The Collected Works of Milton H. Erickson: Volume 12 - Hardcover: Experiencing Hypnosis Therapeutic Approaches to Altered States

Indirect communication is the overall concept we use to cover what we have variously described as two-level communication, the naturalistic approach, and the utilization approach. The common denominator of all these approaches is that hypnotherapy involves something more than simple talk on a single, objective level. The readily apparent, overt content of a message is like the tip of an iceberg. The recipient of indirect communication is usually not aware of the extent to which his or her associative processes have been set in motion automatically in many directions. Hypnotic suggestion received in this manner results in the automatic evocation and utilization of the patient’s own unique repertory of response potentials to achieve therapeutic goals that might have been otherwise beyond reach. In our previous volumes we outlined the operation of this process as the microdynamics of trance induction and suggestion. 

Table of Contents

1. The Indirect Approaches to Hypnosis
   • Hypnosis in Psychiatry: The Ocean Monarch Lecture
   • Utilization Approaches to Indirect Communication
     • Language and the Art of Suggestion
     • Multiple Levels of Communication in Hypnosis
     • Internal Responses as the Essence of Suggestion
     • Indirect Communication in the Ocean Monarch Lecture
2. Catalepsy in Hypnotic Induction and Therapy
   • Catalepsy in Historical Perspective
   • Recognizing Spontaneous Catalepsy
   • Facilitating Catalepsy
   • Utilizing Catalepsy
   • Summary
   • Exercises with Catalepsy
   • Demonstration in the Use of Catalepsy in Hypnotic Induction: Hand Levitation in a Blind Subject
3. Ideomotor Signaling in Hypnotic Induction and Therapy
   • Ideomotor Movements and Signaling in Historical Perspective
   • Recognizing Spontaneous Ideomotor Signaling
   • Facilitating Ideomotor Signaling
   • Facilitating Ideosensory Signaling
   • Utilizing Ideomotor Signaling
   • Summary
   • Exercises in Ideomotor Signaling
   • An Audio-Visual Demonstration of Ideomotor Movements and Catalepsy: The Reverse Set to Facilitate Hypnotic Induction
4. The Experiential Learning of Trance by the Skeptical Mind
   • Session One: The Experiential Learning of Minimal Manifestations of Trance
   • Session Two: The Experiential Learning of Hypnotic Phenomena
     • Dissociation and the Modern Experiential Approach to Altered States
     • Learning Indirect Communication: Frames of Reference, Metalevels, and Psychotherapy
5. Electrometric Correlates of the Hypnotic State
   • Electrometric Correlates of the Hypnotic State
   • Standing Potential Correlates of Hypnosis and Narcosis