Some Approaches to Hypnosis
Let’s recap what hypnosis is – the process of directing a person’s automatic, unconscious, involuntary responsiveness to achieve a desired result (involuntary being without a feeling of conscious volition for the resulting behaviour – a feeling of happening, rather than doing).
There are as many styles and approaches of achieving this as there are hypnotists.
This is for two main reasons:
- hypnotic response isn’t a state, it’s not a yes/no or under/out-of experience, but a spectrum of automatic responsiveness.
- everything offers a suggestion – every word, form of expression and context. Therefore the hypnotic ‘process’ begins with the the first communication or idea, which has already begun to shape a person’s unconscious imagination and expectations.
When a suggestion is made, a person’s ability to respond to it is governed by a few factors which are crucial to understand. This isn’t ‘ability’ in terms of skill or intelligence. Consider it like a person’s ability to respond to a common house spider – whether they do or not will depend on whether they have a pre-existing fear of spiders.
In a similar way, a person brings with them a pre-calibrated network of associations, imaginings, beliefs and expectations for anything they’re presented with. They will be responding to those internal things as much as anything you present, so managing those things (as well as your own awareness of them) is a crucial aspect of any hypnotic process.
This is why a ‘pre-talk’ is so important. What anxieties or pre-concieved ideas is the person bringing with them? These are typically the main barrier for successful responsiveness, so a period of ‘training’ is often required to reassure and get them used to what hypnosis is and isn’t.
So let’s look at some general approaches, to understand more about how and why they may, or may not work in building an automatic responsiveness.
Pacing and Leading
This is a casual linguistic style which can form a backbone of any persuasive communication. It was brought into focus primarily by Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s original NLP book Trance-Formations, which itself was a result of analysing the linguistics of the highly accredited, successful therapist Milton Erickson.
A way to understand its logic is via the ‘yes set’ approach of sales – if you agree ‘yes’ enough time to things you know are true, you’ll be more likely to follow with the principle of consistently to agreeing more things, to the extent that you may ignore a degree of contemplation that you might have typically applied otherwise. E.g. “It’s important to you to enjoy freedom of choice, yes?” (Yes). “And you value making good choices?” (Yes). “You seem like a decent, intelligent kind of person…” (feels good, yes) “…So I know you’ll love to hear about this great opportunity I know you’ll love” (Yes, ok) “May I come inside?” (Yes, ok). You see how that works?
Building a ‘yes set’ in this format is actually something can be used in priming people for hypnosis, as it can be quite motivating towards positive compliance to instructions.
In it’s simplest version, pacing and leading works by first drawing a person’s attention to observing happenings around them, by way of sensations. These are experienced as ‘yes, true’, until gradually leading to more ambigious sensations, before experiencing ‘happenings’ that are unconsciously self-induced.
For example “…as you feel yourself breathing… you can notice your feet against the floor… and any sensation on the back of hands… just noticing that… and as you continue to hear these words… it can be interesting to also notice other things… like how heavy your hands may feel now… with each easy breath you take… inhaling… and exhaling… just as calmly as those hands begin to feel as though they’re heavy and numb now… all by themselves there…”
I just rattled this off as an example, but notice how it builds in things that are true and easy to confirm, with things that are more ambiguous, with suggestions that are then not only leading a sensation but also tying it to those things already known as true. With good variables, the person could easily start to feel their hands as heavy and numb, a response to suggestion that it experienced as a happening.
This principle is also useful (and powerful) in every day life. In a heated confrontation for example, you could say “I can feel that you’re experiencing upset right now, and it can’t feel good to feel that way, and just as you can see me now, and you can feel yourself standing there, I wonder how much more relaxed it might feel, if we just slow down, and take a moment, to consider the best outcome for both of us here”.
Of course that’s not always practical. Note the words in italics – these can be ‘analogue marked’ which is a way of subtlely emphasising them, separating them as suggestions outside of the person’s conscious awareness. You could do this with a hand gesture, or looking into the person’s other eye for these words. Words like ‘wonder’ can be useful because they’re a little unusual, triggering internal responses to access other states. You see how powerful this stuff can be as a form of influence? And we’re not even scratching the surface here.
The Milton Model
This accompanies basic pacing and leading, and is part of the same model of NLP originally devised by Bandler and Grinder. Again, as you can tell it was heavily based on the work of Milton Erickson, so I’d draw your attention to Erickson’s excellent book Hypnotic Realities for more information.
The Milton Model is all about managing the ‘glue’ of linguistics. In the examples above, note how one thing can lead to another with the word “because”, even if no causation exists. “Just as…” can tie one sensation to another (e.g. “X happens, just as Y happens” – X could be a truism, and Y something more ambiguous, but the truth of X is now influencing Y).
The Milton Model is all about vagueness, ambiguity, and confusion. Words like “may”, “might”, “could”, “perhaps” soften expectations to allow for possibilities. Rhetoric questions like “I don’t know whether you might beging to notice…” or “I wonder when you’ll begin to notice…” allow more room for possibilities. “It can feel surprising to notice when…” or “it’s interesting just how creative you’re unconscious can be, to notice when…” create those automatic internal responses to concepts like ‘surprise’ or ‘interest’ or ‘wonder’. “I don’t know which of your hands feels heavier right now, but it’s interesting how that can change as if all by itself” creates heaps of ambiguity, while subtlely presupposing that a hand does feel heavier.
There are heaps of ‘structures’ in the Milton Model, and when used naturally in combination provide massive potential for triggering all manner of unconscious responses. These could be in the realm of sensations, actual physical movements, or allowing memories, feelings or even solutions to emerge into conscious awareness – where they can then be worked with towards the person’s ultimate goals.
Ideomotor Suggestions
A variation (or utilisation) of the Milton Model is Ernest Rossi’s use of hand work. Ernest Rossi co-authored Erickon’s more classic texts, and I was lucky enough to train with him directly in London. This one particular approach of his combines Erickson’s linguistics with the mind/body’s propensity for ideomotor responses – where attending to physical ideas can eventually lead to small sensations and movements.
David Cheeke and Leslie Le Cron pioneered the use of ideomotor signals in their book Clinical Hypnotherapy, sometimes using a client holding a pendulum to amplify tiny unconscious responses (it would swing in the direction of an answer to a question).
Rossi took it to another level by using a person’s hands as metaphors for problems, barriers, solutions and ideas. Using the Milton Model exclusively to guide the sensations and ideomotor responses in a person’s hands, they would eventually be moving them in various ways, sometimes bringing them together with a cathartic response when an unconsciously sourced solution would emerge for another unconscious barrier. The beauty of this approach was that it remained content free, the person not having to say a word while responding in creative and automatic ways to skilled, aware guidance.
Direct Suggestion
This descibes approaches whereby a person, following a pre-talk, is directed through a series of suggestibility tests towards increasing responsiveness. It’s typically used in stage or street hypnosis acts, but can be really useful where the context demands it, including the therapy room.
The person might be asked to clasp their hands together, index fingers outstretch, and feel them ‘magnetising’ together. This is a physiological principle, so is always successful – but develops the suggestion of ‘happenings’.
Next the hands might be outstretched, palms facing inwards, and suggested that they’ll come together. When they do, more responsiveness has paved the way for other phenomena, like rigid arms, going into ‘trance’ (itself a response based on expectations), and even phenomena like forgetting a number or their own name. It’s highly efficient, fun for the person to engage with, and can be a great primer to more useful work.
These are classic approaches dating back to the mid 20th century, but were popularised by Anthony Jacquin’s Reality is Plastic book.
Rapid Inductions
Gil Boyne was a fantastic hypnotist and therapist living in California. He worked with many celebrities, including Sylvester Stallone to develop the confidence to write Rocky (which went on to earn a Best Picture oscar, and nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Ahhdriehhnne!)
Himself an ex-wrestler, he had an authoritative, confident but always compassionate charisma, pioneering his own complete understanding of unconscious dynamics, system of hypnosis and hypnotherapy. I’ve seen many of his case study videos and they’re absolutely fascinating, creating lasting change in his clients based on highly efficient development of self-awareness and using experience to solidify their learnings.
Boyne used ‘rapid’ hypnosis inductions which were often imitated by others but without the accompanying compassion or understanding (typically, by those drawn by ego and needs for power over the clients’ needs).
With the person standing, fully aware, Boyne would say “are you ready for trance? Look into my eye right here…” then yank their arm just before shouting “sleep!” The person would invariably collapse toward him, where he would then offer rapid suggestions for the arms to become “limp, loose and lazy”, compounding other suggestions towards escalating responses (amnesia, post-hypnotic suggestions and suchlike).
The optics of these moments can appear quite brutal, earning gasps and amazement from onlookers, so it’s useful to understand what’s going on here as the dynamics can be applied to all manner of approaches.
Boyne would explain the initial arm yank as creating immediate ‘disequilibrium’. The mind is thrown into a state of absolute confusion, and then is naturally desperate for something to respond to. The sudden command of “sleep” is then fully accepted as a way to (with trust in the practitioner) shut down into deep relaxation. To clarify, Boyne would immediately follow this up with “…and by sleep I don’t mean the kind of sleep you have at night, but a deep sense of wonderful relaxation from the tip of your head down into the tips of your toes” before moving to other suggestions.
The person isn’t in a hypnotic ‘state’, or ‘trance’. They aren’t ‘under’ or ‘in’ hypnosis. They’re perfectly aware – they’re now just far more responsive, as a result of the unusual experience, to further suggestions.
Everything Boyne then said would carefully compound suggestions together, building the person’s responsiveness on top of that initial experience. The use of post-hypnotic suggestions would then enable excellent therapy work in the hour or so that followed (he would have already worked with the person enough to have a firm understanding of their issue).
I attended Boyne’s last masterclass training in LA shortly before his death, while he was in his early 80s and still going strong. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of therapy and the hypnosis industry, and an incredibly compassionate while firm approach to managing learning and understanding. His book Transforming Therapy is still a fantastic model for hypnosis and therapy, and highly recommended.
Ratifying “Trance”
To conclude this page, I’ll just cover an important aspect of hypnosis that was frequently emphasised by Milton Erickson – to ratify “trance”. I put that in quotes because I don’t see hypnosis as a ‘trance’ or special ‘state’, but I acknowledge what he was getting at and the importance of it.
The whole process of hypnosis is to guide, suggest and trigger a person’s automatic and unconscious imagination towards outcomes, whether they are emotional, physical, or motivationally based.
All three are invaribly crucial to therapeutic goals.
But the difference between hypnosis and mere ‘suggestion’ of the ‘Why not do this?’ or ‘Why not try that?’ variety is that the person experiences their own unconscious responses.
This in itself is why hypnosis as a tool, as a ritualistic process leading to response, is so valuable to therapeutics and change-work. The experience of acknowledging one’s own unconscious potential offers an invaluable learning.
It enhances self-awareness, blasts away limiting beliefs, and opens up options and choices for further self-development and growth.
But to validate those experiences and learnings, the person needs to acknowledge the process of hypnosis – notably, to acknowledge their resultant unconscious doings as happenings.
Without this, it might feel like mere compliance, or playing along, or saying what’s expected to be said (what the hypnotist wants to hear) rather than a true experience.
That kind of experience can be damaging, not just because the person hasn’t got to experience their unconscious potential but because, for them, it might also bring hypnosis into disrepute or doubt. This would be a huge disservice to a highly powerful and valuable tool for self-awareness and change.
Erickson would always build in a way for the person to experience their involuntarily responses, to express surprise for example at not being able to lift a pen or remember their own name. The experience of involuntary response isn’t just to ratify ‘trance’, but to build trust and expectancy for further, more useful responses, whatever they might be in line with their personal needs.
It’s a vital aspect of hypnosis that’s neglected by many hypnotherapists. They might resort to scripts (which aren’t at all person-centered), which result in mere relaxation and the hope that ‘something’ happened unconsciously. If the client goes home, they will inevitably be asked “did it work?” and might typically say “well I don’t know really, it was relaxing though”. A rare, golden opportunity for self-awareness and understanding would have been lost in this scenario, which is unlikely to then lead to good quality therapeutics.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this section on hypnosis, I really appreciate you taking the time to stay with me.
Hopefully you have a better understanding of how your mind works, and have had some thoughts along the way about things you’ve absorbed through your life experiences which aren’t always positive.
All those accidental, destructive hypnotists messing up your map of reality.
This is where using your awareness comes in, and perhaps even hypnosis as a tool, to actually create some positive change.
As well as be a more positive influence on others by understanding more about where they’re coming from. How they might have been affected by experience.
So when you’re ready, let’s now turn to how hypnosis can actually be used for good – and enter into the section on hypnotherapy.
This is where awareness and understanding starts to interweave with real-world life experience – where it becomes useful.
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