Traditional Hypnosis Verse Ericksonian Hypnosis

by
Alan Jones
Clinical Hypnotherapy and NLP Trainer

What follows is not the truth; it is only an opinion which is all anyone of us has. You may disagree or agree with some or all of the ideas or my premise in this discourse. If it angers you you might like to delve deep inside to find out what it is about someone else's opinion that has that kind of power to change your state. If you dismiss it without thought or consideration are you too rigid? Just a thought.

Depending on the hypnosis school you trained with you will fall into one of three groups.
Group A will believe that traditional somnambulistic trance is the only real way to do hypnotherapy.
Group B will believe that Ericksonian hypnosis is the only way to do hypnotherapy.
And of course
Group C will claim that both work and they mix and match. Who is right, if there is a Right Way?

Before we look at this question I would like you to do a simple experiment. Read the instructions and then close your eyes and ask your self the questions, better still get someone else to ask you the questions.

Instructions: Without using memories or associations with your eyes closed answer the following questions:

Without using memories or associations who are you? Male, female, both none of these.

Without using memories or associations what are you? Animal, vegetable, mineral or none of these.

Without using memories or associations where are you? Here, there or no where?

Now if you managed to come up with an answer you did not follow the instructions as you would have had to use your memories or associations to think. If your mind went blank, in that you had no thought, how could you without memories or associations, you experienced satori, the state of no mind.

So what was the point of the above? It is simply this; you are a collection of your memories and associations which form your beliefs from which you act in and on the world. Some of your beliefs you may be aware of; and do beware of the beliefs that operate outside of your awareness. And like it or not, we all have beliefs that we operate from as being true that we don’t know about. Some mystics say it takes a lifetime to become aware or enlightened. The Buddhist paradox is that the moment you think you are Enlightened you are at the furthest point away from Enlightenment. I think this is because at that point you cease being aware or put another way “Enlightenment” is the nominalisation of enlightening so it changes from something you are doing to something abstract you think you are and you stop doing.

So where is this going? There is a thought, from a mind that some in the twenty first century in the West, hold as important and it set off a whole discourse in philosophy, Descartes “Cogito ergo sum” (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am; or better, I am thinking, therefore I.

I think, a thought of mine, that Descartes got it wrong. He only had one part or a tripartite model and even this is not true, only a model. What I think, oops another thought, is that what he should have said “I believe therefore I am.” Yes, I know that to have a belief you must first have a thought. However a thought is only one piece of the model; and remember a model is only a model and not “The Truth.” You can have lots of thoughts that don’t make you who you are. Yes they are your thoughts however unless they form and consolidate into a belief they remain just that, a thought.

What is a belief?

I wish I could say that I developed this model, however I can’t. I first came across it from the work of Robert Dilts, his structure of a belief is

A causes B which means (x) Or Cause - Effect – Means.

This model is, I believe, the building block of everyone’s model of The World. Or may be is should be “Their Model of Their World.” The idea of a model we create is another way of stating the famous psychological saying, “Perception is Projection.”

Getting back to the question which is the right hypnotherapy, they all are depending on "Your client’s Model of Their World.”

Some people will respond to direct suggestion or reframing of their issues from, in quotes, “An authority figure.” Others will reject direct suggestion or it will set up an internal conflict and the traditional hypnotherapist will label them a resistant clients or not ready or prepared to change.

My current view, and I’m happy to have my belief’s changed by new information that makes sense to me (Hey it is my model of the world after all), is that all successful therapy Reframes Beliefs. How this is done, transference and counter transference, direct suggestion, indirect suggestion, unconscious responsibility, clean language, psychotherapy etc. depends on the beliefs of the therapist, which brings us nicely back to beliefs are the building blocks of your model of your world. Or put another way, I like to keep things simple, there is no such thing as The Truth, definite article, what you believe is A Truth, indefinite article, for you. Also you cannot hold a belief about something you have not had direct of indirect experience of.

Let me give a simple example of a couple of beliefs that a traditional hypnotherapist must hold in some form.

Belief one. Using direct hypnosis on x number of clients have been successful that means traditional hypnotherapy works. Note this is a digital meaning, that is either a yes or no meaning as opposed to analogue meaning of say on a scale of one to ten how successful is your model of therapy. Digital thinking is sometimes called black or white thinking.

Belief two. Of those clients who have not been successfully treated and kept their symptoms or developed other symptoms means that they were resistant or that symptom substitution is a real problem to be aware of.

Similar beliefs will be held by all therapists who hold onto the premise that their therapy is the only right and true therapy, which they will defend to the last penny or emotional investment they have in their training and are therefore will be prejudiced against any other model of therapy. I use the term model deliberately because a model is not the truth and good models are up dated as new information is obtained.

An example of a model

Weather forecasters use complex models to predict the weather. However they are also aware that their predictions are based on their current theories and the computations their computers make based on current knowledge. Michael Fish is famous for his, “No hurricane broadcast of 1987.” His prediction was based on the information of the models from the met office. Unfortunately or fortunately for him, after all he is semi-famous now, he was the person who said it to millions of television views. If you have not seen it you can find it on U-tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqs1YXfdtGE

All therapies have their model’s, they are not truths just models. Interestingly Carl Jung, "paraphrased" said to his student’s of psychotherapy, “Learn all the techniques and interventions of psychotherapy then forget them and be with your client.”

I believe that to do good therapy, it is not the model I’m working out of that is important but, the model my client is working out of.

Therapists who rigidly hold onto their model of therapy are in danger of therapeutic prejudice or flat Earth thinking. Definition of Prejudice: prejudice n. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.

Please note a fact is an empirical observation or experience which may or may not be repeated and can be subject to up date. At one time in the past humanity believed that the Sun went around the Earth. To our eyes the Sun appeared in the East, traversed the sky and disappeared in the West. Based on empirical observation the only logical conclusion was that the Sun went around the Earth which was the observer’s truth. Please not that this was the only logical conclusion based on observation and level of knowledge at the time.

I don’t think, oops another thought, therapists of any persuasion should prejudge their client’s needs or cling to their model of therapy; people do not conform to models of therapy, unless they invest a great deal of time, learn and then conform to the model of therapy their therapist is operating from. Like the weather, clients are unpredictable, which is what makes being human and a therapist so interesting.

My answer to the question which is the right hypnotherapy; whatever method of suggestion works best for an individual client is the right type of hypnosis for them. To map across Carl Jung’s advice to his students, “Learn all the methods of hypnosis, (To learn something is to have it available, such as riding a bike or swimming) then forget them (Don’t become slavishly attached to them) and be and respond to your client’s model of their World.” Note I know Jung did not use the term “Model of the World” however that would be one interpretation I would put on the term, “Be with your client.” Another interpretation might be accept their reality.

To clear up any misunderstandings, I believe there is a lot of skill that goes into being a good therapist and the skills should not be confused with models of therapy. I have seen trained coaches and so called therapists do demonstrations at practice meetings with very little skill, they had the model but no skill.

A note regarding my opinion of Dr Milton H Erickson’s model of hypnotherapy, or as he calls it “Psychiatry,” Dr Erickson was trained in Traditional Hypnotherapy and Psychiatry; I don’t think that he developed Ericksonian Hypnosis. I think he learnt all he could about hypnosis and human nature and responded to the models his individual client’s operated out of. Therefore I do not think of Ericksonian Hypnosis as a model rather as a set of skills I will continue to develop to the day I die. Initially Erickson was pleased with the linguistic distinctions that Grinder and Bandler observed him using and wrote the forward to “Patterns 1, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techiques of Miton H. Erickson, M.D.”

Extract, “Although this book by Richard Bandler and John Grindr, to which I am contributing the Preface, is far from being a compete description of my methodologies, as they so clearly state it is a much better explanation of how I work than I, myself, can give. I know what I do, but to explain how I do it is much too difficult for me.” My interpretation of this part of the preface is that Erickson thought they described his linguistic syntax in a way that was easier to understand than he had yet found; a different perspective, actually two different perspectives, a linguists and a musician computer programmers. However, Gregory Bateson said that they had missed the point and later Dr Erickson was known to call them the heels on a loaf of bread. The heels are the crust ends on a loaf that lots of Americans would discard.

The Ericksonian hypnotherapy of NLP has, to my mind, become seen as something that therapist ‘do’ to their clients. Just look at one of the titles of Paul McKenna’s books, “I Can Make You X.” Well sorry to disappoint you Mr McKenna, you can’t make anyone anything, if you follow the model of whatever it is he is telling you he can make you, you may make yourself become X. Remember it is not Paul McKenna that will be doing the making, it will be you.

I believe Dr Erickson knew all along that it was not what he did that changed people but what he did enabled them to change themselves, a fundamental difference. He removed obstacles and limiting beliefs to open up possibility, he showed his client’s their way to effect change in themselves, he was truly with his clients in the way that Jung had suggested to his students. Each client’s treatment was unique so Dr Erickson’s methods cannot be copied or distilled, one can only hope to emulate his skills and principles. Paraphrased advice Dr Erickson gave his students, “Don’t copy what I do, learn all I can teach you and find your own hypnosis.” I would like to propose that Milton H. Erickson never had a model for therapy. He had skills of observation and sensory acuity that enabled him to respond to a client’s needs, in the moment, with infinite flexibility and patience. A therapy model of no model or infinite models.

Interestingly for me Dave Elman (1900 – 1967) and Milton Erickson (1901 – 1980) were contemporaries developing hypnosis from different perspectives. Dave Elman was training doctors in rapid inductions and the use of direct hypnosis and Erickson training psychiatrists in indirect hypnosis. I often wonder what would have been the outcome if these two had met and collaborated. I do know what the outcome of my understandings of these two great exponents of hypnosis is; I take things from both schools and make my hypnotherapy my own.

My parting question to you is, “Do you want to be a pale imitation of a model of one of your trainer/s or do you want to learn all the skills they can teach you and be a shining example of your own "no model skills" based hypnotherapy?”