produced. The patient defines his problem as a vital crisis.
II - Conducted interview. In general the patient communicates his erroneous ideas related to undertakings of which he doesn’t know the structure that will allow him to make them come true to obtain positive economic results. He resorts to the therapist for guidance with respect to target formulation. He delegates his role in the therapist, forcing him and, states that “it is too late for new successful undertakings”, this seems to be a challenge towards the therapist and a commitment that is accompanied with certain expressions which show a better sense of reality. There are several contradictions and incongruities that the therapist should reframe to the patient.
III – Patient’s resources and context. There are enough resources in the patient’s context to achieve an important target that would place him in the process he wants
54
to activate in himself. Time, emotional and family stability, economic easiness in daily life, weekly cultural contact. These are the conditions that will allow the patient in this case devote himself plainly to a project, now being supervised by other professionals and to obtain objectively what he reasonably plans to do.
IV – The desired state is congruent and of collaboration on the part of the patient. He seems to be in the process of going along a hardly unknown way that according to his statements, he will make it true. The therapist does not know yet what the patient’s attitude related to earning more money in an easy, funny way, consist of exactly. In the last resort, the patient declares himself as “non-imputable” for the fact of being a pensioner (in activity). The time he fixes to obtain results seems to be reasonable, taking into account that he will use Internet.
Diagnosis: normal personality in search of professional help to implement economic objectives.
Positive prognosis, intense and pleasant work for the patient and therapist until the patient, through his ideas and understandings given by the therapist, gets surprised by the changes he has at hand.
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NOTE FOR THE INDUCTION
CONSTANTS
1 – “What is there”: It is referred to the obvious, what is immediately observable for the therapist, comments that make the patient not raise objections. E. g.: “You listen to my voice, you feel the temperature of this place and see my face”.
2 – Sensory representation channels: repeatedly connect the patient with the several sensory representation channels suitable to achieve full communication. E. g.:
P: I need professional help to solve my crisis.
T: Could you make an image of your own (visual channel) in this moment, adding a sound (auditory channel), feeling what appears (cenesthesic channel) and asking yourself (internal dialogue) y communicate to me your experiences?
3 – Causal links. There are three types (use two or three of the first two types constantly)
a) Weak link: “and”, “or”
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b) Medium link: “while”, “but”
c) Strong link: “he will do that, he will produce, etc.”
E. g.: “AND listen to my voice AND keep your hands at rest AND your feet are together WHILE I talk to you WHILE you look at me WHILE BREATHING AND THAT WILL MAKE you be interested in what I will tell you next…”
The first two are directly verifiable by the subject; the third one is not in an indirect way. However, the natural tendency to accept the third one is at stake if the first two have created a “yes” set.
Conclusion: it is convenient to have into account and utilize the three forms of structuring the communication during the inductions.
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STRATEGIES FOR THIS CASE
Therapeutical strategies are the therapist’s formulations or actions to induce in the patient what he needs to change and achieve his own objectives. The therapist is based n some conclusions from the first interview.
1 – Make a project easy to achieve happen. Motivate him by inducing immediate or brief achievements. Reframe the advanced age issue by demonstrating that historically some persons of the same age in the world could motivate and be successful. Induce him to connect with persons who are willing to help him, preferably professionals; in this way he will not feel “lonely”.
2 – Induce correct targets and change of erroneous, such as “it is too late for new successful undertakings”.
3 – Gather the patient’s resources and induce him to utilize them all gradually, from the simplest to the most complex one.
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4 –The therapist should be informed about the informatics possibilities that function as the patient’s project support and induce him indirectly to make him get informed by his own, leaving aside the pretext that he is retired.
METAPHORS
1 – Crisis as an opportunity: patient’s language, real problem setting, isomorphic (same meaning) problem creation and possible solution/s.
2 – Pleasant changes; earn money easily.
3 – Dilate the time to do gratifying things against others which are not so much, even being of immediate commitment.
4 – Expressionism in art as powerful metaphors of quick and conclusive achievements.
5 – Aspiration-inspiration.
6 – Retirement and several activities.
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WORDS OR PHRASES UTILIZED BY THE PATIENT TO BE UTILIZED IN THE INDUCTION
Well… Professional help. Projects. There’s nothing more for me. I don’t make efforts. Competition. Lonely. Lost days. I don’t know. I don’t make an effort (without action). Systematic. Where to start. Time goes by and by. Age crisis (70). Always for the future. Failed projects. Since my retirement. “Count
the chickens before they are born”.
Emptiness. Resignation. My mother. It is late to undertake something. Sometimes sadness. I neither study nor read. Only Ñ. Free mornings. Paint in a session. Expressions, naked human figures.
High pressure-enlarged prostate-maculopathy. Aspirations-Inspirations.
Use informatics. Objective guidances. Three months to demonstrate changes. Comfort and money-earning indulging. My certainty and distribute. Constance. Accept operative beliefs. Freedom. Condition of pensioner. Pleasant surprise.
AUTOHYPNOSIS
It is essential that the therapist becomes sensitive to autohypnosis to be able to develop an inductive communication in front of the patient. It can be very simple. Erickson was asked once: “how do you enter into trance?” And he answered: “I don’t know… I try to… wait… and the trance comes alone”. “And what do you enter into trance for when you treat a patient?” Ericsson answered: “so as not to miss any detail of the communication or when I don’t know what to do with the patient”. The induction that is presented next has 60
such structure and contents that the patient without doubt will enter into trance. The therapist can make use of it. Another way of achieving it is, for example, to propose: “I am only going to enter into trance when I construct the patient the metaphor that is ready for him”. Practicing with this Handbook, the therapist will find out the best way of doing it. And it can be also useful to record and listen to a complete induction.
MULTIFUNCIONAL INDUCTION
STEP 1 OF TRANCE AND SUGGESTION MICRODYNAMICS
1. – CAUSAL LINKS: and, while, that will do. “what is there”: hands and feet at rest, breathe, look at, speak (sensory representation channel)
-Well… José… and listen to my voice and keep your hands at rest and also your feet and while you breathe and look at me and that will do that you become interested in all I’m going to tell you next.
2 –PHRASE WITH A PERVASIVE REFERENTIAL INDEX
As for example, that we all the human beings have our own resources.
–WITH SUGGESTED NAME 61
And resources José, to be utilize to achieve objectives.
–NOMINALIZATIONS
As the decision to get a professional help to make a project real and to obtain relaxation, for example, to attract better the possibilities.
2. - GRAMMATICAL DELETION
and while in this way, the relaxation…
3 - NON-GRAMMATICAL DELETION
and, so it is, then…
4
–SELECTION RESTRICTION
And I remember a man in the countryside, in front of a fig tree that was about to be cut down by a peasant with an axe in his hand, because according to him it was very dry. The fig tree seemed to exclaim: “There’s nothing more for me!” And the man told the peasant: make a ditch around the fig tree, water it every day and then if after a month there’s no new leaf, axe it down.
5 –PUNCTUATION AMBIGUITY 62
And you don’t make efforts you in this way can relax much more.
6 – PHONOLOGICAL AMBIGUITY
And some short-stories of Asia are interesting if the reader goes to other places and compares them.
7. –SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY
And if researchers worldwide get in contact they will enrich the information.
8. –RANGE AMBIGUITY
Travels and untiring travelers women and men travelers…
9. – EMBEDDED MINOR STRUCTURES
STEP 2 OF TRANCE AND SUGGESTION MICRODYNAMICS
a) QUESTIONS
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A father asked himself where to start bringing up his small child so that when he grew up, he would make his own projects real.
b) ORDERS
Then he remembered that his father once exclaimed: “Make your project come true!” And he thought then it was a constructive order.
c) TYPICAL POSTULATE OF CONVERSATION
It is neither necessary for you to remember all I am going to say nor it is necessary to compete with your recalls.
10 - PRESUPPOSITION
And you don’t know the benefits yet and of remembering and of forgetting.
11 – INTERPERSAL TECHNIQUE
When you feel accompanied by significant persons for you
12 – INDIRECT ASSOCIATIVE FOCUSING 64
Similar to a father who was willing to listen to some advising
13 –INDIRECT IDEODYNAMIC FOCUSING
and he also said that he observed a person who seemed to dance while walking and he thought: “This one must have lots of friends indeed”
14 –IDEOSENSORY PROCESSES
and I smile when noticing the joy in his face, the right occasion for positive ideas
15 –IDEOAFFECTIVE PROCESSES
and while all that was happening I felt affection for that unknown person as it occurs when waking up from a dream that moves us.
16 – IDEOCOGNITIVE PROCESSES
and we can remember that dream or not; however, making us think seriously of ideas of complex processes and how to mentally simplify them for its practice afterwards.
17 –TRUISMS UTILIZING TIME 65
and in any moment of concentration, your preoccupation appears and disappears while your unconscious seems to find out a solution to satisfy as well, in a moment, to your conscious part.
18 –NOT KNOWING, NOT DOING
and it is not necessary that your unconscious takes part in these unconscious actions that seem lost things due to the fact that the unconscious ignores what to do with its individual projects.
19 –OPEN-ENDED SUGGESTIONS
Because we are endowed with multiple possibilities and resources to choose alternatives, leaving aside learnt limitations, and it is always surprising to find out ideas that turn into acts, into projects to easily become real, and we don’t know it, yet.
20 –COVERING ALL THE POSSIBILITIES OF A CLASS OF RESPONSES
And you can do whatever you want. May be systematize a set of ideas for gestation and action or find out when to start those events or ask for help to people who know what you need to know to be able to choose in a concrete and measurable way the ways of earning more money quickly. 66
STEP 3 OF TRANCE AND SUGGESTION MICRODYNAMICS
21 –QUESTIONS THAT FACILITATE THE THERAPEUTICAL ANSWER
a) QUESTIONS FOLLOWED BY THE CONSCIOUS PATIENT’S CHOICE
1 –Could you focus on the benefits that you actually want to obtain for you being 70 years old?
2 –And concentrate on your choice, always towards the future?
b) QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED CONCIOUS-UNCONSCIOUSLY
1 –And to displace what you want to another place of success seems to be easy, doesn’t it?
2 –And also to change pleasantly the image, the sound and, the feeling of being retired?
c) QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED ONLY UNCONSCIOUSLY
1– And your unconscious gets ready for you to relax much more to try to clear up what you want more? 67
2 – And you can realize that your unconscious is in the process of achieving pleasant surprises about what you want?
22 –THE “YES” SET AND THE REINFORCEMENT
o
Very well, you got it and you can continue step by step (Yes set) ,
o
Step by step you can continue, to ma for your objectives (reinforcement).
23 –CONTINGENT SUGGESTIONS AND ASSOCIATION NETWORKS
When thinking of all this, that will produce that when you breathe in your thorax will elevate and you will notice a slight movement up in your arms.
24 – OPPOSITION APPOSITION And your conscious can realize what happens but your unconscious cannot do it in the same way.
25 –THE NEGATIVE
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And you can do this, can’t you? And you want to do it, don’t you? Why not letting it happen?
26 –SHOCK, SURPRISE AND CREATIVE MOMENTS Moments of crisis in your life….(pause)…( creative moment)… all you need to understand and learn about them to feel satisfied with yourself and useful to yourself.
27 – IMPLICATION AND IMPLIED DIRECTIVE
Now, if you close your eyes and your hands are resting comfortable, then you will find out something interesting with this relaxation, if then what you are doing with your unconscious seems to be important for your unconscious.
28 – THE IMPLIED DIRECTIVE
And as soon as (introduction binding with time) your unconscious have reached the origin of those learnt limitations (the binding suggestion that begins an unconscious search in the subject) you could feel a special sensation in one of your hands, for example (the answer in the form of behavior when the implied suggestion is realized).
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29 –DOUBLE BINDS
Would you like to make your projects come true before or after three months as from now? (Pleasant model about avoid-avoid conflicts) or work every day between three or four hours until achieving them? (Unpleasant model about approach-approach the conflicts).
30 - DOUBLE DISSOCIATION DOUBLE BINDS
Then, if your unconscious agrees with the first option you could move your left hand; if you are with the second, you could move your right hand and you can find it out without noticing it …. (Pause)… or you could realize about your closed or open eyes without taking into account the former.
STEP 4 OF TRANCE AND SUGGESTION MICRODYNAMICS
José, it is funny the phrase “counting the chickens before they are born” or in the Quixote, that it is not funny: “each is worth for what he has and has what he is worth”. You have decided to undertake a beautiful project, concrete and objective, that neither would have emptiness nor would have resignation while being in the process of achieving it. “A failure can be part of a successful life –Erickson wrote–. It could even be a present for your mother, who, according to what you told me out of this session, the only thing she could write was her own name and last name and however, she guided you, José, to copy 70
the first letters of the alphabet, and also that you made her only one present during her lifetime, a gold brooch, José. Your problem is not a problem, you have nothing to solve (metaphor 1) nobody and nothing oblige you to do so. As Maquiavelo and the mathematicians, divide to govern situations now a pleasant one and don’t even think that it is late for undertakings: you have already started them. I agree that sadness is an authentic feeling when you lose something; you are in a path of achievements… where is the loss and what of? You need neither to read nor to study; it is not necessary for your project… you can do it as a pastime, pleasantly (metaphor 4): I met a friend who painted pictures and in the meantime he didn’t care about his work. He drew and painted with his left hand although he was right-handed, quickly, and when he liked them he kept them in a folder. He put aside some of them. Moments of passion. All in one session with no interruptions. It was easy and pleasant for him. (strategy 1). (Strategy 2): in those moments he thought that nothing was too late for him… he was creating. Among other things he found out that mornings were free, at his disposal. And he forgot of his controlled high blood pressure, of the enlargement of his prostate and the beginning of a maculopathy in his right eye. Another friend aspired to having individual possibilities and “he inspired himself working”, as Picasso used to say. And without knowing, playing, he went into Internet, listening to and meeting other persons, optimistic, who were giving orientations of earning money. He got enthusiastic. It appeared to him that some ideas were concrete and objective with surprising results (according to them), obtaining money and getting free time, gaining in certainty and freedom with the capacity of helping other persons. He felt full of pleasant possible surprises. All those ideas seemed to be projects that should be continued (Zeigarnik effect) and as he was a man with intentions of achieving his objective he was a man with possibilities, therefore he would achieve it (non sequitur). And he didn’t care 71
about chronological time but his own time (absence of chronology) if he achieved it or not, this was a choice between two possibilities at the same time and at the same space (absence of contradiction), how to get to his objective represented in any way (symbolic language) feeling true reality inwardly (perception of the internal reality) and plainly enjoying those moments above all other things (predominance of pleasure principle). He also felt that he avoided the so called negative “reality” (repression), it didn’t help him and the external world and the people seemed to be dispensable for his project (projection): only elements necessary to fulfill it rescuing the positive (dissociation) to satisfy what was imagined (isolation) and to need to discharge nothing neither in nothing nor in nobody (substitution), transforming beautiful social values to share (sublimation), taking into account that logic errors could crop up (rationalization) and rejecting what could be painful (negation) to achieve his objective to make his project come true, a project that would make him gain freedom, help others, although there are some utopian elements, as in any successful undertaking.
José, here you have a map to recreate and continue it day by day, every day. Your unconscious “knows” what to do with all these ideas and understandings and your conscious will help you plainly but not a bit more than what it wishes.
And now, José, making one, two or three soft and deep breathings, filing inside what is necessary to file at the right time and place, you will wake up completely, feeling integrated in all your self, ready to continue your daily life, now renewed with more ideas and understandings … well…
THE END OF MULTIFUNCIONAL INDUCTION 72
MULTIFUNCIONAL INDUCTION IN THE PRACTICE WITH THE PATIENT
-Well… José… and listen to my voice and keep your hands at rest and also your feet and while you breathe and look at me and that will do that you become interested in all I’m going to tell you next.
As for example, that we all the human beings have our own resources.
And resources José, to be utilize to achieve objectives.
As the decision to get a professional help to make a project real and to obtain relaxation, for example, to attract better the possibilities.
and while in this way, the relaxation…
and, so it is, then…
And I remember a man in the countryside, in front of a fig tree that was about to be cut down by a peasant with an axe in his hand, because according to him it was very dry. The fig tree seemed to exclaim: “There’s nothing more for me!” And the man told the peasant: make a ditch around the fig tree, water it every day and then if after a month there’s no new leaf, axe it down.
And you don’t make efforts you in this way can relax much more.
And some short-stories of Asia are interesting if the reader goes to other places and compares them. 73
And if researchers worldwide get in contact they will enrich the information.
Travels and untiring travelers women and men travelers…
A father asked himself where to start bringing up his small child so that when he grew up, he would make his own projects real.
Then he remembered that his father once exclaimed: “Make your project come true!” And he thought then it was a constructive order.
It is neither necessary for you to remember all I am going to say nor it is necessary to compete with your recalls.
And you don’t know the benefits yet and of remembering and of forgetting.
When you feel accompanied by significant persons for you
Similar to a father who was willing to listen to some advising
and he also said that he observed a person who seemed to dance while walking and he thought: “This one must have lots of friends indeed”
and I smile when noticing the joy in his face, the right occasion for positive ideas
and while all that was happening I felt affection for that unknown person as it occurs when waking up from a dream that moves us.
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and we can remember that dream or not; however, making us think seriously of ideas of complex processes and how to mentally simplify them for its practice afterwards.
and in any moment of concentration, your preoccupation appears and disappears while your unconscious seems to find out a solution to satisfy as well, in a moment, to your conscious part.
and it is not necessary that your unconscious takes part in these unconscious actions that seem lost things due to the fact that the unconscious ignores what to do with its individual projects.
Because we are endowed with multiple possibilities and resources to choose alternatives, leaving aside learnt limitations, and it is always surprising to find out ideas that turn into acts, into projects to easily become real, and we don’t know it, yet.
And you can do whatever you want. May be systematize a set of ideas for gestation and action or find out when to start those events or ask for help to people who know what you need to know to be able to choose in a concrete and measurable way the ways of earning more money quickly.
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-Could you focus on the benefits that you actually want to obtain for you being 70 years old?
And concentrate on your choice, always towards the future?
And to displace what you want to another place of success seems to be easy, doesn’t it? And also to change pleasantly the image, the sound and, the feeling of being retired?
And your unconscious gets ready for you to relax much more to try to clear up what you want more?
And you can realize that your unconscious is in the process of achieving pleasant surprises about what you want?
Very well, you got it and you can continue step by step
Step by step you can continue, to ma for your objectives
When thinking of all this, that will produce that when you breathe in your thorax will elevate and you will notice a slight movement up in your arms.
And your conscious can realize what happens but your unconscious cannot do it in the same way.
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And you can do this, can’t you?
And you want to do it, don’t you?
Why not letting it happen?
Moments of crisis in your life….(pause)…( creative moment)… all you need to understand and learn about them to feel satisfied with yourself and useful to yourself.
Now, if you close your eyes and your hands are resting comfortable, then you will find out something interesting with this relaxation, if then what you are doing with your unconscious seems to be important for your unconscious.
And as soon as (introduction binding with time) your unconscious have reached the origin of those learnt limitations (the binding suggestion that begins an unconscious search in the subject) you could feel a special sensation in one of your hands, for example (the answer in the form of behavior when the implied suggestion is realized).
Would you like to make your projects come true before or after three months as from now? (Pleasant model about avoid-avoid conflicts) or work every day between three or four hours until achieving them? (Unpleasant model about approach-approach the conflicts).
Then, if your unconscious agrees with the first option you could move your left hand; if you are with the second, you could move your right hand and you can 77
find it out without noticing it …. (Pause)… or you could realize about your closed or open eyes without taking into account the former.
José, it is funny the phrase “counting the chickens before they are born” or in the Quixote, that it is not funny: “each is worth for what he has and has what he is worth”. You have decided to undertake a beautiful project, concrete and objective, that neither would have emptiness nor would have resignation while being in the process of achieving it. “A failure can be part of a successful life – Erickson wrote–. It could even be a present for your mother, who, according to what you told me out of this session, the only thing she could write was her own name and last name and however, she guided you, José, to copy the first letters of the alphabet, and also that you made her only one present during her lifetime, a gold brooch, José. Your problem is not a problem, you have nothing to solve nobody and nothing oblige you to do so. As Maquiavelo and the mathematicians, divide to govern situations now a pleasant one and don’t even think that it is late for undertakings: you have already started them. I agree that sadness is an authentic feeling when you lose something; you are in a path of achievements… where is the loss and what of? You need neither to read nor to study; it is not necessary for your project… you can do it as a pastime, pleasantly: I met a friend who painted pictures and in the meantime he didn’t care about his work. He drew and painted with his left hand although he was right-handed, quickly, and when he liked them he kept them in a folder. He put aside some of them. Moments of passion. All in one session with no 78
interruptions. It was easy and pleasant for him; in those moments he thought that nothing was too late for him… he was creating. Among other things he found out that mornings were free, at his disposal. And he forgot of his controlled high blood pressure, of the enlargement of his prostate and the beginning of a maculopathy in his right eye. Another friend aspired to having individual possibilities and “he inspired himself working”, as Picasso used to say. And without knowing, playing, he went into Internet, listening to and meeting other persons, optimistic, who were giving orientations of earning money. He got enthusiastic. It appeared to him that some ideas were concrete and objective with surprising results (according to them), obtaining money and getting free time, gaining in certainty and freedom with the capacity of helping other persons. He felt full of pleasant possible surprises. All those ideas seemed to be projects that should be continued and as he was a man with intentions of achieving his objective he was a man with possibilities, therefore he would achieve it. And he didn’t care about chronological time but his own time if he achieved it or not, this was a choice between two possibilities at the same time and at the same space , how to get to his objective represented in any way feeling true reality inwardly and plainly enjoying those moments above all other things. He also felt that he avoided the so called negative “reality”, it didn’t help him and the external world and the people seemed to be dispensable for his project: only elements necessary to fulfill it rescuing the positive to satisfy what was imagined and to need to discharge nothing neither in nothing nor in nobody, transforming beautiful social values to share, taking into account that logic errors could crop up and rejecting what could be 79
painful to achieve his objective to make his project come true, a project that would make him gain freedom, help others, although there are some utopian elements, as in any successful undertaking.
José, here you have a map to recreate and continue it day by day, every day. Your unconscious “knows” what to do with all these ideas and understandings and your conscious will help you plainly but not a bit more than what it wishes.
And now, José, making one, two or three soft and deep breathings, filing inside what is necessary to file at the right time and place, you will wake up completely, feeling integrated in all your self, ready to continue your daily life, now renewed with more ideas and understandings … well…
THE END OF THE INDUCTION IN THE PRACTICE WITH THE PATIENT
APPLICATION OF ERICKSONIAN HYPNOTHERAPY (OR SUBLIMINAL COMMUNICATION) IN GROUPS, COUPLES, FAMILIES AND CHILDREN
Regarding this, we will provide a brief reference, with an informative purpose only. It is convenient if it is a group, a group of not more than 6 participants. As in the individual therapy, it is recommended a complete interview to be carried out for each one; the
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comprehension is built up, the strategies and metaphors as well for each participant. The elements described for the individual therapy should be used in the sessions, utilizing hypnotic language and indirect suggestions in such a way that none of the participants should be aware of whom the inductions are pointing at. Dynamically, there can be interaction among the members and, the therapist with that material will built up inductions for one or several members. This methodology can be utilized in other cases which are not psychotherapeutical, in business, educational, couple, family environments. Two professionals can work together. Inductions from games, TV, Internet can be utilized for children; that is why, it is necessary to carry out an exhaustive investigation into the child’s world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Erickson, M. H. and E. L. Rossi. Hypnotherapy. An Exploratory Casebook, New York, Irvington Publishers, 1992. Grinder, J., DeLozier, J. and Bandler, R. Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M. D., Volume 1, California, Meta Publications, 1977.
(These books are available in Spanish) Rapport. Hypnosis of Milton Erickson, review of Buenos Aires Milton H .Erickson Institute, published as from the year 1992 until 2006 (50 issues, with more than 4000 pages, articles mostly from Milton H. Erickson).
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CONTACTS: Milton H. Erickson Institute of Buenos Aires Sánchez de Bustamante 1945 P.B. “A” 1425-Ciudad de Buenos Aires- Argentina
[email protected] www.escueladehipnosis.com.ar
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