Becoming An Intuitive Healer

By Daniel Jones

Contact the author: www.discoverdanjones.co.uk

First Edition 2008

Copyright Daniel Jones 2008 Daniel Jones asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers or author.

1 First Edition 1

Acknowledgements A huge thanks to Abbie Piper for supporting me and putting up with me while I worked on this book day and night. Graham LeVell for his input and for letting me try things out on him, both with and without his knowledge. Mark Tyrrell, Roger Elliot and Jill Wooton for imparting their invaluable knowledge. I would also like to thank Paul Murphy and Tony Higgins and Terry Stewart for their interest and support. And finally I would like to thank anyone reading this that I should have thanked but didnt mention here. You are not all forgotten I know who you are, I just saved you from having to see you name in print! Thank you to Stephen Brooks the founder of British Hypnosis Research; for his encouragement and training in Indirect Hypnosis, Ericksonian Psychotherapy and the use of NeuroLinguistic Programming with deep trance.

Contents
Introduction Pattern matching, problem structure and effective therapy Pattern Matching Problems & how they are structured Utilisation Re-framing Hypnotic language patterns Psychotherapy Basic Emotional Needs Essential Skills The Importance of Keeping the Problem in Mind Hypnosis & Trance Psychoneuroimmunology & the work of Dr Ernest Rossi Understanding Energy Therapies Energy Therapies and Guided Imagery Working with Ideo-Dynamics Therapeutic Dowsing Learning to Notice Minimal Cues Observation Skills Bibliography Index 6 9 28 34 51 55 98 133 158 160 163 166 170 177 179 182 186 189 192 196 202

Introduction

For many years psychologists have wondered about the mind. They have wondered about how problems are caused and maintained, wondered about how different people can respond to the same situation in different ways. Over the last few decades psychologists have been able to take a closer look than ever before into how the mind works. With the latest brain scanning technology scientists have been able to watch thought processes in action. As well as having new and improved technology there was some people that began to look at problems and treatment in a different way. In the 1970s John Grinder and Richard Bandler (the co-creators of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP)) set out to discover what many top therapists had in common. What they had noticed was that regardless of the therapy certain therapists achieved very high levels of results. In the same way that thousands
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of people can play golf but certain people can play golf exceptionally well. Not only did Bandler and Grinder see what made some therapists highly effective, they also decided to find out what it was that people who used to have problems did to overcome those problems. At the time most researchers would focus on those that couldnt get over their problems. For example at the time most researchers would gather together groups of people with phobias to try to work out what is going on and how to treat them. What Bandler and Grinder did was to create techniques and structures for treating people based on how those that used to have problems but overcame them managed to get better. This way of looking at problems was a new approach. For years it had been used in sports, for example where you would learn how a top golfer plays, you would learn how they stand, how they hold the club, where they look as they swing the club, etc. But it had not really been used in therapy to see what made some therapists more effective than others, or what people did to get over problems they once had.

Since the 1970s many psychologists have studied how problems are formed, maintained and why different people respond differently to the same situation. This book is designed to be useful as a practitioners guide to effective therapy. Often having an understanding of a problem, knowing what is wrong and how it should be treated can give piece of mind. With so many types of treatments available for psychological problems it can be difficult to know what treatment is effective and what treatment could be harmful. Currently there are over 400 different types of psychotherapy and counselling. This book is aimed at increasing the knowledge of practitioners. The next chapter will cover pattern matching, problem structure and effective therapy. This chapter is an overview giving a foundation on which the rest of the series of book is built on. The series is structured to increase your knowledge in stages. Each chapter and book builds on what you have learnt previously. Throughout this book there are exercises to help you to integrate and practice what you have learnt.
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Pattern matching, problem structure and effective therapy

How the latest findings in psychology unite Dreaming, Trance States and Problem Formation, helping psychotherapist and counsellors treat clients more effectively

The latest research findings on psychology and human nature help to explain why we dream, what we are likely to dream about, what hypnosis and trance states are, and the structure of problems and solutions. These findings allow psychological problems to be resolved quicker than previously thought. Dramatic changes can be made in a single session for problems like depression, anxiety, phobias or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and many others. These findings explain how NLP (Neuro-Linguistic

Programming) techniques work, why we dream and what hypnosis is. They also give a structure on how to do effective therapy by explaining how problems are caused and how to set up lasting solutions.
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In

the

1990s

Irish

Psychologist

Joseph

Griffin

researched dreaming and why we evolved to dream. He carried out this research firstly on himself. He would wake himself regularly throughout the night for many nights to record his dreams. Over time he started to build up a picture of what he dreamt about and what it could mean. One morning a thought crossed his mind. He didnt have to be up yet so he decided he would go back to sleep. He expected to dream about this thought when he fell asleep. When he didnt he wondered why not. As Joe continued his research he continually found situations that he felt he would dream about yet didnt. What Joe eventually found out led to his creating of a new theory of why we dream. Joe found that we dream to close off patterns that have been started during the day but not completed and to integrate new parts of patterns. Joe found that if you have an argument and it gets resolved then it wont crop up at night, but if you start an argument and walk away without resolving it then that night it will crop up in your dreams.

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He discovered that dreams are ALWAYS metaphorical. So if you see your wife in the dream she doesnt represent your wife (If the feeling you get is that it definitely WAS your wife then if it was something WILL be different to what the real person is like. It could be that they are fatter or slimmer, or different to normal in some other way). She could represent an aspect of you or another person etc. The dream will ALWAYS pattern match to an event from the previous day. NOT TO LONG FORGOTTEN EVENTS like many people previously thought (It used to be thought that dreams were manifestations of deep-rooted hidden desires). The event could be an unresolved thought or a real incident.

Pattern-matching

The brain is essentially a pattern-matching machine. When you learn something new it pattern matches to what you already know and builds on this. When you think of something (like wanting to hit your boss) and dont act on it, your brain keeps the pattern open waiting for the expected outcome or a metaphor of it.

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(Instead of kicking your boss when you dream it maybe of kicking a soccer ball as a metaphor to close the pattern) This research can be tested by anybody. It also explains why babies spend so much time dreaming in the last three months before birth, as this is a vital time for laying down new patterns (like suckling). The patterns are all metaphorical in themselves because they need to be for survival (for example a language pattern that allows the capacity to learn language but is flexible enough for that language to be any one of the languages we learn). If they were too specific then we would have died out long ago. For example the pattern for suckling can be met by the use of a dummy or a thumb, not just a nipple. The patterns also need to be adjustable so that any changes (to the environment) can be learnt and added to that pattern. Sometimes in therapy you can get clients that have presenting problems that are metaphorical. For example; someone could come in with a pain in the neck and talk about a difficult relationship they have that needs sorting out but they dont know how to approach the situation.

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Dream Interpretation

The important part of the dream that leads to interpretation is the feelings. When we dream all the feelings in the dream are exaggerated. To interpret the dream think about the previous day and when you felt those feelings but perhaps didnt act on them. What happens is that each time you dont fulfil a pattern it needs closing off so that you are ready for the next day. It is a bit like opening lots of files on a computer. If you dont close files down the computer gets slower and slower until it crashes.

A new understanding of depression

This research led to a new outlook on why depressed people dream more than non-depressed people do, and why they always wake up tired. Which led to quicker treatment of people with depression. When someone is depressed they worry regularly throughout the day. Each time they worry they set off a pattern that often doesnt get closed.
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For example: worrying what people think or what if this happens etc. All these open patterns need closing that night which causes over dreaming due to the increased number of patterns that have been opened. Because so much of the night is spent dreaming which is as exhausting as being fully awake, and missing out on deep recuperative sleep the brain wakes the depressed person early to stop them dreaming. They feel exhausted due to the lack of deep sleep. Excessive dreaming also stops serotonin production, which leads to feeling low and unmotivated. It also continually fires off the reorientation response which adds to the low motivation as the response stops working effectively at focusing attention and motivating the depressed person. Once the depressed person spends one day not worrying they sleep properly that night and feel immediately much better and more able to cope the next day. As I have shown the reason why we dream is to close patterns that have been fired off throughout the day which allows the mind to be clear to work fully and effectively the next day. What you will dream about therefore will be a metaphor of these patterns.
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What hypnosis really is

The idea of pattern matching solves what hypnosis is. The pattern-matching model is called the APET model. This stands for Activating agent, Pattern matching, Emotion, Thought. This is how we experience the world. Something (Activating agent) sets off a pattern (Pattern matching) which leads to an emotional reaction (Emotion) which in turn causes a thought. The reason for the emotion coming before the thought is that it allows for you to respond to a stimulus if necessary without conscious thought involved if it will help with survival. For example a phobia unconsciously you see movement in the bushes. Previously a tiger jumped out of bushes and attacked you so you panicked and ran before you knew why you were running. If you had to think about what that rustling was before you decided to respond and it was another tiger you could be killed while you decide what you were going to do. Hypnosis and trances are just the dream-state being accessed. People go into trances all the time. People sitting in
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cinemas watching films go into trance states at exciting parts to which they respond by showing phenomena like catalepsy. They could be about to put popcorn into their mouth when they go into the trance then sit there for the next five minutes without moving their hand, at the end of the exciting bit of film they finish putting the popcorn in their mouth without realising what they did. To induce hypnosis all a hypnotist does is helps the client access the dream-state by firing off the pattern for sleep or for the reorientation response which is the same state of mind. The reorientation response fires when something happens causing your mind to search for how it should respond and to find out what is happening. It then locks on to the first concrete idea. For example you hear a loud bang, you get startled (reorientation response); you then see a car and think it must have backfired. Stage hypnotists often set off the reorientation response whereas therapeutic hypnotists often gently take the person into the dream-state.

How to induce a trance

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Hypnosis can be induced by focusing your attention (could be on a spot on the wall, or on a thought, or on a rhythm, or on almost anything else) which is what happens when the reorientation response is fired.

Hypnosis or trance states can be induced in many different ways:

By confusion followed by a solid suggestion. Pattern interruption, (like handshake inductions)

these fire the reorientation response as the correct pattern isnt happening so they take their cue on what to do next from the hypnotist.

Shock inductions (like most stage hypnotists do,

these set off the reorientation response).

Relaxing the muscles (which are part of the process

for falling asleep).

Deepening rhythmic breathing (part of the process

for sleep).

Visualisation (part of falling asleep and dreaming).

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Everyone uses hypnosis all of the time. People think about winning the lottery and what they would do with the money, they are visualising which induces a light trance. Smokers may go into a trance when they focus on the cigarette they are having and they take deep breaths as they allow their muscles to relax. When people have cravings they enter a trance as they as so intensely focused on what they crave. When people get angry they focus on what is causing the anger. When people get depressed they focus on worrying and negative thoughts. Doctors, counsellors and other psychological therapists all use hypnosis all of the time, often without realising it. It is when they dont realise that they can cause more harm than good. For example: when a doctor is seeing a patient, that patient is in a mild trance state, usually a slight anxiety trance. Their whole focus is on the doctor and on what the doctor has to say. If the doctor gives any suggestions they will be acting like a

Hypnotherapist so it is important that they give good suggestions. If they say this is going to hurt it increases the chances of causing

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pain. If they say 80% of people die from the cancer they are suggesting the patient is unlikely to live. Many counsellors and psychotherapists that dont realise they do hypnosis can give equally harmful suggestions that make clients leave sessions feeling awful. Whenever a client leaves a session they should feel empowered, they should feel like they have achieved something in the session. They shouldnt leave feeling worse than they came in. It is the therapist that has the power to make the client feel better or worse. Each time a doctor, counsellor or other psychological therapist asks a patient to think about something they are making the patient visualise which is causing them to enter a light trance. Depending on what they are being asked to think about each thing they think of will have the effect of updating current patterns in the brain. This is why it is important to have patients think of things that desirably adjust patterns rather than getting people to keep thinking about their problems.

Hypnosis CAN be induced in anyone

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It used to be thought that not everyone could be hypnotised but this was because in the past hypnotists would use a script that was the same for each person. This didnt work on everyone because people are all different. For example, some people might feel uncomfortable with an induction that guides them down in an elevator so they wont respond by going into a trance. Now well-trained Hypnotherapists will tailor the induction to the specific client and let clients go into trance in their own way.

How we now know dreaming and trance states are the same

There

are

many

similarities

between

dreaming

and

hypnosis. In both there is catalepsy, amnesia to varying degrees depending on the depth of the state you are in and how soon after coming out of the state you try to recall that period of time. Anaesthesia/analgesia, hallucination, and suspended belief also occur in both dreaming and hypnosis. As you now know the dream-state is also the state of mind that allows you to integrate new learnings onto old patterns, which is what happens under hypnosis. As you do this integrating you are
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in a trance or the dream-state which is one reason people regularly drift into daydreams every 90 minutes or so throughout the whole day and more so when they are learning. This is called the Ultradian Rhythm.

Therapeutically inducing a trance state and its uses

To therapeutically induce hypnosis can be as simple as saying:

Imagine what it would be like when you discover now that you feel calm and confident giving that presentation. What is that like? How do other people notice that you are calm and confident? Who comments on how well you do first? What do you notice about the audience that lets you know you are doing well? How do you know that you are calm and confident?

This causes the mind to build a new pattern that has a stronger positive emotional feel than the old negative one. This
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causes you go into a trance state and adjust the pattern so that the activating agent (presentation) leads to this pattern match which leads to a calm and confident emotion leading to positive thoughts. The lower the emotion the more repetitions need to be done to make the new pattern strong. For example for a phobia or PTSD only one repetition needs to happen for the pattern to stick (although the pattern can very easily be changed) whereas like Pavlovs dogs the repetition is higher for a lower emotional anchor. After many rings of a bell with food it only took the ring of a bell to make the dogs salivate. Using the APET model therapy is made easier. NLP techniques are explained as they are changing a part of APET whether it is giving a different emotional tag to a pattern or a different interpretation (thought) to the emotion. Hypnosis gets explained and can clearly be seen as the dream-state. And using this new understanding of dreams everyone can interpret their own dreams and the dreams of others, many psychological problems can be resolved quicker than previously thought and there is no longer any mystery as to why we dream. It also finally demystifies hypnosis.
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How these understandings have lead to a new breed of more effective therapists

All effective psychotherapy changes part of the problem pattern. This means that as the pattern only changes during trance states or dreaming, a knowledge and full understanding of hypnosis is useful for any therapist. Even getting a client to view a situation differently causes a trance. The mind cant tell the difference between real and vividly imagined so if something is imagined to go a certain way it builds on the pattern for that outcome. This is why NLP techniques can be useful. Gone are the days when people had a nave approach to therapy that if you found out the root cause the problem will get cured. Now we know that the past has happened and cant be changed. Your perception and understanding of past events can be changed if necessary. Change is now known to occur quickly and just because it is quick doesnt make it superficial or only getting rid of the symptoms but not dealing with the cause.
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A long drawn out therapy only gets results once the client enters a trance and views the problem differently, learning something new. When you know this all you have to do is find out what the person wants and you will know the solution regardless of the problem. This has led to a more effective breed of therapist.

For example;

Shyness could be caused by not being allowed to speak out as a child or else you get hit or abused so you become too scared to speak out. Or you could not know the reason for the shyness. Either way if when asked what they want and how they will know when they are no longer shy the person says I want to feel confident when talking to people at a party. You dont have to find out why they cant do that. You just alter the pattern to lead to the appropriate emotions and thoughts to quickly allow them to do that. Some people may need past memories de-traumatising, which would usually only take one session.

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Therapists should be aware of dreams that clients say that they have had, especially if the dreams are recurring dreams as this is often a sign of an ongoing issue that is playing on the clients mind. Dreams or metaphors that the client uses can be used to help to treat them by altering them slightly to include a useful solution. They can also let the therapist know about issues that the client doesnt readily talk about.

An example dream I recently interpreted

Dream

I am in my flat with a friend. She comments on how my fish in the fish tank look like they are dying. The water in the fish tank looks horrible. One of my fish is still alive and jumps out on to the floor. It flaps its self along the floor and out of my living room. Outside the living room is not the corridor that should be there but the outside of the house. It didnt seem odd at the time, in the dream. The fish continued to flap across the ground away from the house. I was sad that it would die; I was still trying to
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catch the fish to get it back in the fish tank. Just then a fat cat suddenly pounced on the fish and ripped its head off. I got to the fish and picked it up. It was dead, had turned orange and was hollow inside. This upset me. I wanted to cry.

Reality

The person above had found out at short notice that over half the staff team where she works was going to be made redundant. This did upset her as she got on with those that were leaving (friend leaving, fish dying, fish flapping out of the building). She had concerns over whether the company would keep going (the references to dying, the dirty fish tank). She felt that it was the employers fault that the staff were being made redundant (fat cat killing the fish and making it hollow). She had been worrying a lot at this time about the situation. She felt that work was going to seem empty. She didnt really get on so well with the staff member left working with her (hollow fish, fish turning all orange with no head and dead staff member left working with her had ginger hair and she wished he was one of the staff going instead - dead fish).
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Conclusion

The authoritarian hypnosis approach that many hypnotists still use is out of date. The scales used to study hypnotisability are inaccurate, as using an authoritarian, scripted approach doesnt hypnotise everyone, as people are all individual. Everyone can be hypnotised and can show all the phenomena they just need to be hypnotised in the way that suits them. NLP is highly effective if done to suit the client due to individuality. And dreams are now understood so hopefully people will interpret their own dreams rather than buy cheap dream books that dont give the individual their own personal interpretation. I would love to hear that many readers decide to experiment with interpreting their own dreams and the dreams of others.

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Pattern Matching

Previously we touched on pattern matching. Now I will go into a little more detail. Pattern matching is how the brain works. It is always happening from moment to moment with everything that you do. There have been many models of how the mind works. Some of these have been more accurate than others. With the latest understandings from psychology,

neurology and brain scanning we now know that emotions happen before thoughts. Many schools of therapy used to think that thoughts caused emotions and some thought that emotions werent important at all.

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The new model of how the mind works is called the APET model. As we have covered earlier APET stands for:

Activating agent Pattern matching Emotion Thought

It is important to understand that most psychological problems arise from faulty pattern matching. For example:

Someone walking out onto a stage to give a talk,

then blushing and feeling embarrassed, and thinking Im stupid, I cant do this Or

A smoker answering the telephone, then feeling the

need for a cigarette, and so thinking Ive got to have a cigarette

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Pattern matching is involved in everything that we do. Whether it is the routine we go through when we get up in the morning or instinctively knowing to stop the car when you see a red traffic light. The important thing to remember is that patterns can be changed. Patterns arent stuck in place. They are adaptable. Your brain is always updating its patterns. In everyday life this happens automatically with each new piece of learning.

Unfortunately this can lead to patterns being reinforced causing problems to last. Like believing that smoking is the only way you can relax, then each time you get stressed or bored and need to relax you smoke. As this does temporarily relax you, you assume it was because of the cigarettes so this reinforces the pattern. In reality it is the way that a smoker breathes while they smoke that relaxes them, not the cigarettes. In therapy sessions or taking some time to help yourself it is possible to alter these patterns by choice. For example the smoker can practice breathing in to the count of 3 and out to the count of 5. This longer out-breath triggers the relaxation response and if done for a minute or so can give a light sense of euphoria with a sense of relaxation. As this is practised it offers the smoker a

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new choice. They can use this breathing technique instead of cigarettes as they have added this to their pattern for relaxing. As a practitioner you should learn to notice processes or patterns. This is where the problem formation lies. The content is useful for rapport, or for finding resources or highlighting the problem areas you need to extract the pattern from. But it is the structure of the problem that is important to finding a fast way to help the client not the content. Many therapists get bogged down in content. They get drawn in by all of the talk of the problem. Often therapists begin to feel emotional about the content, especially if the content is sad or disturbing. Obviously it is important to let the client talk and get the problem off of their chest. But as a therapist you want to be able to listen and notice patterns. For example it could be that when the client is talking about mundane things they go in to detail saying that that is what is important, yet when they come to talk about what seems to be an underlying issue they skirt over it. Or a client could do a specific gesture like rubbing the neck when talking about a partner. If they repeatedly did this each time they talked about that person you could notice the pattern and assume that
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maybe the partner is a pain in the neck, even if it hasnt been verbally stated.

STEP BACK AND SEE THE PATTERN OF THE PROBLEM

Look out for how you can change patterns easiest. It could be that you change the frequency of the pattern, or the duration, or the times that the pattern takes place. It could be that you add an extra stage to the pattern or change a stage in the pattern. Most of what will be covered throughout this book aims to make alterations to patterns. Teaching how best to do this with different problems. As well as the more common changes to patterns it is useful to learn how to notice patterns for yourself. Not everyone is the same, so what works well for one person may not work so well for somebody else. For example, to cure phobias there is a really useful technique that involves visualising. What you may find is that not everyone is able to follow the instructions well, or they believe they cant visualise well so you would have to do something different with them. Often the language that they use will give away what
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they need. They may say I need to be able to step back and see what is happening or I just wish that the problem would disappear.

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Problems & how they are structured

Over thousands of years humans have evolved as problem solving creatures. They have needed to do so to find solutions to help them survive harsh and threatening environments. Often problems that people present with can be seen as sloppy or attempted solutions. Perhaps once the solution was useful but has now remained as a habit. This happens because we once something we do works we often stick with what we know rather than trying something different. For example: A person with a bad back due to an injury may walk with a specific posture for the few weeks that their back is injured as this new posture brings relief. This person may then get stuck always walking with this new posture as it has been learnt as something that once made the person feel better. Years later it may turn out

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that this posture has caused damage elsewhere in the back leading to a problem. This example shows how the problem was originally an attempted solution. The same can happen with psychological problems. It could be a smoker that smokes to relax or to fit in with a social group but then gets stuck with a habit. Or a person that once had a high powered job and used to only sleep a few hours a night gets stuck with not being able to stay asleep so find they are now lethargic and tired all of the time. Or a mother that had to sleep light and wake regularly to care for a child that years later after she no longer needs to do this now finds she cant stay asleep. Problems can sometimes meet otherwise unmet needs. Like smoking meeting a need to relax, getting a headache before a presentation saving you from the embarrassment of having to stand up and talk in front of a group of people etc. Sometimes all that is needed is to help the person to have choice by helping them to find a healthy alternative to meet the same needs. Other times the need is now being met in a more beneficial way but a habit has formed from when the problem started.
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Before clients come to therapy they have almost always tried to solve their own problems and failed. They very rarely choose therapy as the first option as this costs money and some people feel embarrassed to ask for help or to attend therapy so they dont until they reach a point where they dont know what else to do. They will come in saying they have tried everything and yet still are stuck with their problem. Contrary to popular belief most people know why they have a problem but still cant get rid of it. It used to always be suggested that people should find the root cause of their problem which would have originated in childhood and by finding this root cause they will gain an insight and understanding that helps them to move on and be problem free. Searching for the root of the problem may be interesting for the client but the question is do they want to know why they have the problem or not have the problem at all? There is nothing wrong will people wanting to have an insight into why they are the person that they are and where problems have stemmed from. It is just not something that is usually necessary for helping them to get better. If once they are problem free they would still like to analyse how events and
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reactions to events throughout their lives had shaped them and helped caused the problem then that is fine. It is rare for someone to have a problem and not know when it started. With some things they may not know the exact first incident if they were too young to remember but often they will know what it was yet still have the presenting problem. For example if someone was stung by a bee as a three year old that caused a phobia of bees they may not remember the exact incident and they dont need to remember it to be helped. Even if they do remember it they will still have the phobia. They will know that it is irrational but that wont stop them having it. The reason is because phobias are emotional responses to a stimulus. The person responds emotionally before they consciously think about what is scaring them. It is the unconscious process that maintains the phobia that needs to be changed not an understanding of the initial incident. Often problems are maintained by the clients reaction to it.

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For example:

Trying to fall asleep makes it harder to do so. Trying not to blush makes you blush more.

Telling someone to laugh and them trying to laugh is not the same as saying something that makes them laugh. This is how indirect therapy works Stephen Brooks

When problems seem too difficult to deal with then solving them can seem impossible. This is often what happens to clients by the time they come to therapy. Sometime they can come in believing that as it is impossible not even you will be able to help them. You will then need to demonstrate success to them. Just telling them you can help them wont work, they may

unconsciously sabotage the therapy to prove that they you cant. Sometimes just helping them to learn to relax can be enough for them to gain confidence in you and then accept treatment. If a problem seems too large then the client can become overwhelmed, depressed or more anxious. So it is useful to help them to relax first. When someone is relaxed they see their problem
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more clearly. This will help them to discuss how and when the problem occurs which will give you the structure to work with to help them. When you work with the client you need to frame the problem so that the client feels they are overcoming the problem using their own resources and that you are just a guide helping them along. If they leave therapy believing they can help themselves then they will be more able to cope in the future as they are less likely to become reliant on a therapist. This also makes the therapy work faster and more effective. Help clients to access their resources like times when they expected to have the problem but didnt or times when they felt motivated. People often have abilities that can help to get through their problems that they already use or have used in the past in different contexts. Sometimes it may be necessary to break the problem down in to smaller chunks. For example if someone wants to lose weight but feels it is an insurmountable task then you could create stages to this outcome. As each stage gets met the client would know they are getting closer to achieving what they want. If you didnt break it down they may decide they are no closer to what they want because they have no markers along the way.
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Always remember; start where you can make a difference quickest. This way you gain their confidence in your abilities to help them. It could be that you immediately help them to relax or get rid of a phobia or de-traumatise memories in the first session. Therapy becomes so much easier and quicker once the client feels confident in your abilities. By noticing the structures of their problems you to see where you can make the fastest difference.

All psychological difficulties are trance states.

A trance state involves a narrowing focus of attention. When a client comes to you with a problem they dont see multiple perspectives. All problem structures involve some level of trance. In a trance you get a bias of perception. A depressed person looks at reality negatively and past oriented etc Most of the techniques and skills are designed to break trances and create multiple perspectives. Sometimes it can be best to encourage the problem rather than fight it. This can help to maintain and build rapport and can

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also misdirect the client from recognising that what you are suggesting is actually going to be what creates the solution. For example you can say you can continue smoking for now but the but part is the therapeutic part. The great psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson once told a client they could continue to suck their thumb but they had to also suck each other finger individually each time they sucked their thumb. Making the problem too much of a chore which led to the person becoming sick of sucking their thumb and each finger and so wanting to stop the behaviour completely.

The main reasons for problems are:

Emotional needs not being met Damaging or unrealistic expectations Traumatised or faulty pattern matching Feeling overwhelmed or worrying Developing a problem behaviour pattern Being unable to break out of a trance state

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Most problems involve people getting themselves into double binds (damned if you do, damned if you dont), or lacking certain abilities or skills (to relax or to build rapport etc)

Problems involve splitting and linking

Splitting is where you have the part of you that doesnt want to carry out the problem behaviour and the part of you that carries it out anyway.

For example:

Blushing - dont want to blush but blush anyway Addiction - dont want to smoke but I smoke
anyway

Linking is where you attach a stimulus and a response.

For example:

Doing a presentation and feeling terrified Feeling stressed and wanting a cigarette
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Look for solutions

When you are paying attention to a clients problem structure; look for solutions that the client overlooks. Things like, when a client went for a period of time problem free, or something that once worked for them that they perhaps thought was a one off. For example many people smoke but make long plane journeys without having a cigarette. Notice black and white thinking that may be maintaining a problem. Break it. Make it grey. Notice people using the word should and challenge this in a skilful way to see if it really is a should. Do the same with terms like have to, Ive got to, I must, I need to. All of these terms can restrict someones views and help to maintain bad patterns.

Notice when people have an illusion of control, either too much or too little. Because again these crop up in many problem structures helping to keep the problem in place. Challenge the
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illusion; ask questions like what would happen if you let someone else do that instead? or what would happen if you said no? Use double binds, splitting, linking and evoking abilities and skills in your solutions when you help the client to create a new pattern or adjust the old pattern. Not only can double binds, splitting and linking be involved in the problem formation, later on you can see how to use these therapeutically.

Some interventions can be:

Making

conscious

unconscious

responses,

interrupting the pattern, and getting them to think in detail about the steps of their problem.

Doing less of whats not working Advertise the problem rather than concealing it.

Or you can create tasks to alter the problem behaviour and disrupt the pattern: Alter the pattern of the complaint
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the complaint -

Change the frequency Change the timing of performance Change the location of the performance Change the duration of the performance Change the sequence of elements/events in

Break the complaint into smaller chunks Link the complaint to the performance of a

boring or difficult task Add a new element to the pattern

Alter the context surrounding the pattern

Or if working with couples or families set tasks for them to do that will gather information and teach them something new.

Do a few things that will surprise your parents/child. Dont tell them what those things are or when you are doing them. The other persons job is to see if you can tell what it is that the
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other person was doing. Dont compare notes; we will do that next session

If parent wants something suggest Keep track of what you are doing this week that gives you/makes you/etc(pleasure, happy, etc)

As problems often arise to meet unmet emotional needs it is useful to have awareness of what these needs are and to keep them in your mind when you are working with clients to notice if any seem not to be getting met appropriately. It could be that the presenting problem doesnt seem to be meeting any needs but on listening to the client you find that a need isnt being met in everyday life. This could mean that the problem in some way is meeting that need. Different parts of the brain function in different ways. Being aware of which functions are associated with which brain hemispheres can help to understand what is going on in the clients mind. You can also then understand how emotions affect the brain helping to maintain or break problems.
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Generally the left hemisphere is for processing information in sequential, logical, rational ways and with small, detailed movements and the right hemisphere is for contextualising patterns, pattern matching and emotions and with large

movements. In some people (often left-handed) this can be reversed. One of the most primitive parts of the brain is the emotional mind (limbic system). This part of the brain is responsible for maintaining your survival. During times of high emotion the limbic system takes control. This causes an IQ drop as the higher parts of the brain get shut down and the mind goes into safety mode. At this time all that is important is survival. The person will be in a highly focused state of mind where they will want to run, fight or freeze. The run and freeze responses are the feelings of anxiety and fear, the fight response is a feeling of anger. By knowing about how the emotional mind can take over in times of high emotional arousal it is possible to disrupt this process by asking the person to challenge their own thoughts or to grade the intensity of their emotion as the emotion begins to take
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effect. Both these interventions require a person to use their logical, rational part of the brain, which reduces the intensity of the emotion. Another approach can be to chew gum as this causes the digestive system to be activated. One of the systems that gets shut down in times of high emotional arousal is the digestive systems, so if you start chewing you prevent the digestive system from closing down and the emotional system from being able to take over so easily. This works because if you are chewing and thinking about food then the presented threat that caused the emotional arousal cant be that severe or you would be more concerned with your own instant survival. When the emotional part of the brain takes control it shuts down all systems not essential for short term survival from digestion to sex drive. These are important for long term survival but not so important when you need to fight or run away to maintain your immediate safety. Many problems can arise due to prolonged emotional arousal to do with these systems being made to not work correctly like irritable bowel syndrome, impotence, and ulcers.
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The role of trance in human behaviour and problematic states.

As I have mentioned previously people go in and out of trance from moment to moment, gluing new learning in place. This happens whether it is beneficial learning or a learning that causes a problem. This is why using trance to help people is so important. As a therapist you want to be able to help people to spot and control their own trance states. You can teach a client to step out of an emotional trance as it begins. This can be practised in therapy helping the clients to make that psychological shift.

Imagination keeps belief patterns and emotional patterns in place

Your body cant tell the difference between reality and imagined

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The observing self is the part of you that observes what is happening at that moment in the mind or behaviourally. You cant observe the observing self it is a point that you observe from. It is emotionless. Most forms of therapies use the observing self whether it is to see how you are thinking, or to see how you react with a different emotional reaction etc This is a place where you get to look at the problem from a different viewpoint separating the problem from your core identity. Many of the techniques and skills that you will learn to help people with problems use the observing self. They have the person view themselves calmly watching the problem behaviour or a new improved behaviour or reaction. Telling stories helps prepare and use the observing self. When you listen to a story you notice patterns, plots, characters behaviours etc Stories are laced with patterns. These patterns can be observed for the first time from a different point of view.

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Utilisation

Remember utilisation! Use what the client gives you. If the client shows resistance, use it.

Use clients interests and what they say to you

Any of the clients opinions can be used. If the client starts to tell you about the weather and how nice it is outside you can use this to elicit pleasant feelings or to encourage them to think about a holiday that can be used to relax them. To utilise feelings that the client mentions it is important to feedback what they say in a way that gets them more absorbed in those feelings in the present. For example if a client was talking about a time they felt good about an achievement, as you talk to them you can begin to re-evoke those feelings in the present and begin to associate them with solving the problem. To do this you need to feedback what they say into present tense. Use it whether it is anger or resistance or lack of motivation
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or positive things like having a supportive family, being confident at playing a musical instrument, running a marathon each year, or a pleasant experience, whatever it happens to be.

For example:

Client: I went out for a walk in the country the other day. It was so relaxing. Therapist: What was it that you found so relaxing?

Client: All the different colours, the cool breeze, the feeling of the warm sun on my face. Therapist: Seeing all the different colours, feeling that

cool breeze and the warm sun on your face. Client: Yes.

You can do anchoring to link a resource with solving their problem, or you can get them to rehearse hypnotically utilising resources. Rehearsing hypnotically doesnt mean putting the client into a formal hypnotic trance, it means creating an experience in
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the mind of the client that is focused on what you want them to focus on. With practice utilisation becomes easier, and resources begin to stand out as if they are marked with neon markers.

Use resistance, everything the client says and does is right for getting them cured. When I am doing therapy I constantly use all the client does to get them to where they want to go. I regularly tell them thats right or go mmm or do something that is acknowledging to them that they are doing the right thing to go into a trance or to quit smoking or whatever it happens to be. For example if someone comes to me for therapy and says Im too stressed to be able to relax and go into a trance. Ill tell them Thats excellent. All the best work is done with the clients that have some tension there. What I need you to do is just hold on to some of that tension for a while as we do this. If a client says You wont be able to hypnotise me because Im too strong willed. Ill tell them Your right I wont be able to hypnotise you, all I can do is guide you into a state of
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mind that gives you greater control over the inner workings of your mind and body. A state of mind that allows you to control your heart rate, your blood pressure, your breathing and many other processes, but it takes a strong willed person to enter that state fully and completely.

Utilisation exercise

In pairs have one person (1) being the client while the other person (2) is the therapist. Person one talks about a pleasurable experience. Person two listens to what person one says and utilises all that they can to help person one deepen their experience. Spend five minutes each way and do this three times each, so that you have experienced being a client three times and a therapist three times. Enjoy yourself you do better when you are having fun.

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Re-framing

One of the key skills to effective therapy is the ability to do skilful re-framing. Think about your clients focus of attention. If they are being argued with or perceive disagreement then they will be focused on their point of view and will hold firmly to their views and beliefs. Re-framing is where you change the meaning of a situation. Jokes re-frame situations, which is why they make us laugh, because they give an unexpected outcome. Therapeutically I find re-framing with humour useful by pointing out the ridiculous things that people say to each other.

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For example:

You forget your anniversary so on the way home from work you buy some flowers and give them to your wife and apologise, and she responds with: Youre only doing that to make me feel better Now obviously you did do it to make her feel better. You wouldnt do it to make her feel worse? Yet inevitably an argument is about to occur. Next will come the stage where you are told that it is too late now, you forgot the anniversary. As if it is too late to be allowed to now feel good, now is the time to feel bad and angry! All this to me I find amusing and ridiculous so I point it out to clients in a way that makes them see it from my point of view that the husband was trying to do the right thing, he was showing his love. The wife was understandably upset but should she decide that now is the time to be angry or decide to feel good because her husband loves her.

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Re-framing can happen instantly in situations just because a new piece of information has appeared that changes the meaning.

For example:

If you were driving along a main road in rush hour traffic and you have been getting really angry at the slow moving traffic and people constantly cutting in front of you. You think to yourself if one more person does that Im going to be livid! Just then another car cuts in front of you. You begin to get angry when you see the driver turn and wave at you with a cheeky smile and you notice it is your best friend. Now you smile also and think the cheeky sod, hed do anything to get to work on time! Now the situation has been re-framed and you dont respond with anger, and in fact you are likely to now remain a little calmer for the rest of your journey and even call him to joke with him about it when you get to work. When I worked in childcare with teenagers with challenging behaviour there was an incident where a young person became aggressive towards staff. The young person needed to be held for
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their safety and the safety of others. They still continued to be aggressive. The incident had been going on for about an hour with all staff and the young person hot and sweaty and wishing the situation would just calm down. Just then one of the members of staff lent over to take over holding the young person when he did a really loud unexpected fart! The young person immediately started laughing and so did the staff. The incident remained calm after that with no recurrence. Re-framing is necessary to avoid arguing or causing defensiveness when you are trying to change someones mind or their point of view.

Its easy to make someone defensive but not necessarily very productive by saying things like

Yeah but No, you wrong Well in my opinion

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Or giving off disapproving body language like crossing your arms aggressively when they say something you disagree with or not paying them attention, appearing like you are not interested.

You need to get them interested in what YOU have to say.

Some ways of doing this are:

So just to check I understand (then feedback

what they said but in a more productive way)

Ive got an idea that may help, Im just wondering

what you think?

Ask a question Agree with them (then follow with what you want
them to hear)

Disagreeing without seeming to do so (one of my favourite examples):

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Client: but I enjoy smoking Therapist: yes! (Agreeing) People can learn to enjoy anything; people can enjoy the company of a charming but manipulative psychopath whilst that psychopath works to

undermine them. At least you know what the cigarettes are taking from you

From Uncommon Knowledge Training Course

Pre-empting beliefs, if the client doesnt hold the belief it doesnt matter because you are only talking about people.

For example:

I still get some people that come to see me that believed that they couldnt be hypnotised that they wouldnt let someone control them. Once they have got an understanding of what hypnosis really is and they see that it is nothing mysterious and that they are the ones in full control of how deep they decide to go into a trance change occurs rapidly.
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Use the resistance when re-framing. This is best done by agreeing with the resistance then associating it to something else and giving different meaning to what they are saying, then following this with a positive new statement or meaning that is productive.

For example:

If someone says that they wont do as you say because they dont believe it will work so why bother trying. You can link this opinion with the many things the person genuinely wouldnt do if they were asked and then you can start to say things like dont tell me anything about the problem until you feel comfortable to do so. This implies that they will tell you. It also implies they will feel comfortable and if they want to not do as you say then they will have to tell you now about the problem.

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Re-framing exercises

Exercise one

In pairs, person 1 being a client, person 2 being the therapist, practice re-framing.

Person 1 You dont want to relax. You wont do as you are told because you dont want to feel that someone else has control over you Person 2 you have to listen to what they say then reframe what they say to work towards relaxing person 1. Remember it is best to agree first and then lead. After spending about five minutes each way doing this then move onto the next exercise.

Exercise two

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Now person 1 as the client, your problem is you cant say no and stand up for yourself. Person two as the therapist, you have to re-frame this to get person 1 saying no and standing up for themselves. Do this exercise so that both people have been client and therapist.

Remember to have fun. You learn better when you enjoy yourself.

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Hypnosis

What is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a trance state. Trance states involve a narrowing focus of attention.

This could be:

Outwards like in an emergency.

Or

Inwards like when daydreaming or worrying.

A trance state is when you access the Rapid Eye Movement (R.E.M) State. This state is accessed during dreaming and at times when the brain doesnt know what is coming next, like in an emergency or with a loud noise.
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The R.E.M state is the state that you go into to create or update patterns of behaviour. This is why human babies have the highest time in an R.E.M state in the three months leading up to the birth. In this last three months all of the instinctive patterns are being laid in place for life on the outside. This allows for certain behaviours to happen without being learnt, like breathing, suckling and the ability to match facial expressions which allows the baby to bond by building rapport.

There are a number of behaviours associated with trance states many of which are useful to be used for rapid healing.

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Trance state behaviours include:

An increase in suggestibility & responsiveness Increased tolerance to pain Hallucinations Immobility Blinking stops Ability to change body temperature Ability to build muscle using the imagination Ability to alter blood pressure Ability to change mood Ability to rehearse new behaviours until they
become instinctive

Altering immune system activity Accelerated healing Amnesia Plus much more

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Before learning how to induce a trance in yourself and others it is important to know what to look out for. If you dont know what to look for to tell when someone is in a trance you wouldnt know when they are hypnotised. The ability to help people into an optimum learning state, which is the same state as a hypnotic trance is one of the most important abilities that you can learn. When you know what to look out for you can begin to utilise what you see as being an indicator that the person is entering (or is in) a trance.

Trance indicators

catalepsy different voice quality shorter sentences and words relaxed muscles less body movement economy of body movement
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 smoother features lack of startle reflex takes things literally slow or no swallowing reflex slow or no blinking slower pulse slower respiration pupils change head nodding side to side facial symmetry breathing from stomach less facial colour eyes roll back eyes flutter instant hypnotic phenomena

Not all of these indicators happen all of the time. Sometimes some people may show some indicators but not others or there may be a delay before some responses. This delay can
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often happen with hypnotic phenomena or tasks that clients are asked to carry out. This happens because often internal time distortion occurs sometimes on an unconscious level that can make the time it takes for a client to carry out a behaviour seem quicker to the client than it appears to the therapist.

How do you do hypnosis?

To do hypnotic inductions you need to either recreate stages leading to dreaming sleep or recreate the state of not knowing what is happening next causing the reorientation response. Recreating stages of sleep could be a relaxation induction getting the client to relax their body perhaps starting with their feet, then relaxing their mind by getting them to think of something pleasant. Or it could be getting them to imagine something relaxing. Or getting more of their attention focused inwardly in some other way.

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Recreating a state of not knowing what is happening next could be done by interrupting a pattern of behaviour, or causing confusion.

Some types of induction are:

Conversational (overt & covert) Pattern interrupt Embedded-meaning/metaphorical Confusion Directive

Conversational inductions are inductions that initially start with an ordinary conversation. They involve embedding

suggestions and utilising ongoing experiences or events to induce a trance. It could be embedding suggestions in a conversation or feeding back what a client says to deepen their experience.

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An example of a conversational induction:

As you sit back and begin to feel comfortably relaxed (Embedded command), I would like you to let those eyes gently closethats rightrecognising that with those eyes closed you can go inside very pleasantly, accessing memories, past experiences or other meaningful events, times gone by when you felt good Now, Graham, Id like you to take two deep, refreshing breaths and as you release that second breath you can drift even more deeply into a satisfying a pleasant state of relaxationetc

An example of a pattern interrupt induction: (Interrupting the pattern of a handshake) Hi, Im Dan (hand goes out; clients hand comes to meet it. I take it with my opposite hand, raise it with palm facing clients face then slowly start it moving to their face)and as that hand continues to move closer to your face all by itself you can begin to notice the change in your visionand as the vision changes you can notice how heavy those eyelids are gettingand you wont go
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all the way into a trance until that hand comfortably touches the faceetc

An example of a metaphorical induction or embeddedmeaning induction would be to tell a story and use embedded commands and metaphors for going in to tranceetc

An example used in a staff meeting to get the staff working together again:

One-day snow white decided that she wanted to go on a walk, she didnt often go out far from her home as she was unsure what she would find in the deep, dark forest. Snow white left on a path right outside her front door. The path was covered by trees arching high over head; either side of her was deep, dark forest. Snow white stuck to the path walking through the shimmering beams of light that flickered down through the trees above. As she continued tofollow this pathshe was aware of the rhythmic beat of her feet on the ground and the sounds of birds in the trees and the rustling of leaves as the wind blew a breeze. She
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continued to wander and at times found her mind wonder about why she set out on this journeyafter walking for a while she found herself smile as she saw a house in the distance. The house was in a clearing in the forest that was bright and cheerful. There were plants of many varieties and many flowers surrounding the house. As snow white reached the clearing she could feel the calm, warmth from the sun on her skin. Snow white could hear voices coming from the house and the closer she got the more she could tell that the people inside the house were disagreeing with each other. Snow white approached and asked one of the people what was wrong. Grumpy explained that they used to all go to work singing and dancing with enjoyment but now they seem to have forgotten how to work as a team. Grumpy explained that they used to push togetherpull togetheraxe togetherall togetherbut now they found that they couldnt. When one pushed another pulled and no work got done. Snow white asked what they do and was told that they are the team that digs and lays the foundations for new buildings. She asked them why they decided to do that work. She was told that you see buildings standing and feel proud because you know that they are standing because you built the foundations well, it makes you proud of all
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that hard work you didsnow white decided to tell the little people a story about a centipede that kept falling over its legs. The centipede asked a friend how he manages to walk without falling over. He was told to justrelaxand let all the legswork togethernot keep thinking about which leg should do what and when. This made no sense to the dwarves so they decided to forget what snow white said and just enjoy her company. Before snow white left she asked who made such a lovely garden. The dwarves said they all worked at it and that many of the plants have survived some harsh winters. At the end of the day snow white said good bye to the dwarves. She got right up and left. As she left she was amazed by how much happier and healthier they were starting to become. Something had happened that they were learning from which looked like it made them healthier and made them work out their differences, sneezy had stopped sneezing, grumpy was happy, bashful had clear skin and no hint of red, and all of the others had noticed improvements too. This made snow white happy as she skipped away from the house up the path leaving her adventure behind like a dream that got more out of reach like a name on the tip of your tongue as she approached her home pleased with her

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mini adventure, then walked through her gate and, finding it was all a dream sheopened her eyes

A directive induction is an induction where you tell the client what to do.

An example of a directive induction:

Im going to shake your hand three timesthe first time your eyes will get tiredlet themthe second time theyll want to closelet themthe third time theyll lock and you wont be able to open themwant that to happen, and watch it

happennow12now close your eyesnow 3and theyre locked and youll find they just dont work, no matter how hard you trythe harder you try the less theyll worktest them and youll find they wont work at all

An example of a confusion induction (used within a story):

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One afternoon a woman set out looking for her friends house. She was feeling rather tired and sleepy, but perked up halfway there when she realised shed forgotten the directions. She decided to check for directions anyway, and holding the wheel with her right hand she used her left hand to place a can of coke on the floor right beside her then reaching right across her side with her left hand to her right coat pocket for the directions she discovered they werent there so she thought maybe they were left in her left pocket so she checked right there only to discover they werent there either. She then checked both pockets again with alternating hands as she steadied the car steering wheel with her knees she remembered that her friend had said that it is two rights and one left. She took a right and was left with one right and a left. She took a left and was still left with one left and two rights. She tried two rights and was left with one left, and after trying just one left alone was left with two rights, and still she had not found her friends house, which was starting to get a bit confusing. She decided to try a bit harder which was hard as she fought off fatigue and the traffic, and the first thing she did was reverse the right-left order, which she definitely thought was the right thing to do just then. Leaving from the corner she took a hard left, leaving two rights
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left, and still she was not there. A right and a left, and continuing with one more right left her not there yet either, and finally in utter bewilderment and near exasperation, she pulled off the road deciding the only decision she has left must be right, she sat back behind the wheel, took one deep breath and said I might as well just sleep

Naturalistic inductions

Probably the easiest way for a beginner to induce a trance in someone else is to use a naturalistic approach. A naturalistic approach involves talking about everyday trance states. As you talk to a client about everyday trance states they will be familiar so will rapidly start to enter trance. If you do this utilising hypnotic language the effects will be even greater. It can be useful to write out direct scripts then change it to indirect. Writing what it is that you hope to achieve and how you will achieve this. Then you can go through the script changing anything that is too direct and that might not match the clients reality to something that will. For example, you may say ..as you
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approach that old wooden staircase which is direct and may not match the clients view of a staircase and change it to ..as you approach that staircase which is more general and so it allows the client the freedom to fit this into their model of reality. To focus attention get the client talking about something that they are interested in. in the old days hypnotists would tell the client what to think and what to focus on. To induce a trance you need to focus attention but it doesnt matter what you focus that attention on. That is one of the beauties of naturalistic inductions. Hypnotists used to use swinging watches, stroking, telling the client to look at a spot or a candle. Modern day hypnotists get clients to focus on issues, thoughts, comments, or even the process of their problem. One quick way to hypnotise a smoker is to ask them to tell you the process they go through when they smoke. Utilise naturalistic phenomena. Anything can be used to achieve your goals. If you want to lead to a trance state you can use naturalistic phenomena leading to trance, like sleep, day-dreaming, a leisure activity. If you wanted to evoke a hypnotic phenomena then you can use examples of times that thy have happened naturally like numbness sleeping on an arm or holding snow, or
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amnesia forgetting someones name or being interrupted midsentence. Creating responses this way will then come from client so they will be more powerful. It is completely different telling someone to laugh uncontrollably than reminding them of times they found themselves laughing uncontrollably, like in school in a classroom when you know you shouldnt, and the more you try to stop the laughter the more the laughter builds up, you know that feeling? You can get the client to talk about something they enjoy doing that makes their mind wander and as they talk about it they will begin to go back into that same state of mind again. When you hypnotise someone you want to separate the conscious and unconscious mind. You can do this by confusing the conscious or marking out different messages to the conscious and unconscious mind.

Other useful ways for beginners to induce trance and do effective therapy are:

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 Make someone talk about their problem without

using words relating to the problem then use this to help do treatment

This can allow you to work completely metaphorically. You can use the metaphor they give for their problem and then just get them to play out the metaphor to a positive conclusion in the clients mind. This can be useful when you dont have enough information or time to work in depth with the client.

Utilise everything dont think of anything as failure

If a client doesnt give the response that you expect then utilise what they do give you and acknowledge that what they are doing is what they need to do to achieve the desired goal.

For example:

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If a client says that they cant relax enough to go into a trance, then say How did you know that you needed to have a little tension there to be able to do good effective change work?

Time your rhythm to rhythm of clients breathing

This is probably one of the easiest ways to increase your effectiveness at altering someones state. If you match their breathing and talk with the clients out breath you can begin to slow your breathing down and begin to slow down what you say and they will begin to relax deeper. This is because breathing is such a fundamental part of life that if you match it you quickly begin to build rapport with the client on an unconscious level.

Use fractionation

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Fractionation is a technique developed where you take the client in and out of trance repeatedly which deepens the trance each time they go inside. This can be done simply by asking the client to open their eyes then close their eyes again and go deeper. Fractionation was created because hypnotists noticed that each time clients came into a session and were hypnotised they went deeper than they had done on previous sessions. It was realised that they didnt need to have a big gap between sessions, the same thing occurred if the client was repeatedly hypnotised during one session.

Feedback what the client says as suggestions

For example:

Client: My left hand feels heavier than my right Therapist: Your left hand feels heavier than your right!

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By doing this you are telling the client true statements which helps to deepen their state and you are utilising ongoing behaviour and comments to lead to the desired outcome.

Take the client to the future to when they no longer

have the problem and ask what did I do that helped you?

The psychiatrist Milton H Erickson MD would often take clients to the future then ask what he did to help them. After he did this and they told him how he cured them he would bring them back to the present and do what they said he did to cure them.

It is a strong belief of all the top therapists in the world that people have the resources they need to heal themselves they just need guidance and assistance in accessing that healing power.

Post hypnotic suggestions

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Post hypnotic suggestions are probably what hypnosis is most famous for and probably what causes the most controversy. Despite popular beliefs it isnt possible to make someone do something against their will with hypnosis. I dont mean that you cant make people do things they are not prepared to do because you can. For example, it is possible to indirectly make someone stop smoking but if it went against any of the clients values or belief then it wouldnt work. The unconscious mind is normally willing to do anything that will maintain self preservation so even if consciously the client wasnt willing to stop smoking, unconsciously they can still accept the suggestions. If the client is consciously not willing to accept the suggestions and the client recognises that suggestions are being given then they can interfere and stop the suggestions from working. To do post hypnotic suggestions effectively you want to make sure that you prime them first. By priming the suggestions with metaphors and explanations about what you are going to do you prepare the mind for carrying out the behaviour. After you have primed the suggestions you want to leave it a little while before you give the actual suggestion. This time is
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given to allow the mind to absorb the priming so that it is waiting in anticipation for the suggestion. This will increase effectiveness when it is given. As you wait before giving the suggestion it can be useful to deepen the clients trance and to take them into another level. For example, you could guide them down a staircase then through a door, or you could guide them along a country path then to a clearing, or simply suggest that a part of them can go to a deeper more responsive state of mind. When you give the suggestions you want to make sure that it is worded positively saying what you want not what you dont want. So often people know what they dont want and then say that. The problem with this is that the unconscious mind doesnt understand negatives. It makes images of what is said, so if you say You wont have that pain when you sleep at night. The unconscious mind will create an image of you being in pain when you are trying to sleep at night to know what it is not supposed to think about. The same thing happens if I ask you dont think of a pink elephant. You have to think of a pink elephant to know what not to think about.
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the

When you give suggestions you want to make sure that they are easy to follow. The more complicated the post-hypnotic suggestion the more chance there is that it wont be followed. When a suggestion is followed the client will go back into the same state that they were in when the suggestion was given. That is why Hypnotherapists often give post-hypnotic suggestions to re-enter trance with a given word or phrase by the therapist because this is a quick way to re-hypnotise a client. Say post-hypnotic suggestions three times at least, after you have done some priming and using metaphors. This helps to make sure that the suggestion is embedded in the mind. Use words like when and as to set post hypnotic suggestions and to link them to ongoing behaviour. Presuppositions (that will be covered later) work like posthypnotic suggestions. As you are repeatedly presupposing specific outcomes you are setting up future responses. If the responses that are being set up are associated with a behaviour that will definitely happen then this also increases the likelihood of the suggestion being followed.

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Remember to cancel any post-hypnotic suggestions that are no longer required or to make them very specific so that they will only happen at required times. You dont want a post-hypnotic suggestion to close the eyes and go into a trance each time you hear the word NOW to be active all of the time. You want it to be limited to the right context and to a specific tonality and only be the therapist.

Remember to use:

Embedded commands (messages marked out

within sentences using a change in tonality or a gesture etc)

Presuppositions (using terms like as, when, after,

before that all imply or presuppose that these things will happen)

Illusionary choices (offering choices that lead to the

same outcome, like saying: do you want to sit in this chair or that chair to go into a trance? It doesnt matter which chair is chosen the outcome is that you will go into trance)
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 Non-verbal behaviour like voice tonality and being

congruent by exhibiting what you are trying to get. For example saying relax in a relaxing way etc.

All of which will be covered in the next section on language.

Use of language

We all use language to define the world around us. It conveys our own representation of the world. Each and every one of us has a different model or representation of the world. We have all had different experiences in our lives. These create our own unique sets of beliefs and values. Our world is viewed through these beliefs and values.

Language shows externally what is going on internally.

Our models of the world are made up of deletions, distortions and generalisations.
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Generalisations

We generalise to make learning easier. We experience something a few times, for example opening a door, then create a general principle. Generalisation is about how we generate rules, beliefs and principles about what is true, untrue, possible and impossible. Once you have a number of similar experiences you develop a belief. It is this generalisation that can cause a bad opinion to spread. For example in everyday life if a customer has a bad experience, hears about a few other people that have also had a bad experience. Then whenever they tell anyone they dont make it specific they say they always give poor service. This is also how many psychological problems get formed and

maintained.

For example:

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A phobia can be caused by being exposed to a scary situation once then due to the high level of emotion the brain automatically generalises to make it so that you will have the same response in any similar future situations. This can be useful to help save your life but most of the time in our modern day world this generalisation becomes a hindrance.

Deletions

Your conscious mind can only process seven (+/_2) bits of information. Because of this all other information that comes into our senses doesnt get consciously registered. It still goes into the unconscious mind where it can be accessed but consciously it has been deleted and so when you consciously try to think about this deleted information recalling it is almost impossible.

Distortions
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We all distort reality. For example, if you buy a new house you may walk into a room and imagine what it would look like with furniture in it. Now at this point in time there is none of this furniture in that room, so you have distorted reality to see it. Examples of distortion are hallucinations and creativity. In both of these external reality is changed to something else. This is what distortion is. One way to see how we generalise, delete and distort information is to listen to different people telling you about the same event. They will all tell you slightly different stories about what took place even though they were all present at the same event.

Sensory Language

We also use all of our senses in language to describe the world around us. When you are doing therapy with others it is useful to talk the same language. As you talk to the client you want to notice what sensory language they are using from
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moment to moment and communicate back in the same sense. Also notice how people access the information in their minds with eye accessing cues. Usually (as you look at them) up left for visually constructing information, up right for visually remembering, left for constructing sounds in their mind, right for remembering sounds in their mind, down left for recalling or experiencing feelings and down right when talking to themselves in their mind.

As shown in the diagram below.

Visually constructed

Visually remembered

Auditory constructed

Auditory remembered

Kinaesthetic

Internal dialog

View above is as if looking at a person. The usual layout of eye accessing cues. Some people may be different so it is always useful to ask questions to check.
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If a client says: I hear what you are saying it just doesnt feel right. And you continue by saying: Look Ill show you. You are not speaking the same language. You need to be telling them not showing them and need to be using auditory words followed by kinaesthetic words.

Sensory language Phrases

Visual phrases -

I see what you mean We see eye to eye Show me Youll look back on this and laugh

Auditory phrases -

Were on the same wavelength They were living in harmony The place was buzzing
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Turn a deaf ear That rings a bell

Feeling phrases -

I will get in touch with you Im surfing the Internet There was tension in the air Hes a warm-hearted man

Normally smell and taste sensory words get included in with feelings.

Questions for eliciting eye accessing cues

What colour is your front door? (Visual recall)

What is it like to bite into a juicy orange? (Gustatory recall)

Can you hear your favourite piece of music in your mind? (Auditory recall)
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What does it feel like to be happy? (Kinaesthetic recall)

What is it like to feel wool next to the skin? (Kinaesthetic recall)

Imagine a purple triangle inside a red square? (Visual constructed)

What would a chainsaw sound like in a corrugated iron shed? (Auditory constructed)

What would your bedroom look like with pink spotted walls? (Visual constructed)

When you talk to yourself where does the sound come from? (Auditory dialog/digital)

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Imagine the smell of freshly cut grass? (Smell recall)

Which of your friends has the longest hair? (Visual recall)

How do you spell your name backwards? (Visual)

What does it feel like to put on wet socks? (Kinaesthetic)

What do onions smell like? (Smell recall)

What do you say to yourself when things go wrong? (Auditory)

What is it like to settle down in a nice hot bath? (Kinaesthetic recall)

What is it like to taste a spoonful of something very sour? (Taste)

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Hypnotic language patterns

One of the most important and powerful tools for you to use to increase your ability to hypnotise others and to help others to respond positively to psychological treatment is the language that you use. Throughout the book there have been examples of hypnotic language. Now is time to break the various language patterns down to learn them in a structured way. By giving examples in context previously you will already have a level of familiarity with some of these patterns. Some of these patterns are more likely to be used than others. I have included some of the more complex patterns to allow those dedicated learners out there to have something to play with and expand on. Hypnotic language is a way of communicating that leads to a response in the listener, initially at an unconscious level. Using hypnotic language is like using a special language to talk and build
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rapport directly with the unconscious mind. That is why they are so powerful to use for aiding change work. Many clients of mine would have had to be in therapy for many more sessions if I tried to help them without the use of hypnosis and hypnotic language. Even if I know what they need to do to get better some people just dont respond or want to make any effort on their part. They want the therapist to do all of the work while they sit their unresponsive. It gives these people an escape route. They can say to others that they tried therapy and it didnt work. Using hypnotic language allows you to have a set of skills that will help you to talk to peoples unconscious minds which means that you can create change that will seep into the conscious mind when it has happened. These skills also allow you to know minimal information about situations and problems yet speak in a meaningful way that sounds like you know more than you do.

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Yes set

The first language pattern that I will cover is the most basic the yes set With the yes set you want to ask questions you already know the answer to. Make sure the answers are always in agreement yes

Example:

your sitting in that chair youve come here today to see me

These statements can only lead to a yes answer if they are true which means that you are increasing rapport, because rapport increases with agreement and understanding. It also builds up a response potential. It gets harder to disagree when you have been repeatedly in agreement.

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Dont make all the answers yes answers some of them should be implied yes answers

For example:

You look like somebody who wants to get better?

It is increasingly hard to answer no when you have answered yes to many questions. One easy way of getting yess is to feedback what the client says. It sounds like you are clarifying but you are getting yes responses.

For example:

So your name is ..and you live at Client: I dont know whats wrong with me Therapist: You dont know whats wrong with you
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Reverse yes set

The reverse yes set is the same as above but always getting no answers. By using a mixture of this and the yes set you can break up the questions. If you ask too many yes-set questions or reverse yes set questions the client can get suspicious at always giving the same answer.

The answers are still all agreement

were ready

youre not standing up you didnt drive here this morning you wouldnt expect to go into trance before you

Both said assuming I know they are true statements (truisms)

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Tag questions

With tag questions you say the negative before they do so it encourages a yes answer.

People normally agree even if they disagree because the No has already been said. It takes away their need to say no and encourages a yes response because people like things to be even so if a yes is said people dont mind saying no, but if a no is said people are more likely to say yes.

Dont use it too often or it sounds manipulative.

Use it when you want a definite yes answer.

Will, will you not? Do, do you not? Does, does it not? Is, is it not?
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Can, can it not?.etc

Compound suggestion

Compound suggestions are suggestions where you are pacing and then leading suggestions onto each other, building on the previous sentence. (Pacing is where you match the clients model of reality and state what you know to be true for the client; leading is where you add on something extra for the client to follow even if it doesnt really connect with what is paced.) This is usually done by starting with pacing observable truisms then leading towards the response you want. The idea is to give a statement followed by a suggestion as if they are really linked together. By giving sentences linked to previous sentences you are compounding one suggestion onto the next and so deepening the effects.

One part compounds onto the next. Link these suggestions with and or a pause
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For example:

Look at that spot and I will talk to you (Pace and then lead)

For example:

While you look at that spot (pacing), I will talk to you (leading)

Use truisms or statements then lead with a suggestion or further truisms or statements

For example: You can hear my voice (pacing and linked to previous sentence in the last example), and you can listen to something else (leading)
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Some sounds give us special memories (pacing, linked to the previous sentence and a truism), you can be interested to discover what images are associated with those memories (leading)

Use a number of suggestions together one after the other linking them all to guide a client from where they are to where you want them to be.

For example:

You can look at that spot (p) while I talk to you (l) you can listen (p) and you can begin to get a sense

of how you will know when things start to improve in the future (l) I dont know which improvements will happen first

(p) you can relax a little deeper as those improvements come to mind (l)

Contingent suggestion
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Makes one part of the suggestion contingent on the other. One part happens because of the other part of the suggestion. In reality the two parts dont have to really link it only has to sound like it may link. Contingent suggestions often get used to make up compound suggestions.

You can link unrelated sentences and make them seem related. You usually link one part to the other with a time related term like as, during, while, before, after

For example:

Take a look at this book, as you can think about what you want

You can work from conscious to unconscious Or from observable to non-observable Or from reality to tranceetc

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Or you can simply work from a truism then link with a statement An example for problem solving might be:

As you see that pack of cigarettes on the dining room table, you can think about how disgusting and horrible they taste

As with the compound suggestions you want to pace and then lead

As youre sitting there with your legs crossed, I wonder what youre thinking Dont allow the eyes to close until your unconscious mind lets you try to lift your hand

Interspercial technique

Intersperse suggestions.

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Mark out suggestions to the client. Dissociate conscious and unconscious. Mark out suggestions to one or the other. You can dissociate or separate what you want.

For example: creative mind logical mind emotional mind problems-solutions

Embedded commands

These are a part of the Interspercial technique. Marking commands or suggestions as separate from the sentence with either a tonal shift or maybe by pausing before and after the command or with a gesture or movement etc This causes a pattern that the unconscious mind picks up on and responds to.

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For example:

Some people find theyrelax deeplyin the shower other people find theydrift into a dreamy statewhen they are in the bath I dont know whether...you will discover...that...you relax deeply...as you listen to my voice...or whether ...you will discover...that...you become more fully absorbed in your internal experience with each out breath...

Illusory Choices

Binds

A bind is where you offer more than one choice with the same outcome. For a bind you allow the choice to be chosen. You give people illusory conscious choice. They can pick which response they want to follow. They also have the option of rejecting all choices.
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For example:

Would you like to sit in the left chair or the right chair to go into a trance (Implication is whichever chair you chose to sit in you agree to go into a trance) All the forms of binds are of great use to therapists because as they appear to offer choice they make the client feel that they are in control because they are choosing while the whole time they only have one outcome.

Double binds

A double bind has a set outcome, you only ask for the opinion of the client. They may be right or wrong about their opinion but it doesnt effect the result. You offer more than one choice with the same outcome. A double bind cant be answered consciously.

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Do you think that left hand will get warm first or will it be the right hand (Implication is that one hand will get warm then the other. They can say which hand they think will be the first to get warm. They could be right or wrong. All they are asked is for their opinion on what response they will give first.) Will you go deeper into trance with the sound of my voice, or will it be with each out breath that you take (Implication that they will go deeper into a trance; and that they are already in a trance. They have to wait to discover if it will be my voice or their breathing that takes them deeper.) Outcome is to get an unconscious response

Conscious, unconscious double binds

This type of bind dissociates conscious and unconscious. By dissociating the conscious and unconscious you begin to create unconscious responses independent of conscious effort. This helps with creating responses that seem to just appear in the mind of the client which leads to them thinking that they came up with it themselves.
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Look at that hand (conscious response to look), do you think (conscious activity) the right hand will lift or the left hand will lift (implication one hand will lift, double bind) as you go into a trance (unconscious response)

Double dissociation double binds

A double bind where there is no question asked. The choices given sound like they maybe different but there is no need to verbalise an answer, just wait for the unconscious response. It is a double bind designed to cause dissociation. All of the options give the desired response. Double dissociation double binds sound confusing and are difficult to analyse consciously which is also trance inducing.

For example:

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You can forget to remember the things you forgot or remember to forget the things that you remember (Amnesia)

You can explore a rigidity without knowing that is there, or know that it is rigid without knowing how you discovered it (Catalepsy)

You can see things that are not really here or believe that they are here without being able to see them (Hallucinations) In hypnotic time a whole hour can seem like a minute as in waking time a whole minute can stretch into an hour (Time distortion) You can slowly return to a pleasant memory and forget the future as it passes or discover yourself already in the memory curious about the future (Regression) You can be aware of your hand and not know its your hand or you can know you have a hand and not be aware of it (Anaesthesia)

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From The Art of Indirect Suggestion, By Stephen Brooks

Reverse set double bind

Like a double bind there is only one outcome but it sounds like you have offered choice. These are said as statements and are useful with resistant people. They Sound like you are telling the client they dont have to do something yet really presupposing that they will tell you what you want to hear (or do what you want done). These sound very permissive while actually only giving a single outcome.

Im sure youve got a lot of things you need to tell me but Id like you to hold something back for now

You have secrets that you dont want to share, so why not hold some of that back for now and only share what you feel is appropriate

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Open ended suggestion

Series of choices all with the same result, any response gets the desired outcome.

For example:

As you go into a trance I dont know whether your hand will go up or down or left or right or not move at all

Will your hand go up putting you in a light trance, down putting you in a deep trance or stay where it is as you go into a medium trance

Not doing suggestions

You say what you want by saying they dont have to

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This can either give permission to do what is left (below example is staying still) or guide their attention indirectly to what you are telling them they dont have to think about.

You dont have to move your arms, your body or your legs as you go into a trance

Metaphors

Telling stories, anecdotes etc, either mirroring the clients situation or laying down a useful pattern, or seeding something for future work (like arm levitation being seeded by telling a story about a child in school compulsively answering questions in class and raising their hand spontaneously. You can set up a specific emotion with a metaphor or perhaps use clients comments or metaphors for rapport or use metaphors to lay down patterns unconsciously in the client. A story about circling a fort held by an evil invader, not letting food or water get in to the fort and not letting the invaders
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escape. After a short while all the invaders die could be used to fight warts, verrucas or even cancer.

Multiple tasking

Give people more than one task to do at once

As that hand becomes numb your eyelids become heavier, as your eyelids become heavier you hadnt thought about those sensations in that left foot until now, as your attention is directed to that left foot just notice how that anaesthesia is progressing in that hand, but dont let your eyes close until you are aware of how your breathing is changing so rapidly, I dont know whether that breathing will slow down in a trance like way before your eyes close or after your eyes close and you can be aware of your eyes closing without knowing that theyre closed or notice that anaesthesia has developed in a profound way without you realising it

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Whatever you do dont lose that attention you have now focused on that clock on the wall and as you look at that what does it feel like to stand under a warm shower and hear and repeat in your head as I count backwards 200, 199, 198and you dont have to be aware of that rigidity of the hand Im holding up

Multiple task-serial suggestions

One suggestion leads on to the next

Open ended sentences

Leaving the end off of sentences The client finishes the sentence in their mind

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Implied directive

Do this or this unconsciously, and then wait for the response

Put your hands above your head, if your unconscious mind wants you to go into a deep trance straight away they will come together, if your unconscious mind wants you to go into a medium trance they will move apart

Mispronounce words

The client will correct them in their mind causing then to sink in deeper and like embedded commands

Presuppositions

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Presuppositions are where you presuppose an outcome using terms like when, after, while, during, as, before, etc. They are useful for making someone think along certain lines and can also be useful for setting up ideas for the client to think about which builds up a future of having that outcome. Sometimes immediately directly presupposing can seem too intrusive or pushy. Sometimes it can be better to start a sentence in a way that sounds harmless. Like starting a sentence with the word would or starting it applying to a third party.

For example:

Have you ever been in a trance before? While your unconscious mind works at creating the changes that you desire you can begin to relax

Nominalisations

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Using words that are none specific. They cause the client to go on an internal search for the meaning. This makes them sound meaningful to all people as they all find their own meaning. Use them regularly. They are words that the person has their own fixed meaning to. Nominalisations are words with no fixed meaning like:

Curious, wonder, development, relaxing, explore, resources, pleasure, excitement, enjoyment, discover, fun, relax, meets your needs, satisfaction, etc

Using the language of time

Using time in your language is important to place what you dont want the client to have in the past and what you do want them to have in the future.

Verb tenses

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I dance I danced I will dance

All on the time line but static

An example of putting a problem in the past:

Client: I dont like the way I get talked to Therapist: You dont like the way youve been spoken to? This re-frames and puts idea in past.

If you add ing- this make ideas active like a movie

Static = normally problems Moving = normally not stuck

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When a client is talking about a problem or a reason why they cant do something then change what they say when you feedback to them. Make all negatives specific and in the past.

Client: Thats too difficult You: It really did seem it, didnt it? (Uses tag questions and moves into the past) You: But if you think about it now, you can begin to see that in relationship to what you will gain, its something you can start exploring in your mind

They say have, you say had They say has you say was

Make problems static in the past and solutions or resources moving to the future.

Pace and lead problems to the past, and resources to the present and future.
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What would it be like not on a timeline When now in the future on a timeline and associated Have had now looking back down timeline Now in the present

What would it be like, when you have made those changes, as you look back and see what it was like to have had that problem, as you think about it now

Saying Stop is a pattern interrupt. Use it when you want to stop a clients train of thought and change it.

For example:

Stop for a moment and think now about what it is that you would like to have?

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Illustrations of the use of hypnotic language patterns

Arm levitation

You

can

take

some

time

to

relax

(embedded

command) you can let time stand still like a clock stopping giving you all the time in the world a clock can be stuck at quarter to three (hands at 9 & 3 representing real hands) showing on the face with the motor behind being in control of those hands (metaphor they for the be mind left controlling the

arms)whether

should

stuck

(embedded

command) or raise right up (embedded command) to the twelve (clock metaphor for arm to raise all the way up) your unconscious (embedded command)mind gets the right idea leaving that left behind (vague language, the unconscious mind will understand what it means) rising right up honestly and effortlessly in front of you as that motor moves that right arm (embedded command and metaphor to raise the right arm up) as the other arm is left stuck right there at the 9 (embedded command & metaphor that the unconscious mind will understand) as you can notice yourself walking right
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arm up (changing words (on arm) & embedded command) to the clock you can become the clock with your unconscious mind becoming the motor the right hand can continue moving up to the 12 even faster as the wrong hand is left where it is. (Notice the various other language patterns like compound suggestions and presuppositions)

Selection of examples of different types of binds

I dont know whether you will decide not to stop smoking until the end of the session or decide to stop smoking before that

Its easy to forget how easy it was to remember that you smoked while finding it hard to forget how easy it is to remember many happy memories

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I dont know whether your unconscious mind will keep your mouth closed if you try to smokeor if you try to put a cigarette in to your mouth and discover that it wont open

I dont know whether you will enjoy life more because you no longer smoke or whether it will be because you have cleaner lungs

Will the memory that comes to mind be a motivated one or will it be a memory of high motivation

Will you maintain a cleaner and healthier lifestyle to prove to others how capable you are or will it be to prove it to yourself

You may get a temporary craving over the next few days wonder whether it will be your extra energy that fills that craving or will it be that smile that is showing your pleasure you have because of your success

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Will you decide honestly and unconsciously to show people that you are proud of who you are or show them that you are proud of whom you have become

I wonder whether you think that you will be aware of making that unconscious choice to permanently stop smoking now or whether it will just happen without your awareness

There are times you can remember when you forgot what you tried to remember.. There are also times you can remember when you forgot what was in your mind only seconds ago.. Remembering that you forgot to try to remember what it was that you forgot.. Like now finding that you remember you will forget if you try to remember but knowing that you have forgotten what you didnt try to remember.. Forgetting why youre even trying when you know you will just forget everything that I have said but knowing it is not forgotten unconsciously

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Confusion induction with arm levitation using complex language patterns

I dont know whether your eyes being shut will make your left hand go numb first or whether it will be the right hand.. Its your right to decide which hand will be left right until the last minute as the hand that is not left can go right into a relaxed state of numbness leaving whats left for a little while as the one thats numbing goes right on spreading with the other one still left behind spreading that numbness right down through your body relaxing you as the one thats left catches right arm up as it becomes lighter leaving the other one right where it is with the one thats left getting light like a helium balloon left in a room with me right down with the other one left lifting reaching for the sky wanting to fly left just floating there up in the air with the other one still right where it lays with the one thats left with a mind of its own left filling with helium giving it that floating, drifting, flying, relaxing feeling which is down right uplefting with one right down and the other left lifting up. As that lightness may spread right down into the whole body or being left for the body to rapidly catch right on
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up as you now drop deeply into a pleasant deep state of honest unconscious awareness

And finally a fun use of language patterns being used as an answer phone message. I think that it is important to practice these patterns and be creative. Use them in everyday life to turn them into something that you naturally do instinctively.

Hi thank you for callingwhen you leave a message dont forget to remember what that message was orremember to forget itjust stop a minute and think about how easy it is to get lost in thought when you hear people rambling on finding that when you come to talk you forget what was on your mind just a moment agolistening and trying to understand what I am saying and why I am saying it and how much effort it is to follow, and questions you ask yourself about when Im going to shut up and let you get back to what you were doing before you calledbut I think it would be rude for you to do that before you hear the beepso dont hang up until then just relax and be calm, lost in thought like losing track of an old dream or a name on the tip of
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your tongue thats easier toforget itand relax as you get off the phone you can always call back and try in vain to leave that message later if you want to feel betterso for now dont go until you hear the beep

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Psychotherapy

To do effective psychotherapy you will need to be confident at helping clients do guided imagery and be able to follow RIGAAR. It is also useful to teach them how to do selfhypnosis so that they can use this when they feel the need to do so to relax and imagine problem free times.

Human givens approach

In Foundations we touched on areas of The Human Givens approach, well just recap and delve a little deeper. The Human Givens approach focuses on knowing about what we, as humans have been given to manage life. This includes having an understanding of how the brain works, what the basic human needs are, what the essential skills (see essential skills chapter) are that most humans are born with and how pattern matching works and the importance of trance.
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The basic human needs are:

The need to give and receive attention The mind body connection The need for purpose and goals Connection to something bigger than yourself The need for stimulation and creativity The need to feel understood and connected The need to feel a sense of control

Be aware of the different functions of brain hemispheres and aware of how emotions affect the brain. Left hemisphere is generally for processing information in sequential, logical, rational ways and with small, detailed movements. While the right hemisphere is generally for contextualising patterns, pattern matching and unpleasant emotions such as fear and depression and is often associated with controlling larger movements.

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The emotional mind (limbic system) functions have a large effect on memories and on how problems are maintained. During times of high emotion the limbic system, which is a far more primitive part of the brain takes over causing the IQ to drop. As a therapist if you know this you can help the client to disrupt this emotional hijacking by asking them to challenge their own thoughts or to grade the intensity of their experience as it is happening. Both these interventions require a person to use their thinking brain, to water down the intensity of the negative emotion. (Do not use these techniques on romantic or pleasant memories etc because obviously you dont want these memories or experiences to get emotionally wiped!) People go in and out of trance from moment to moment, gluing new learning in place. This happens whether it is learning something useful or learning and strengthening a problem. This is why using trance to help people is so important. It is important to help people to notice and control their own trance states. You can teach a client to distance themselves from the emotional trance as it begins. This can be practised in therapy helping the clients to make that psychological shift.

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Imagination keeps belief patterns and emotional patterns in place

Your body cant tell the difference between reality and vividly imagined. This is why the use of guided imagery or hypnosis is so useful. Many people use this all the time. Hypnosis has often been given a bad image due to charlatans and bad stage hypnotists. This has led to a lot of confusion an misunderstanding in this field. Often I encounter people that I see doing hypnosis that would deny that that is what they are doing. Some would even get angry that I suggested it. ALL Counsellors, Psychiatrists, Doctors and Psychotherapists use hypnosis whether they realise it or not. For years sports people have improved their performance with hypnosis. Most of them would call it mental rehearsal. Race drivers often imagine repeatedly completing perfect laps so that when they come to do the real lap it is as if they have already completed the lap many times before. This is why knowledge of hypnosis is important, because you can get the client to repeatedly practice being better. For example, a smoker could rehearse not smoking when they answer the phone or when they are socialising
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and drinking so that they automatically respond in a specific new way in those situations. Use the observing self. This is a place where you look at the problem from a different viewpoint and separate the problem from the core identity. We are all born with this ability. When psychological problems occur often people get stuck in the problem and once stuck there they struggle to move to the observing self. You can use techniques like anchoring or the rewind technique to help the client to be able to step back from their problem. The observing self is the part of you that observes what is happening at that moment in the mind or behaviourally. You cant observe the observing self. It is a point that you can only observe from. The observing self position is emotionless. Most forms of therapies use the observing self to some extent whether it is to see how you are thinking cognitively, or to see how you react with a different emotional reaction etc Telling stories helps prepare and use the observing self. When you listen to a story you notice patterns, plots, characters behaviours etc the story can be perceived but you are not in it. If
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there are parallels then you can see these patterns for the first time from a different point of view. The most successful therapeutic techniques work because they use the observing self. Anchoring, scrambling, rewind technique etc work by allowing the person to view the situation from the point of view of the observing self. Using the observing self prevents emotional hijacking. Humour can use the observing self by making you look at a situation from a different viewpoint. As a therapist you need to use the observing self to allow yourself to not get sucked in to the clients problems and to notice patterns and to prevent giving off signals that the client may pick up on about personal views you may hold as a therapist about the clients situation that could be judgemental. Individuals always search for meaning. The meaning they find can be constructive or harmful. One of the worst things that can happen is that someones life can lack meaning.

Time-limited therapy

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Time-limited therapy is usually therapy that is less than 25 sessions. There is very good reason to do time-limited therapy. The average length of time clients spend in therapy is eight. 80% discontinue within 20 sessions. 40% only attend 1-4 sessions, 40% attend 5-20 sessions. So if, like many old schools of therapy you plan on offering an open-ended number of sessions most people wont stay long anyway. With this in mind it is best to treat each session like its the last. Studies have shown that single-session therapy can be beneficial. As a therapist the change-work rarely occurs within the actual session, it occurs after the session and between sessions as the neural pathways generate new and more useful patterns in the brain based on the work done in the session. When you work from a Human givens approach, using solution-focused therapy and a blend of cognitive, behavioural and interpersonal therapies and guided-imagery/hypnosis most clients will be treated within one to five sessions.

The handbook of counselling psychology 2003 reported:

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Follow up of clients from single sessions a year later had the same benefits as clients that had brief therapy and long-term therapy Study investigating a total of 2400 patients, 29-38% improved in 3 sessions, 48-58% improved in 4-7 sessions, 56-68% improved in 8-16 sessions, 85% improved in 53-100 sessions One-year follow up cognitive-behavioural approach appeared more efficacious than psychodynamic therapy There is growing evidence that only a proportion of cases require longer-term work, and as research develops it would seem that this proportion is getting smaller

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Principles of solution-focused therapy

To be effective therapy needs to stay on track. It is no good having clients in therapy with no established goal. If there is no goal then therapy can carry on for years and may just end up going round in circles each session. With solution-focused therapy the aim is to know what the main goal is and what stages are required to achieve that goal. You want to know what is expected to be achieved between each session. This allows you to see the rate of progress and areas that perhaps need improvement or need to be refined. Set goals and agree on how you will get there with the client, how you will monitor the progress and how you will know when you have achieved the goal and therapy can end. The first telephone contact with the client is the first therapeutic opportunity. Many therapists just treat the first phone call as a client arranging to have therapy. Whoever answers the phone should be trained to talk therapeutically to start the therapy process before the client realises that it has begun.

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It could be as simple as saying to the client to notice between now and the first session what occurs that they would like to continue occurring. This focuses the clients attention on positive outcomes and stops them focusing on their problem. By the time they come to their first session they are likely to already be feeling a little better and more positive. Ask clients to tell you what improvements they have noticed since making the appointment. In solution-focused therapy you want to get the client thinking positively in terms of what they want. You dont want them telling you what they dont want.

For example:

You dont want the client telling you that they dont want to keep arguing with their partner. You want them to tell you that they want to spend time getting on with their partner like they used to, that they want to be able to calmly discuss differences of opinion.

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The first option would involve the client visualising arguing with their partner to know what they dont want, whereas the second option involves the client visualising good times, discussion and being calm. Normalise the clients problem. Tell the client things like many people often think that before they understand what is going on Often people with problems believe that they have the worst case of their problem that anyone has ever had and that unlike other people that you have treated they will be untreatable. I often make clients problems seem fairly normal and mundane. I dont trivialise their problems I just use examples of similar cases that have been treated successfully and make their problem sound more common than they realise.

For example:

When I work with alcoholics I often explain to them about the effects that alcohol has on the body and the panic attack feeling that can occur the next day due to the side effects of having not
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drunk all night. Many alcoholics assume that they are the worst case I have seen because of these severe unexplainable panic attacks they have. When they realise that it is just the alcohols side effects they relax and dont panic so much if they have any future attacks because they know that it is because of the drinking they did and not because they are losing their mind. When I work with clients with phobias they often think that their phobia is the most ridiculous and worst phobia I have ever seen. I often start by explaining the survival aspects of the phobia and then talk about other people that had phobias and use examples that will sound more ridiculous than the phobia they have. I make phobias sound common place. Use time structure in your language. If you dont use time in your language therapy is likely to take longer because you wouldnt have specified what is past, what is present and what is wanted in the future. As was covered in the hypnosis section you want to move problems to the past. You want to start talking about what was, when that happened. When you talk about resources and solutions you want to talk using language that links what you are saying to the present and the future in as much depth as possible.
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The more you can open up possibilities and close down and be specific about problems in the past the faster and more effective therapy will be. In all of the therapy that you do you always want to expect the best. You dont want to be thinking this person is never going to improve sometimes people may not improve. Even the greatest therapists in the world cant cure everyone. For one thing not everyone listens and does as they have been asked to do.

Ask questions, which presuppose change.

How will your life be different? What do you think has stopped you changing so far? Who will be the first to notice? Do you want this change in all areas of your life? How will you know when therapy has successfully finished? How will I, the therapist know? Use the miracle question? A question that is asked along the
lines of if you woke up tomorrow and found your problem had
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vanished what would be different? How would you know? How would others know?

Ask exception questions. These are questions where you are asking for exceptions to what normally happens or was expected to happen. Like asking about times when the client thought they would have had their problem but didnt. Establish a clear outcome that both of you would be happy with. Sometimes therapists think they know what the outcome should be. It is important that as a therapist you dont force your views and beliefs upon a client. Likewise sometimes clients state a desired outcome that is ridiculous or too non-specific. Like saying I want to be happy. Between the client and therapist you should work with each other to establish an appropriate outcome that you both agree on. Separate the problem from the core identity. It is important to remember that the clients problem isnt their identity. If you call someone a smoker or an alcoholic or label them with any other problem you are linking the problem and the identity. Some people that get labelled in this way go on to assume they are there problem
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and that they are stuck with it. Like people that have a drink problem believing that even if they havent drunk for years they are still an alcoholic and always will be. Having people thinking in this way can be harmful as they never fully move on they always assume they could go back to their problem at any moment. When you talk with the clients you want to talk about their problem as separate by saying things like how long have smoked? What do you find you have been worrying about? What happens to make you feel you need to have a drink? It may sound paradoxical to a solution-focused approach but it can be useful to ask the client What could go wrong? This is really not as odd as it first sounds because by asking what could go wrong you are finding out situations that you could need to plan for which allows you to create solutions for areas that you previously might not have realised needed covering. Sometimes you could even set some setbacks in place in the future so that when they happen the client expects them as part of the recovery process. This can work well with clients that want to lose weight because then if they have a few incidents of bingeing this will be expected and even required to achieve the final success
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of meeting a desired weight. With some people that want to lose weight what I have found is that when they have a setback they immediately assume this means failure so they quit any diets and continue bingeing. The same is often true with many people with habits or addictions. The best way to set some setbacks is to say something like To achieve the best long lasting results you will have some setbacks for your unconscious mind to learn from. Now I dont know if you will have one, two or four setback and I dont know if they will happen close to each other or spread out over a long period of time. each time you get a setback you can accept it knowing that it means you are closer to achieving what you want to achieve and move past that setback with a renewed sense of achievement and motivation knowing that unconsciously and perhaps consciously you have learnt something useful about how it was caused and how it can be prevented in the future and you can then continue as you were before that setback occurred with the new learning that you have made. When you finish a session you can ask the client to notice what occurs between sessions that they want more of. This will give something positive for you to ask about at the next session
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and give the client something positive to focus on between sessions.

Areas solution-focused questions fall into:

Exceptions (When does the problem not happen when you

expected it would?)

Normalising (I have many people coming to me with similar

problems)

Scaling (On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst, how
anxious do those old memories make you feel when you think about them now?)

Discovering resources (What do you do to relax?) Miracle questions (If you woke up tomorrow and the problem
had gone how would you know?)

Changing the words (minimising the problem) and using time

(Changing pain for discomfort, changing Im always in pain. To when does the discomfort feel the worst?)

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 Future pace to a time when the problem doesnt exist (Imagine

drifting to the future after you have overcome the problem and notice what is different)

Remember you have to BE solution-focused not just use solution-focused language. Be solution-focused in ALL areas of your life. Think before you speak so that you talk solution-focused. Always have a goal in mind when you communicate and talk solution-focused to aim at that.

An outline of using solution focused questioning and structure (Examples given using helping parents with difficulties)

Over the phone set task: Between now & when I come to see you look out for things that are happening that you would like

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to continue to happen so that we can talk about them (Ask about this at first session)

Reinforce ANY positive

Start with problem free talk Feedback resources as they come out from the problem free talk Ask What would you like? Ask What is different about the times when? (What theyd like is happening) How do you get that to happen? How does it make your day go differently? (When that happens) Who else noticed that? (The above happened) How did you getto stop/end? (Eg, Johnny to calm down) How did you figure out that(to stop this)you needed to (do this) (If given a new response on how to handle the situation/or how it is now just started being handledpraise and set up to maintain)

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How is that different from the way you (the old you) might have handled it (1 week ago, month ago, etc) What do you do for fun? What do you do to relax? How do you give yourself me time? What are your hobbies/interests? Have you ever had this difficulty in the past? (Similar problem with another child, etc) (Yes) How did you resolve it then? What do you need to do to get that to happen again? (What is stopping you from doing the same again?) What will be the very first sign that things are moving in the right direction? (Or sign that things are continuing in the right direction?) Then what? What is happening that you would like to continue to have happen? (Can set a task Between now and next time look out for things that are happening that you would like to continue to happen so that we can talk about them next session) Miracle Question Then expand and build on it making it real

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Tasks

Alter the pattern of the complaint Change the frequency Change the timing of performance Change the location of the performance Change the duration of the performance Change the sequence of elements/events in the complaint Break the complaint into smaller chunks Link the complaint to the performance of a boring or burdensome task Add a new element to the pattern

Alter the context surrounding the pattern

Do at least one or two things that will surprise your parents/child. Dont tell them what it is. The other persons job is to see if you can tell what it is that the other person is doing. Dont compare notes; we will do that next session

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If client (parent) wants something suggest Keep track of what you are doing this week that gives you/makes you/etc

Session Two onwards

What has been happening that you want to continue to have happen? What did you notice you were doing that gave you more selfconfidence? What good things have you been doing since our last appointment? Etc

Then Amplify positives and changes

How did you get that to happen? How did it make your day go differently? Who else noticed that things went this way? Etc

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Groups people fall into (Miracle, So-so, Same or worse)

Miracle Group

Talk about changes as long as possible; expand on them, positive feedback and praise

What do you need to do to keep the changes going? Is there anything that might happen that might present a challenge to keeping these good things going? What would that challenge be? How will you handle it differently this time? Is there anything else that might pop up that might be challenging? (Repeat above)

So-so group

Get the client talking about the good times and what went well first Interrupt them if necessary saying well get on to those bits later (or similar)
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After talking about and expanding on the good bits then move onto the other stuff So what were you concerned about? How did you handle it differently this time?

Scaling

0-10 before support started 0-10 since sessions have started (or between sessions, etc) 0-10 ideal rating you would like to be at for support to end (what this would look, feel, sound like)

Scaling task

Notice and keep track of all the (7 (ideal)) things you are doing so that we can discuss this next session

Same or worse Group

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Get them to describe what, when, where, how, etc of the problem as it has been now Point out changes and positives etc Could ask is change really necessary or desirable? Reframe situations to come across as strengths or positives See how they respond/have responded to tasks Carried them out Not carried them out Done the opposite of what was set

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Basic Emotional Needs

To give and receive attention (e.g., socialising) The mind body connection (e.g., not sleeping can lower the
immune system)

To have purpose and goals (e.g., having an aim in life) Belonging to a wider community (e.g., joining a group or a
religion)

The need for stimulation and creativity (e.g., working at

achieving your goals)

The need to feel understood and emotionally connected to

others (e.g., having a close group of friends, having a loving partner)

The need to feel a sense of control & independence (e.g.,

knowing what is in your control & making decisions)

To feel a sense of security (e.g., financially, within a

relationship)

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 Having a sense of status within a social group (e.g., holding

a specific position in a company)

Having a sense of competence & achievement (e.g., being

good at your job, meeting your targets/goals)

These are some of the main emotional needs that need to be met to ensure a healthy balanced life. You can look down the list and see if these needs are being met adequately in your life. When any need or essential skill (see essential skills) isnt being met adequately that is when problems occur. For example getting a migraine to gain attention. Or getting an addiction that tricks you into believing it gives you a sense of control. Or joining a gang and getting into the gangs culture to feel understood and connected.

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Essential Skills

Tolerating uncertainty

Using critical thinking to challenge emotional states

Relaxing

Using resources

Managing attention

Truly envisaging not having the problem

Gaining distance from the problem (taking a step back in your

mind)

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 Thinking creatively (imagination) and holding multiple

viewpoints

Learning and remembering

The ability to communicate effectively

As with the Basic needs (see basic needs) there are essential skills that are useful for having a healthy balanced life. As a therapist sometimes I need to teach people certain essential skills just like I sometimes have to help people to get their needs met appropriately. Everyone is born with these essential skills, but through our different upbringings some people are naturally more able to use these skills than others. Many psychological problems arise out of not using all these essential skills effectively.

For example smoking to relax, or getting angry because you cant manage your attention effectively or feeling no-one listens to
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you (needing to work on communication), or getting more depressed because you cant ever believe you will get better, or worrying (misusing the imagination).

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The Importance of Keeping the Problem in Mind

I think giving a space where the problem is on the mind (every time a memory gets recalled it gets altered based on the state of mind etc that the person is in when they recall that memory) and then kept in mind as it is altered is a key to effective therapy. The VK Technique/Rewind Technique involves keeping the memory in mind as it is being manipulated. I do many techniques with representations of the memory/problem in mind being manipulated. Many of the NLP techniques need the problem to be in mind for them to work. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) involves the

memory being kept in mind as the tapping takes place. I think if someone else is there it can externalise it (creating disassociation) whilst that person can also influence it whether it is with something to do with their presence (like a sense of being loved, or supported, or being made to laugh etc) or to do with what they comment on and what those comments are (like saying 'thats right' every time
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the persons mind wanders from pain, or every time an internal change in state occurs etc). I think some of the less successful forms of therapy are where the therapist has a belief (for example that the cause of the problem isn't what it is) and so they take therapy away from the actual problem and associations to that problem down a line of questioning that may sound logical or plausible but really isn't correct and so the areas on the mind aren't relating to the actual problem so healing doesn't occur so effectively To do good therapy you need to access the problem to work on it. Problems are state-bound so you need to access it so that it can be worked with. You also want to have a marker for the end of therapy so you can scale the problem 1-10 at the beginning when you have evoked the symptom, and then scale 1-10 when you try to evoke the symptom at the end of the session and the client finds it isn't there, or it is greatly reduced. If you didn't access it at the start they wouldn't have a reference point and you wouldn't have anything to work with. Evoking a symptom can annoy people so can doing paradoxical task setting like telling people to stay awake all night if
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they aren't asleep twenty minutes after going to bed. So you need to give some explanation or exploratory context (with the sleep thing it could be doing an experiment to learn more about the nature of the problem etc)

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Hypnosis & Trance

I am fascinated with 'designer trances' that all emotional states are trance states and that as everything has a level of emotion in it everything has a level of trance involved. I believe that you can mix different trance states to create new states (like mixing jelly belly beans to get different flavours, or mixing cocktails). I use musical rhythms etc to create altered states and by starting one trance then adding another I create designer trances. This is what I do in many of my audio tracks with music (I'll even put in nursery rhymes etc as these cause trance states). Because everything has a trance element the problem is the easiest thing to use to hypnotise someone. I remember being told on a course many years ago that if you want to hypnotise a smoker ask them to describe smoking and they will enter a 'smoking trance'. My view on hypnosis is also that hypnosis is actually the art of inducing different trance states not the induction of one state. And that hypnosis is just the term given to the advanced communication skills used for doing this. My opinion is that the
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classical 'hypnotic' trance state is actually where a person has been guided into a 'peak learning state' where they are able to learn new information (updating old patterns) or learn greater control over themselves (like over unconscious processes etc). Hypnotic techniques can also be used to induce relaxation, anger, confusion, fear, pain, love, sadness, desire, etc... Because you can induce all of these different states having the 'state vs. non state' argument to me seems nonexistent as it seems like an argument over something that is in effect nothing but a collection of advanced communication skills techniques on the part of the therapist (or in the case of self hypnosis someone being skilled enough to induce a desired state of mind without external intervention). I think when it is induced indirectly it is hard to think of the induced state and any hypnotic behaviours as being 'acted' if the person didn't know they were being hypnotised or what is being expected of them. Whereas when it is induced directly and they are told what to do some people may fake it really well.

The brain is essentially a pattern matching machine for survival. These patterns can be added to and updated all of the time.
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This process happens all of the time, if you have a phobia you see something which sets off a feeling of fear (often making you run or freeze before you think what you are doing) then you start to think. ALL hypnotic language patterns (I'll call all things that can be done or used to induce hypnosis in that definition verbal and non-verbal) are recognised by the brain unconsciously and the pattern is understood leading to a response (If the pattern isn't understood there is no response) So in effect you are able to create responses with the person essentially in any state, not confined to a 'hypnotic' state. But unlike most arguments for the non state idea the person has no idea why the response happened, it wasn't expected of them so they had no idea to play along consciously...it just happened. I believe that trance states exist. My definition of a trance state is a fixed state of attention on a stimulus that defines your behaviour in a way that will aim to maintain that state (I also believe that a complete lack of attention like in meditation is also a trance state because (if it makes sense) they are focusing on having no fixed attention)

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You get many natural trances (including what could be termed a hypnotic trance) Anger is a trance state, so is love or relaxation etc... I believe that the stronger the emotion generated the deeper (as it were) the trance is because it is harder to break free from it and overcome it. Recent research (for more information visit www.humangivens.com) shows that a 'hypnotic' trance is an accessing of the REM state. This is the state of mind we enter to update patterns of behaviour. This doesn't mean it is necessary to put someone in that state to get phenomena though, it is just the state we update patterns and learn in. ALL 'inductions' use processes that cause this state of mind. Shock or confusion trigger the re-orientation response which is the REM state to lock on and learn how it should respond to this unknown situation, Relaxation, guided imagery etc are all parts of going into the REM state. As is getting the eyes to move side to side. I see it as a selection of natural processes that are being utilised. The hypnotic state is good for updating patterns of behaviour so it is a state, but recognising patterns and responding to them is non state specific.

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Psychoneuroimmunology & the work of Dr Ernest Rossi

I really like Rossi's approach. Many hypnotherapists use ideo-motor responses as signals to let them know what is going on. Rossi has just gone one stage further and uses ideo-motor responses and observation skills to track what the client is doing. He trusts that the client has the relevant resources in most cases to heal themselves. If after doing this process or a version of it if the person needed to do some talking then he would have them talk and would often suggest they can tell him what he needs to know to help them further. There is considerable research referenced in Rossi's work about the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system and cellular healing, and about research into gene expression and healing at the genetic level. Ernest Rossi's work is all about information transduction and State Dependant Memory Learning and Behaviour (SDMLB).

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His way of working based on his research into the subject is to recall the problem and be very specific in this so that you will be dealing with as pure a form of that memory as possible. Memory is fluid so every time you recall memories you alter them even if you don't me to. Ernest Rossi would ask if the clients unconscious is willing to work on the problem and would make this question contingent on something observable happening (arms moving, eyes closing etc) if it is willing. He would then let whatever comes up come up and would just respond acknowledging minimal cues that he observes; this could be the client working through difficult memories that have led to their immune system working less efficiently than normal etc. Then when the work is done another signal is given, it could be that all signals stop or a feeling the client gets or opening the eyes etc. He will grade the problem at the start of a session and at the end so that the client can notice the difference in score pre and post therapy. His work into information transduction builds on work of others that have gone before him and others that are currently
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carrying out research in this area. The idea is that information transforms as it passes from place to place, rather than energy being passed from place to place. For example: Electrical impulses in the brain (that carry certain meaning) pass this on to creating chemical processes (knowing exactly which chemicals to create) and this could pass on to create hormonal processes and on to alter cells, creating cellular changes, then in the cells those changes can lead to specific genetic changes etc. Ernest is working considerably on finding out how the placebo response or natural healing response can be triggered on purpose and demonstrated scientifically without necessarily

requiring a set of beliefs or Doctors having to trick patients. There are many cases of people believing so strongly in a treatment that even if it is a useless treatment it has still worked. In The Psychobiology of Mind Body Healing by Rossi there is a story of a man that begged his Doctor to let him go on a drug trial. He didn't meet the criteria because the criteria included the person being expected to live at least three months. This person was given days at most. The Doctor gave in and decided that as he will be dead in days someone else can carry on from him when he
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dies and he won't have had too many of the drugs allocated for the trial. This man was on a respirator, was bed bound and was untreatable. The Doctor gave him the first pill on the Friday afternoon and came back in on the Monday morning to find the patient walking around all happy and cheerful; his cancer had reduced by around 50%. Within a few weeks he was discharged from hospital. A few months later it was in the news that the drug didn't work. The patient suddenly went very downhill and his cancer came back more aggressively and quickly that it had gone. The Doctor noticed what had happened and so decided to lie to the patient and told him that a stronger strain of treatment is being shipped in which has gone the problems ironed out, he said it was due-in in a few days (building expectancy). When he gave the patient this 'new' drug (just a placebo) the patient got better twice as quickly as previously. Many months later it was in the news that the drug trials had finished and the findings had been collated and the drug has been found to not work at all. The patient fell ill again and died within 48hrs of this news. Other research Ernest is looking into is that despite the problem and the cause the underlying physiological response is the
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same whether it is stress, depression, anxiety, cancer, aids etc. This was called the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). It was first noticed and researched in the 1940's and 1950's. Research still continues and theories have been updated to include things like how messenger molecules work and State Dependant Memory Learning and Behaviour (SDMLB). As well as Psychoneuroimmunology there is also the field of Psychoneuroendocrinology that

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroendocrinology)

people could look at as the two fields are related and useful to know about. I have been fascinated by Ernest's work for some time; he has done and continues to do considerable work in this area and in looking at how people can access a self healing state themselves. A really good starting article into his work can be found at: http://www.ernestrossi.com/Yucel.htm That should give good grounding and ideas in and around this fascinating subject.

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If you are doing trance work or want a greater understanding of spontaneous trance state, knowing about ultradian rhythms is useful.

Releasing past stressful experiences to aid cellular healing.

Experiences are encoded in the brain through state dependant memory learning and behaviour (SDMLB) when you have stressful experiences that gets encoded in the mind and body. Stress affects each cell in the body and brain. If it is intense stress or prolonged stress is can have a lasting effect. As it is programmed-in in a state dependant way to remove its effects you need to access the actual state again and re-process it in a more useful manner. It could be high stress memories that need to be reaccessed and dealt with or memories that gave poor hypnotic suggestions (like a parent telling the child they are always sick etc). My opinion is that in the same way our upbringing clearly influences who we are as a person psychologically, I believe it also influences our mind-body in the same way.
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For example; a person can be depressed and you can see they are depressed. If the person was amnesic for the stresses that could have led to being depressed and they seemed fine on the surface the unconscious would still know about those things and may well still have them sitting there needing dealing with (they would be out of conscious awareness until the person is in the same state the memories where laid down in). I believe you are giving the unconscious a chance to take each relevant memory, sort them out and place them back in a more appropriate location. As stress reduces the ability of the immune system then dealing with stress will allow the immune system to get back to its correct potential. Here is a link to some information on state dependant learning:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O87-statedependentmemory.html

Follow the link then read down the page and check out the other links also as they are useful to.

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Understanding Energy Therapies

EFT has a long history including acupuncture, acupressure and TFT (Thought Field Therapy).

Recent research seems to point at it triggering the reorientation response and the REM state where twitches occur naturally. Joe Griffin (founder of The Human Givens Approach) found that the same results could be achieved by twitching fingers or by tapping on different points whilst thinking about the problem (which then also causes dissociation, so all together causes the memory to now be remembered in a new way). The thinking was if something seems to work lets find out how. The same was done with the Fast Phobia Cure, which was researched and adapted based on the findings to create what became the Rewind Technique in the Human Givens Approach (main difference is that you don't go up into a projection booth you go off to beside the screen, this way you can't see the screen even accidently as you are not in the right place to be able to do so. If
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you were in the projection booth you may accidently glance up and notice the screen and then may re-associate with what is on the screen) Regarding EFT, a couple of years ago I read early research by the European therapies studies institute that showed that EFT and TFT tapping triggered the reorientation response (as does hypnosis and it is also in dreaming etc), the techniques also involved dissociation. It didn't matter what tapping was done or where, and if the tapping was just imagined it was like a hypnotic visualisation induction. The techniques worked by triggering the learning state that is also triggered by hypnosis and is entered in dreaming as a way of updating patterns, then the dissociation at the same time recodes the memory reducing the problem by taking out the emotional content as the memory gets altered. Memories aren't fixed, each time they are recalled they change slightly depending on the recall, what part of the memory is recalled and how; which is good to know when doing therapy as it means things can change.

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Energy Therapies and Guided Imagery

Ive had over fifteen years of experience with guided imagery, ten years with acupressure, and around seven years experience studying EFT. Over the years these ancient arts have evolved and adapted to changes in culture and in the needs of the users. Over the thousands of years that guided imagery and energy therapies have been around they have gradually drifted apart. Recently they have started to reunite. Recent research has shown that the mind can control the flow of energy around the body There are many energy therapies around today all with common ancestry and similar theoretical background. These therapies all have many points in common; the main one being that the idea is to re-balance the flow of energy around the body. The most common of the ancient energy therapies is Acupuncture, where needles are used to unblock energy paths to
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relieve psychological and physiological ailments. More recently there was Acupressure then over the last 25 or so years Thought Field Therapy (TFT) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) have come about. All of these energy therapies involve touching the client, with acupuncture involving putting needles into the skin at certain points, then acupressure involving applying pressure to specific acupuncture points, then TFT and EFT involving tapping a number of times on acupuncture points in specific sequences for different ailments. All of these have shown a level of success when used and in many cases they have shown rapid and long lasting results. The interesting thing is that there is no need to tap or touch the body at all. A number of therapists over the last few years have had clients that for one reason or another couldnt be touched. For example because of previous abuse so they didnt feel comfortable being touched until they were cured, or in cases with clients that have burns or other injuries in the location required for tapping. These therapists still wanted to help their clients so a number of them decided to experiment with getting their clients to
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imagine tapping on the relevant points. To the surprise of the therapists the results were equally as good as with real tapping. The mind and body and the energy systems of the body are all intrinsically connected. For example; if you think of something amusing you can find yourself begin to laugh, so your thoughts caused a physical response. The same seems to apply with the energy flow around your body, as you think about tapping on specific relevant points on your body you create a physical change as if you really were tapping on those points.

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Working with Ideo-Dynamics

You get a range of different classes of Ideo-dynamic responses

Ideo-sensory: A sensation that can be noticed by the client Ideo-cognitions: Thoughts or images coming to the clients mind

Ideo-affective: The client experiencing feelings Ideo-motor: movement The client experiencing an automatic

If I want to notice a response in a client but also want to give the client wider choice I'll ask for clear signals I can notice and then pay attention. Or if I want to offer even greater freedom I will ask the client to tell me when the unconscious give a signal for yes and to tell me what it is, and the same with no. This way the client is a bit more involved and so it isn't appropriate for all situations but some clients will happily say its a
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feeling in their stomach, or a shiver, or a warmth in a hand or foot (ideo-sensory) or a voice in their mind or a word or an image in their mind etc (ideo-cognitions), or a feeling of comfort, anger, sadness, happiness etc (ideo-affective), or a movement in the toe, finger, twitch in the face, twitch in the leg etc (ideo-motor) When using parts for therapeutic interventions often feelings can be used, where you can ask for different parts to be there and establish with the client what those parts are and how they are expressing themselves (I'm a strong believer in allowing self expression) and have people notice the sensations as the parts integrate into the new learning/understanding/resolution etc...And they can tell you when this is done. Ideo-motor movement could be done in a similar way with (for example) a hand representing the problem, and a hand representing the clients resources and have them move (self expression again) until resolution is found and the problem and resources have integrated into something new. The above is using these responses in an open way rather than yes/no. When I have asked people to notice a signal that means yes and a signal that means no and to let me know what they are it
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works in the same way as finger signals except if it is something you can't see you wait for the client to get the answer from their unconscious then they give you the answer verbally. Often when you are being observant they don't need to give you the answer verbally as you will notice the ideo-motor movement of the head nodding or shaking as the thought begins to seep through just before they answer. So in effect you will still be reading ideo-motor signals but you have set up (in a way that suits the client) a yes/no signal set that the signal will come from. If for example it was warmth in the left hand for yes and right hand for no when the answer comes through you will notice a hand getting slightly more red, then you notice a fraction of a second later a slight movement of the head yes or no, then movements associated with being about to speak, then they tell you. Hopefully all of this will be congruent, but if it isn't the chances are the bit that isn't would be the conscious verbal answer. Over the years I've not really noticed any one type of response to be better than any other except that sometimes people do things too consciously and seem too consciously involved and if you are time limited it is easier to have a yes signal without saying
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what it is to be and watch for it and the same with the no, so that they don't just lift the finger consciously because you were setting up finger signals and they knew that and so thought that would be what you would want. I like minimal input in words, just getting agreement from the unconscious and observing signals as the unconscious does the work (videos of Ernest Rossi doing this are very good and informative), then a signal to say the work is either finished or is now at a point it can continue all by itself. There are many techniques and schools of therapy that use these other responses, like various 'parts' techniques and therapies where the client may be ask to call up a part and wait for the response and the say what that response is/where that part is - like a feeling in the stomach, or tingling in an arm etc...

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Therapeutic Dowsing

One of the subjects I have studied in great detail over the last fifteen years is dowsing. When I was younger I was fascinated by the results that I obtained with the use of dowsing so I began to use it more and more to test the limits of what it can be used for. One discovery that I made was that you can use dowsing therapeutically. Dowsing has the ability to answer questions for you in a very visual manner. The downside is that you can only ask questions with yes, no, or maybe answers. I teach people to use dowsing as a form of self-help therapy. My aim is always to empower the people I work with so that they can go away from sessions with me with skills to help themselves in the future rather than rely on a therapist/healer or anyone else. Firstly you will need to find a pendulum, this works best if it has some personal significance, for example; using a wedding ring hanging on a chain as the pendulum. After you have a pendulum hold the end of the chain between your thumb and forefinger (or whatever you are using) with the weight (ring etc) hanging down,
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then close your eyes a moment. Take a few deep relaxing breaths, make each out breath slightly longer than each in breath (this stimulates a relaxed altered state of mind). Say to yourself please allow me to receive clear and accurate answers from within. Next open your eyes and look at the pendulum, hold it steady, rest your elbow on a table if you want so that your arm remains still. Now say to the pendulum please show me the movement for a yes answer. Wait for the pendulum to move, if the movement isnt very noticeable then ask please can you make the signal clearer. Remember to show respect and to always be polite, so you always ask with a please, and say thank you when you have received the answer. Then ask the pendulum (like above) to show you the movement for a no answer, then wait (then say thank you), then ask for the movement for an I dont know answer, then wait (then say thank you). After you have established the signals (often left to right for one answer, back and forth for another answer, and round in a circle for the third answer) you can then ask questions. The answers come from a place of great intelligence, wisdom and knowledge. The answers are rarely wrong. Remember; everything happens for a reason.
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For the answers to be most accurate you need to focus fully on what the question is that you want to ask, you want the question to be clear and concise, you dont want the question to be ambiguous (for example a question that could have many answers or many meanings). You are also unlikely to get a straight or honest answer if by acting on the answer you are likely to effect someone elses wishes (for example if two people want to be the sole winners of the lottery both of their wishes would conflict so neither would happen.

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Learning to Notice Minimal Cues

Over the years I have studied many martial arts, one of my favourite 'party tricks' used to be grabbing a coin from someones hand before they close their hand. I would do this by watching for the first minute movements to indicate that the arm will be moving and the hand will be closing. The same with noticing punches etc... The interesting thing about sticky hands is it is easier blindfolded as all of your attention is on what you feel with fewer distractions. The best way to practice is to make this part of your life. Practice observing people when you are out anywhere other people are. It could be watching people in restaurants, or it could be on a bus or in a park. Even on TV and watching programmes like Big Brother. It is useful to limit what you are looking for rather than attempting to see everything all at once. Or limiting to watching a specific area - like the eyes, or the mouth etc...

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As you watch people look for patterns. You can also practice with friends. Get with friends in pairs and you can do some of these exercises: 1. Sit opposite each other, ask the other person to think of something they really like, then change the subject a few moments, then ask them to think of something they don't like. Watch them and ask them to think of one then the other slowly a few times, then to randomly think of one or the other and you tell which they are thinking of. Do this a number of times and notice what you are noticing that lets you know. Then do the same again but this time sit back to back and have them count 1-10 while they are thinking of one then the other and then have them randomly think of one or the other and you work out which from their voice. Then do the same again with your eyes closed and the palm of one of your hands touching the palm of one of their hands. Have them go through thinking of one then the other then randomly thinking of one or the other. You work out which they are thinking about from the kinaesthetics.
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2. Have a friend sit opposite you and think of 2 truths and a lie. Notice what is different about the lie 3. Have a selection of different coins, practice noticing subtle differences by hearing (with eyes closed or back turned) different coins being dropped one at a time and say which coin is being dropped (on a table is best)

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Observation Skills

When I first learnt about congruency between conscious and unconscious messages I wanted to know how I could practice this and refine it as a skill The best way I have found is to watch people, watch them in pubs, clubs, restaurants, anywhere where you get to observe people interacting. By doing this you can listen to conversations at the same time as objectively watching non-verbal behaviour. Another place to watch this is on reality TV shows like Big Brother and on programmes like 'the Jeremy Kyle show'. I used to record one of these shows a week and watch interactions and see what I could figure out about people based on mismatching

communication. With programmes like Big Brother you can test your ideas about your observations over a period of time. You can watch people talking and look for patterns. Doing this you don't get to ask the questions but you can pay your full attention because you aren't involved. Anyone that has knowledge
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of magic and watches a magician knows that if the magician is captivating enough you miss what they do even though you know it happened right under your nose. This the same when starting out doing therapy, you know lots of stuff but miss it when you are in a real situation because you have too much to take in. As you watch people you may work by initially just getting a sense of something or you may actively look for patterns that you could tell someone else (like change in facial colour, change in lips, body posture, eye contact, etc) The best way to learn to recognise minimal cues is to focus on one at a time while you learn. What you do with the observations depends on what you are observing for (it could be to look for congruence, or it could be for a specific state, etc) If it is for a state then you can suggest back the minimal cues, so if you wanted to induce a deep trance comment on the minimal cues (overtly or indirectly) each time you see a trance based minimal cue. You could link it to going deeper for example by saying 'as you continue to blink in that special way you can drift deeper.' Or 'Thats Right' (said on each blink, or sign of ideo-motor movement etc)
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The easiest way of noticing minimal cues is to be in a trance, letting your unconscious notice for you. To switch the trance focus (from internal to external or external to internal) you can start by matching the experience then guiding it to where it is wanted. 'You can be aware of the ticking clock, of the traffic outside, of the sound of my breathing AND you can notice what those hands feel like resting on your lap WHILE you wonder what will happen next...and BEFORE you discover what will happen next you can notice which hand feels the heaviest and wonder which one will lift...' (Getting more internal) To do this the other way reverse the process and match ongoing internal experience then you can ask them to remain in this state while they open their eyes and pay their full attention honestly and completely (a statement they should take literally) to ... (whatever the external thing is - reading, practicing an instrument etc)

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With leisure activities you can have an external focus activity and guide it internally (even by saying 'I sense you can feel some of that now').

195

Bibliography

Alder Harry & Heather Beryl, NLP in 21 days, Piatkus Publishers Ltd, 1999 Andreas Steve, Faulkner Charles, NLP: The New technology for Achievement, Nicholas Brealey, 1994 Bandler Richard & Grinder John, The structure of magic Vol. 1, Science & Behaviour Books Inc, 1975 Bandler Richard & Grinder John, The structure of magic Vol. 2, Science & Behaviour Books Inc, 1976 Bandler Richard, Hypnotic Inductions, Video, NLP Comprehensive Bandler Richard, Magic in Action, Meta Publications, 1990 Bandler Richard, McDonald Will, An Insiders Guide to Sub Modalities, Meta Publications, 1988 Bandler Richard, State of the Art, Videos, McKenna Training, 1998

Bandler Richard, The Bandler Effect, DVD's, McKenna Training, 2005

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Bandler Richard, Time for a Change, Meta Publications, 1993 Bandler Richard, Your Own Personal Genius, CD's, McKenna Training, 2001 Beattie Geoffrey, Visible thought, Routledge, 2003 Bodenhamer Bob, Hall L. Michael, Adventures With Timelines, Meta Publications, 1998 Bolstad Richard, Resolve, Video, Transformations, 2001 Brooks Michael, Instant rapport, Warner Business Books, 1989 Brooks Stephen, Intensive Training in NLP & Ericksonian Hypnosis, CD's, Lawrence Enterprises, 1997 Brooks Stephen, Self Hypnosis for Problem Solving, CD's, Lawrence Enterprises, 1995 Brooks Stephen, The art of indirect hypnosis and minimal therapy, www.indirect-hypnosis.com Brooks Stephen, The Art of Indirect Suggestion, CD's, Lawrence Enterprises, 1995 Brooks Stephen, Training in indirect hypnosis, www.indirecthypnosis.com Calof David, Hypnotic Techniques, Tape set, Genesis II, 1988
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Cameron-Bandler Leslie & LeBeau Michael, NLP home study guide, NLP Comprehensive, 1984 Claxton Guy, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind, Fourth Estate, 1998 Dawes Mark, Winn Denise, Managing the Monkey, The Therapist, 1999 Elman Dave, Hypnotherapy, Westwood Publishing, 1964 Glenmullen Joseph, Prozac Backlash, Simon & Shuster, 2001 Griffin Joe, Tyrrell Ivan, How to Master Anxiety, HG Publishing, 2007 Griffin Joe, Tyrrell Ivan, Freedom from Addiction, HG Publishing, 2005 Griffin Joe & Tyrrell Ivan, Human Givens, Human Givens Publishing, 2003 Griffin Joe, Effective Anger Management, Tape, ETSI, 2002 Griffin Joe, Hospital Trauma Cure, Video, Lawrence Enterprises, 1995 Griffin Joe, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Video, Lawrence Enterprises, 1995

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Griffin Joe, Tyrrell Ivan, How to Lift Depression, HG Publishing, 2004 Griffin Joe, Tyrrell Ivan, Williams Pat, Winbolt Barry, Therapia, The Therapist, 1997 Griffin Joe, Understanding & Treating Addictions, Tape, ETSI, 2001 Hartmann Thom, Healing ADD, Underwood Books, 1998 Havens Ronald, The Wisdom of Milton H. Erickson, Crown House Publishing, 2003 Hayley Jay, Uncommon Therapy, W. W. Norton & Co. 1973 Lankton Carol, Lankton Stephen, Tales of Enchantment, Brunner Mazel, 1989 Leeson Nick, Tyrrell Ivan, Back from the Brink, Virgin Books, 2005 Martin Paul, The Sickening Mind, Flamingo, 1997 OConnor & Seymour John, Introducing NLP, Thorsons, 1990 OHanlon Bill & Beadle Sandy, A guide to possibility land, W. W. Norton & Co. 1999 OConnor Joseph, NLP Workbook, Thorsons, 2001
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OHanlon Bill & Weiner-Davis Michele, In search of solutions, W. W. Norton & Co. 1989 O'Hanlon Bill, Martin Michael, Solution-oriented Hypnosis, W.W. Norton & Co. 1992 Overdurf John, Silverthorn Julie, Training Trances, Metamorphous Press, 1994 Owen Nick, The Magic of Metaphor, Crown House Publishing, 2001 Parkinson Rob, Mindworks: Powerful Stories, CD's, Uncommon Knowledge, 2003 Phillips Maggie, Finding The Energy To Heal, W. W. Norton & Co. 2000 Powell Cherith, Forde Greg, The Self Hypnosis Book, Newleaf, 1995 Rosen Sidney, My Voice Will Go With You, W. W. Norton & Co. 1991 Rossi Ernest, Cheek David, Mindbody Therapy, W. W. Norton & Co. 1988

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Rossi Ernest, Ryan Margaret, Sharp Florence, The Seminars, Workshops & Lectures of Milton H. Erickson Vol 1-4, Free Association Books, 1998 Rossi Ernest, The 20 Minute Break, Tarcher, 1991 Shah Idries, World Tales, Octagon Press, 1991 Tyrrell Ivan, in Control Again, Video, Radical Psychology Television, 2005 Wallace Lee, Stories for the Third Ear, W. W. Norton & Co. 1985 Watzlawick & Weakland & Fisch, Change, W. W. Norton & Co. 1974 Watzlawick Paul, The language of change, W. W. Norton & Co. 1993 Williams Pat, How Stories Heal, Tapes, ETSI, 1998 Yapko Michael, Breaking the Patterns of Depression, Broadway Books, 1997 Yapko Michael, Hand Me Down Blues, St Martins Griffin, 1999 Yapko Michael, Trancework, Brunner Routledge, 2003 Yapko Michael, When Living Hurts, Brunner Routledge, 1994

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Index
A
Accelerated healing, 70 Activating agent, 16 Acupressure, 185, 187, 188 addiction, 165 Addiction, 44, 206 addictions, 154 addictive behaviour pattern, 44 Aids, 181 alter blood pressure, 70 amnesia, 22, 83 Amnesia, 70, 119 An example dream I recently interpreted, 27 An example of a pattern interrupt induction:, 75 anaesthesia, 124 Anaesthesia, 22, 120 anchor, 24 anchoring, 56, 143 Anchoring, 144 anger, 19, 50, 55, 61 Anger, 175 angry, 19, 60, 61, 142, 168 anxiety, 10, 20, 50 Anxiety, 181, 206 APET, 16, 24, 31 Arm levitation, 132 attempted solutions, 36 attention, 15, 18, 45, 59, 63, 74, 82, 123, 124, 125, 201, 202 Autonomic nervous system, 177 Brain, 174, 179, 182 breathing, 202 build muscle, 70

C
Cancer, 180, 181 catalepsy, 17, 22, 71 Catalepsy, 120 Cellular healing, 177, 182 challenging behaviour, 61 change mood, 70 childcare, 61 cognitive, 145, 146 communication, 168 Compound suggestion, 109 confidence, 40, 42, 160 confusion, 74 Confusion, 74, 136 confusion induction, 80 Conscious, 183, 193, 200 consciously, 39, 88, 95, 117, 119, 154 Contingent suggestion, 112 Conversational (overt & covert), 74 conversational induction, 75 counselling, 8, 146

D
Damaging or unrealistic expectations, 43 deep sleep, 15 Deepening rhythmic breathing (part of the process for sleep)., 19 Deletions, 95 depression, 10, 15, 140 depressed, 14, 15, 19, 41, 42 Depression, 181, 183 digestive system, 50 Directive, 74 directive induction, 79 Disassociation, 169 Discovering resources, 155 dissociation, 119

B
Bandler, 204, 205, 206 basic needs, 167 behavioural, 145, 146 Beliefs, 179 Binds, 116 blinking, 72 Blushing, 44 body language, 63 brain, 6, 12, 15, 21, 30, 32, 49, 50, 51, 69, 94

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Distortions, 95 double bind, 117, 118, 119, 121 double binds, 44, 46, 118, 119 Double binds, 117 Dowsing, 194 dream, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 27, 29, 79, 138 Dream Interpretation, 14 Dream., 27 dreaming, 11, 13, 15, 22, 25, 68, 73, 83 Dreaming, 10, 186

Future pace, 156

G
Gene expression, 177 General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), 181 Generalisations, 93 guided imagery, 142 Guided imagery, 175, 187 guided-imagery, 146

E
effective therapy, 8, 10, 59, 84 embedded commands, 76 Embedded commands, 92, 115 Embeddedmeaning/metaphorical, 74 emotion, 16, 23, 24, 49, 50, 94, 123 Emotion, 16 emotional arousal, 50, 51 Emotional Freedom Technique EFT, 169, 185, 186, 187, 188 emotional mind, 50, 141 emotional needs, 48 Emotional needs not being met, 43 emotional responses, 39 emotional states, 166 Endocrine system, 177 Ernest Rossi, 177, 178, 179, 193 essential skills, 139, 165, 167 evoking abilities, 46 Exceptions, 155 exercise, 67 extreme emotion, 50 eye accessing cues, 96, 99 eyes flutter, 72

H
habit, 36, 37 Hallucination, 70 Hallucinations, 120 headache, 37 healing, 69, 88 Healing, 170, 177, 179, 181 healthy alternative, 37 How do you do hypnosis?, 73 how to induce a trance, 71 Human givens, 139, 145 Human Givens, 185, 206 Human givens approach, 139 hypnosis, 10, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 65, 68, 73, 88, 104, 139, 142, 146, 150, 205, 206 Hypnosis, 17, 18, 21, 24, 68, 142, 172, 173, 174, 186 Induction, 172, 186 Hypnotherapist, 20 Hypnotherapists, 21, 90 hypnotic inductions, 73 Hypnotic language patterns, 103

I
Ideo-dynamic responses, 190 Ideo-Dynamic Responses Ideo-affective, 190 Ideo-cognitions, 190 Ideo-motor, 190, 191 Ideo-sensory, 190 Ideo-motor, 177, 191, 192 illusion of control, 46 imagination, 70

F
Fast Phobia Cure, 185 fear, 50, 140 feedback, 54, 55, 63, 106, 130 Feedback, 87 fractionation, 86 Fractionation, 86

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immune system, 70 Immune system, 178, 183 implication, 118 Implied directive, 126 Information transduction, 177, 179 instinctive, 69, 70 interpersonal, 146 Interspercial technique, 114, 115 interventions, 46, 50

multiple perspectives, 42, 43 Multiple tasking, 124 Multiple task-serial suggestions, 125

N
naturalistic induction, 82 Naturalistic inductions, 81 Neurolinguistic Programming NLP, 169 Neuro-linguistic Programming NLP, 6 Neuro-linguistic-Programming NLP, 6, 10, 24, 25, 29 Nominalisations, 128 Non-verbal behaviour, 92 Normalising, 155 Not doing suggestions, 122

J
Joe Griffin, 185 Joseph Griffin, 11

L
Learning, 173, 182, 184, 186, 191 left hemisphere, 49 leisure, 203 limbic system, 49, 141 listening, 49, 138 Look for solutions, 45

O
observing self, 53, 143, 144 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, 207 Open ended sentences, 125 Open ended suggestion, 122 optimum learning state, 71

M
Memory, 169, 178, 182, 183, 185, 186 metaphors, 26, 76, 89, 91, 123 Metaphors, 123 Milton H Erickson, 87 Milton H. Erickson, 43, 207, 209 mind, 11, 16, 17, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 48, 49, 50, 52, 56, 57, 62, 73, 77, 83, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 95, 97, 99, 104, 108, 112, 114, 115, 118, 126, 127, 130, 132, 134, 135, 137, 140, 143, 145, 150, 154, 156, 164, 166 minimal cues, 201, 202 Minimal cues, 178 Minimal Cues, 197 miracle question, 152 Miracle Question, 159 Miracle questions, 156 misdirect, 43 Mispronounce words, 126 motivation, 15, 55, 134, 154

P
panic attack, 149 Pattern interrupt, 18, 74 Pattern matching, 10, 16, 30, 31, 32 Pattern Matching, 30, 174 Pattern-matching, 12 Patterns, 173, 174, 175, 176, 186, 198 patterns of behaviour, 69 Pavlovs dogs, 24 Pendulum, 194, 195 permissive, 121 phobia, 16, 23, 39, 94, 150 Phobia, 174 phobias, 7, 10, 34, 39, 42 Placebo, 179, 180 Post hypnotic suggestions, 88 post traumatic stress disorder, 10

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post-hypnotic suggestion, 90, 91 post-hypnotic suggestions, 90, 91 Presuppositions, 91, 92, 127 priming, 89, 91 Principles of solution-focused therapy, 147 problem structure, 8, 10, 45 psychodynamic therapy, 146 psychological problems, 10, 24, 31, 37, 94, 143, 167 Psychoneuroendocrinology, 181 Psychoneuroimmunology, 177, 181 psychotherapy, 8, 24 PTSD, 10, 23

Richard Bandler, 6 RIGAAR, 139 right hemisphere, 49 run, fight or freeze, 50

S
sabotage, 40 Scaling, 155, 162, 163 Sensory Language, 96 sleep, 11, 15, 17, 19, 37, 73, 81, 83, 90 Sleep, 171 smoking, 32, 37, 43, 56, 64, 88, 133, 135 Smoking, 172 solution-focused, 145, 147, 148, 153, 155, 156 splitting and linking, 44, 46 State Dependant Memory Learning and Behaviour, 177, 181 SDMLB, 177, 181, 182 Stephen Brooks, 40, 120 stories, 53, 96, 123, 144 Stories, 53 story, 53, 76, 78, 80, 123 stress, 10 Stress, 181, 182, 183 structure, 10, 33, 41 suggestion, 18, 89, 90, 91, 109, 111, 112, 125 survival, 13, 16, 49, 50, 51 swallowing reflex, 72

R
R.E.M, 68, 69 rapport, 33, 43, 44, 69, 86, 104, 105, 123, 205 Reality., 28 re-evoke, 54 Re-framing, 59, 61, 62, 66 Re-framing exercises, 66 Regression, 120 Rehearsing hypnotically, 56 relationship, 14, 130 relax, 19, 32, 37, 40, 41, 42, 44, 54, 56, 66, 73, 78, 85, 86, 92, 112, 115, 127, 128, 132, 138, 139, 150, 155, 158, 168 relaxation response, 32 Relaxing, 19, 166 REM state Rapid Eye Movement, 175, 185 reorientation response, 15, 17, 18, 19, 73 Reorientation response, 185, 186 resistance, 54, 55, 56, 65 resistant, 121 resources, 33, 41, 56, 88, 128, 131, 150, 157, 166 Resources, 177, 191 Reverse set double bind, 121 Reverse yes set, 107 rewind technique, 143, 144

T
Tag questions, 108 task, 47, 124, 125, 157, 159, 163 tasks, 47, 48, 73, 163 Tasks, 159 teenagers, 61 Telling stories, anecdotes etc, 123 The Psychobiology of Mind Body Healing, 179 therapist, 20, 25, 27, 33, 41, 57, 66, 67, 73, 90, 91, 104 therapy, 6, 7, 13, 24, 25, 30, 32, 38, 40, 41, 52, 56, 96, 104, 201

205

Therapy, 42, 207, 209 Thought, 16 Thought Field Therapy TFT, 185, 186, 188 time, 7, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 27, 28, 32, 33, 37, 40, 43, 45, 50, 53, 54, 60, 61, 69, 73, 79, 84, 86, 89, 91, 94, 95, 103, 112, 117, 120, 128, 129, 132 Time distortion, 120 Time-limited therapy, 145 tolerance to pain, 70 trance, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 42, 44, 51, 56, 65, 68, 69, 71, 74, 76, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 107, 113, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 139, 141, 201, 202 Trance, 10, 68, 70, 71, 172, 173, 174, 175, 182 Inwards, 68 Outwards, 68 Trance indicators, 71 triggers, 32 truisms, 108, 109, 111

119, 126, 127, 132, 134, 135, 137, 154, 200, 202 Unconscious, 173, 178, 183, 190, 192, 193 unconscious mind, 84, 90, 95, 126, 132 unconscious process, 39 utilisation, 54, 56 Utilisation, 54, 57 Utilisation exercise, 57 Utilise everything, 85 utilise feelings, 54

V
values, 88, 93 Verb tenses, 129 Visualisation, 186 VK Technique Rewind Technique, Fast Phobia Cure, 169, 185

W
What is hypnosis?, 68 worrying, 15, 19, 28, 68, 153, 168

U
Ultradian Rhythm, 22 Ultradian rhythms, 182 unconscious, 46, 73, 84, 86, 88, 90, 95, 103, 104, 114, 115, 118,

Y
yes set, 105, 107 Yes set, 105

206