We currently live in a time of great emotional stress around matters of fairness, justice, ethics, and morality. As couple therapists, we are working with the smallest unit of a society, the two-person system that is the primary attachment partnership. Therapists should have a strong understanding of their own moral and ethical compass when guiding partner behavior that occurs inside and outside of therapy.
This workshop will cover approaches for initiating hypnotic processes through various forms of induction. Topics will include pre-hypnotic considerations, expectancy, the use observations and suggestions, truisms, and rapport.
The rationale and basic research regarding the use of indirection will be presented. Participants will be guided through several exercises to help them learn and practice the construction of 4 fundamental forms of suggestions and 3 therapeutic binds. A demonstration using these forms will illustrate the implementation of these language techniques for both the induction and therapy.
An Ericksonian induction structure will be presented and demonstrated. Utilization, a foundation of Ericksonian hypnosis and psychotherapy, will be incorporated and demonstrated. Practice sessions are included.
Erickson resisted standardized hypnotic protocols because he found that everyone responded to hypnosis uniquely. Rather than seeking to force his preferred hypnotic phenomena, he cultivated whatever came naturally. Fortunately, clinical objectives, such as pain relief, can be achieved using a variety of hypnotic phenomena. This session will identify three broad classes of hypnotic experiencing and provide guidance on how to identify natural predispositions.
A primary feature of hypnosis is dissociation, defined as the breaking of global experiences into their component parts. Dissociation gives rise to some of the most fascinating practical aspects of hypnosis in clinical contexts, such as pain management and the revivification of memories. Dissociation also paves the way for suggested responses to arise seemingly spontaneously, an enormously advantageous phenomenon called automaticity. In this workshop, we will consider the therapeutic roles of dissociation and automaticity and conduct an exercise in generating an “automatic” response.
In therapeutic trance, a person releases from rigid ego positions, thereby opening to the resources and healing capacities of the creative unconscious. In this process, nonverbal communications—such as limbic resonance, felt sense, somatic centering, and musicality—are of central importance. The workshop explores how therapists may attune to these nonverbal patterns and utilize them to develop and guide creative trance work.
Clients progress by the realizations they achieve in treatment. Evocative methods prompt conceptual realizations that prompt adaptive states and identities. Experiential methods derived from hypnosis can be applied with and without formal trance.
The use of guided imagery using hypnosis will be demonstrated with a volunteer as a method of doing brief therapy. The volunteer may present a physical or behavioral difficulty for this demonstration. Also demonstrated will be the use of physical anchors.
This clinical demonstration will explore how the skillful use of therapeutic trance can produce positive change. A six step model will be demonstrated: (1) Opening a positive connection, (2) goal setting, (3) cultivating a relational trance field, (4) including client parts into field, (5) transforming identify patterns, (6) bringing changes into real world.