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INTRODUCTION TO THIS
TRANSFORMATION APPROACH
Therapists often observe that clients come to therapy expressing
their desire for some change but at another level seem to resist
taking the therapeutic actions that would accomplish that change.
Hypnotists are often approached with the request to use hypnosis
to make a variety of symptoms just disappear. Freud denounced
hypnosis early in his career stating that symptoms suppressed
with direct suggestion would recur (1). Erickson expanded on this
concern when he said: "The idea of simple 'symptom removal'
is a gross oversimplification of what sound hypnotherapy can be.
The hypnotherapist is more appropriately involved in the broader
program of facilitating a creative reorganization of the patient's
inner psychodynamics so that life experience is enhanced and symptom
formation is no longer necessary (2, p. 147). "Clients seeking
hypnosis for sleep goals or any other problem need to be informed
that hypnosis, in and of itself, solves nothing. It is simply
a modality to communicate. Assessment of the unique situation
determines how we need to communicate in order to facilitate a
therapeutic reassociation of experience. The goal is to be able
to associate to preferred choices in those situations where their
existing choice was limited or problematic in some way. Central
to this theory is the assumption that every behavior has a positive
intention, even those behaviors universally considered undesirable
or problematic such as obsessive anxiety, worrying, procrastination,
perfectionism, overeating, or whatever. The basic premise is that
we learn, usually with limited information, about the world and
our place in it and we seek to make the best possible adjustments
we can think of at the time to get our needs met without alienating
those upon whom we are dependent for survival and well being.
Often these choices turn out to be quite bad in the sense that
they don't really meet needs very well and, in fact, may alienate
the ones we most want to impress. Nonetheless, the positive intention
behind them remains valid. And people will cling with some tenacity
to that best choice they have put together even in the face of
mounting evidence that it isn't working and is even causing additional
problems. It isn't that people are basically self destructive
but rather are goal oriented creatures of habit. And the best
way to resolve a bad habit is to replace it with an incompatible
preferred habit that still accomplishes the positive intention.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF HYPNOSIS AND SELECTED SLEEP DISTURBANCES
Within the scope of this paper, sleep disturbances described
for treatment are those psychologically and behaviorally influenced
disorders such as hypertension, insomnia, night waking from disturbing
dreams, and failure to return to sleep due to worry, anxiety,
or depression. This symptom transformation approach is not intended
to be applied to the range of physiological sleep disturbances
such as breathing related sleep disorders, circadian rhythm sleep
disorders, or those disorders that are due to a general medical
condition or effects of a substance. Certainly, the loss of sleep
from disturbances in the first category soon contributes to fatigue
and other physiological difficulties such as narcolepsy. But it
is the first category of difficulties we are investigating with
an interest in assessing positive intention and thus transforming
the symptomatic behavior to satisfy this intention.
I use the word hypnosis to refer to the range of heightened,
inwardly focused concentration that will be relevant to this treatment
in the clinical context as well as self hypnosis context. Clinical
hypnosis occurs in a time limited relationship in which heightened
awareness is focused inward. It is a modality to communicate with
the client and stimulate thinking in the service of resolving
stated problems or goals. I have stated that hypnosis is an excellent
modality to help clients focus their own active intention toward
the goal of transforming sleep disrupting into alternative behaviors
that will more efficiently meet their needs for sleep. I propose
its use in several areas for different goals. But for all the
applications and purposes, I am referring to a formal process
of induction of trance state with indirect suggestions for clients
to let themselves develop whatever depth of altered state is necessary
to reduce distractions and focus heightened awareness into the
area indicated by their symptom. I am usually not concerned that
they demonstrate an arbitrary hypnotic responsiveness but instead
give suggestions for relaxing, curiosity, understanding, and discovering
that the trance they create will be uniquely relevant and completely
adequate to beneficially address their goals.
The several applications of hypnosis in this area are to initially
utilize it for unconscious search toward identifying the positive
intention of the problem behavior, generating preferred alternative
means of accomplishing that intention, and then retrieving, reviewing,
and experiencing those particular resources. I make distinctions
in these resources with regard to whether they are beliefs, behaviors,
or affect states. I discuss each of them separately but all three
areas are well served by use of therapeutic goal oriented metaphor
as the primary method to communicate and stimulate thinking while
the client is focused inward and wondering. The final application
discussed here is in the area of creating an associational link
so that the retrieved resource experiences are conditioned to
occur in the problem or goal context. It is actually a way to
make use of any recurrence of the problem by having it become
a post hypnotic suggestion for clients to access these preferred
experiences they have retrieved, organized, and associated in
trance. This is described in the final section on self image thinking.
Transforming the Symptom: Step 1 - Identify its positive intention
If we accept the idea that people are trying to accomplish something
useful with all of their behaviors, our first goal in therapy
is to discern that goal so that we can begin to transform the
symptom. Sometimes this purpose is not very clear at all. I am
suggesting that the symptom complex itself often contains essential
data about what the afflicted person is trying to accomplish.
So before we make suggestions to help the person "just get
rid of it", it is often very beneficial to embrace the symptom
as a source of valuable data, at least. One man who described
himself as a "Type A perfectionist" recognized the hazards
associated with that trait, including sleep disruption, but was
reluctant to alter his style of being because he felt it gave
him an edge in performance. He felt that he was able to accomplish
things quicker and better than others who might be more "laid
back." Speculating with him about the desired outcome of
all this performance, he eventually mentioned something to the
effect that he hoped it would finally prove to his parents that
he is worthwhile. He then was able to assess the possibility of
recognizing that his worth is in fact independent of anyone else's
approval.
Since transformation of a problem pattern begins with identifying
what the person might be trying to accomplish with this behavior
or mind set, hypnosis can be initially applied to the task of
helping the client focus introspectively and inquire within just
what this intention might be. With suggestions to focus awareness,
the hypnotist can wonder and speculate about how the behavior
helps or what it is trying to accomplish. The client's search
and identification process will be stimulated, sometimes with
a very clear understanding of the goal emerging in a post trance
discussion.
A woman whose cancer remission was threatened by her chronic
insomnia described a new insight about fairly obvious but previously
unrecognized factors that made her positive intention very clear.
She had essentially "slept with one eye open" for her
entire 40 year marriage to a diabetic man who would periodically
lapse into near coma during the night, requiring her intervention
to administer insulin. Her vigilance was quite understandable.
It was a life or death duty and she was never relieved. Another
client who presented a similar persistent insomnia had a more
difficult task of discerning his positive intention. All he knew
was that he would go to bed and be unable to fall asleep for many
hours, feeling full of energy whenever he was in bed but tired
if he got up. He felt it was a curse and thought hypnosis might
free him. He denied the possibility of any psychological problems
but speculated that maybe it was some form of anxiety. Upon further
investigation into this 'anxiety,' he described habitual worrying
as his best effort to solve his various problems. This turned
out to be a much more workable assumption than being cursed.
Transforming the Symptom: Step 2 - Generate acceptable alternatives
When we have a theory as to how the presented constellation of
characteristics is actually in service of a valid need, hypnosis
can beneficially be used again to facilitate another introspection
in which clients are invited to generate acceptable alternatives.
That is, they are asked to connect to a creative part of themselves
and concentrate their focused attention in trance to determine
or speculate about what they would need in order to accomplish
this intention even better, or at least in a way that is adequate.
They do not have to consciously assess these new alternatives
as something they are capable of doing. Initially the goal is
simply to generate a "wish list" of alternatives that
would satisfy the intention. The woman married to the diabetic
husband initiated a search into the unfamiliar territory of what
she needed and how she could transfer a large part of the observing
responsibility to the husband who tended to deny signals that
a blood sugar imbalance was building. This change led to deeper
awareness about other "selfish" needs and feelings that
she allowed herself to verbalize for the first time. Prior to
this investigation she had only been able to express such needs
in what she considered bizarre and disturbing dreams and nightmares.
These perfectly normal impulses were so embarrassing to her that
she suppressed them completely except in the freedom of her dream
life which she was unable to control. She worried that these dreams
might be consistent with being "crazy." She was just
trying to be nice and suppress all the parts of her she considered
unacceptable. When she broadened her perspective to realize that
she could be much nicer by accepting her needs and feelings as
valid and even expressing them to her husband in waking state,
her sleep was able to be much less labored. She was still a dreamer
but learned to dream without disturbing her sleep and forget the
dreams upon waking if she wanted to. She accepted her dreams simply
as information about her needs, fears, or conflicts instead of
bizarre proof of something being seriously wrong with her. Once
she stopped losing sleep worrying about the dreams that were waking
her, she was able to rapidly return to sleep and then exercise
choice the next day as to whether to analyze them with interest
about what she might learn or simply to think about something
else.
Transforming the Symptom: Step 3 - Develop preferred alternatives
The final step in this method of transformation is to retrieve
and organize the different characteristics and resource experiences
needed to implement the new arrangement, much like upgrading a
software program. The new arrangement will eventually run automatically
whenever access impulses are received to run the old program.
The upgrade is entirely due to the client's thoughtful consideration
and active intention. An old habit will simply have become obsolete
as the new, improved habit satisfies the positive intentions.
And people usually have these resource experiences readily available,
just not usually stored in the area where they had experienced
the problem. As Erickson pointed out, people have psychological
problems simply because they don't know how to get the resource
experiences they want into the situations in which they are needed
(3). Hypnosis is a particularly useful modality at this phase
in that clients can be helped to retrieve the desired experiences
from contexts in which they are available and then create an associational
link to the problem context. After this rehearsal in trance, encountering
the problem then serves to initiate a retrieval of the now available
preferred experiences which include specific beliefs, behaviors,
and emotion.
Chronic sleep disruption habits, though tenacious due to the
interplay between long held beliefs, behaviors, and feelings,
can be transformed on the basis of a decision and a wish to do
so. The approach is based on the belief that people are flexible,
capable, intelligent, cognizant beings who can elect to use their
storehouse of potentials to put together a superior choice for
meeting their needs abundantly without having to suffer the consequences
that were connected to operating on unexamined and limited choices.
Hypnosis is valuable as a context to stimulate significant experiences
that allow clients to alter long held beliefs, cultivate novel
behaviors, and develop novel affect states as they pertain to
putting the preferred alternatives into operation so abundantly
that the habitual behaviors become obsolete. Orienting clients
to the approach, it is useful for the hypnotist to review with
them some of those things they previously enjoyed or needed that
they have outgrown physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
This innate ability to change beliefs, modify behaviors, and feel
differently in many arenas of life is tapped into and framed as
a personal power of active intention that can culminate in preferred
alternatives to the previous sleep disrupting behaviors. The three
elements are interconnected in that beliefs support behaviors
and emotion which in turn reinforce belief but they can each be
addressed separately in order to describe methods for changing
each as well as typical obstacles to anticipate.
CHANGING BELIEFS TO SUPPORT TRANSFORMATION OF SYMPTOM PATTERNS
Beliefs that limit access to preferred experiences serve to maintain
a symptom pattern. Challenging the certainty of a belief initiates
a beneficial confusion about what is true and creates a receptive
space in which seeds of an alternative solution supporting belief
can be planted. The goal is movement away from rigidly held absolutes
to a freeing sense of choice and option. This kind of challenge
might take place in a variety of ways during therapy but hypnosis
is a conducive context to relate goal oriented metaphors in which
characters in the story are described as they illustrate and have
confusion about rigidly held limiting beliefs that are parallel
to those held by the client. An example of a rigid limiting belief
is the perfectionist idea that 'mistakes are unacceptable.' Providing
metaphoric examples of that attitude failing to accomplish its
mission can be contrasted with metaphoric examples of a more flexible
belief such as 'mistakes are opportunities for valuable learnings.
So the hypnotist could induce trance and relate an illustrative
metaphor that describes two characters, one of whom will not tolerate
mistakes and condemns any imperfection because he believes that's
how a good job must be done. The other character operates from
the seemingly absurd notion, at least as viewed from the perspective
of the client, that what you learn from mistakes makes them worth
happening. Unexpected consequences are then revealed in which
the character who can't tolerate mistakes has some negative consequence
like a heart attack or being dismissed from a job while the other
character gets a promotion because of his truly valuable contributions.
The client's resulting confusion about how the character sharing
his belief failed to achieve the expected positive, protective
outcome can be considered a therapeutic shift (4). These stories
are told without emphasizing a moral or clear point about the
intended meaning. It is left for the client to determine ultimate
meaning.
A client who has always believed that 'if you want something
done right, you have to do it yourself' will be incredulous as
the story unfolds about a character who is exhausted from trying
to do everything herself and in the end is not nearly as efficient
as someone else who is admittedly quite inferior. Or if the belief
is that 'perfection is the ultimate mark that must be met and
anything less than that is failure,' the therapeutic story might
illustrate how such an impossible standard actually inhibited
the discover of worthy and valid treasure. With clients suffering
from the idea that 'any mistakes prove an essential weakness and
inadequacy,' the resulting confusion experienced as they listen
to these sorts of metaphors might prompt them to somehow give
themselves permission to learn what they learn when they learn
it and to celebrate the good mistakes they make that provide an
opportunity to learn something. Another limiting belief that can
inhibit appropriate relaxation response is the idea that if tension
is relaxed, the person might miss something or become vulnerable.
The alternative belief to suggest is that it is possible to make
even more profound and meaningful contributions from the base
state of relaxed presence. Exploring a new or unknown belief is
likely to be awkward initially. Within hypnotic trance, the client
can be invited to let this desired belief be gradually integrated
at all levels despite the conscious mind's doubt and awareness
of pretense. Repeating the essence of the belief in the present
tense as though it is already believed congruently will facilitate
a sort of self fulfilling prophecy that will eventually become
true. Dr. Christine Northrup, (5) a holistic physician, writes
out a self hypnosis type prescription for her patients to look
themselves deeply in the eye, in a mirror reflection, and tell
that self in the mirror: 'I accept you unconditionally right now.'
Though not formally self hypnosis, it certainly qualifies as focusing
active intention toward desired change. When a person does this
the first time, it is almost guaranteed to access an entire chorus
of internal dissenters and critics begging to differ. Dr. Northrup
advises patients to simply include these objecting parts in the
unconditional acceptance. As the person comes to believe that
such a thing is possible and that it is deserved, by virtue of
being alive, there may be a distinct mixture of feelings and fears
such as stirrings of something like joy and relief right alongside
a terror that if this belief takes hold that a total atrophy and
complete lack of motivation will ensue. At that point, the person
might need to reassure the self that an unconditionally accepted
self is much more capable of and likely to make significant accomplishments
the driven self could never even imagine.
Clients seek hypnotherapy both hoping and fearing that the hypnotist
has the power to give compelling suggestions. They underrate the
power of their own suggestions. They don't realize that what they
believe becomes true and that they get to believe what they decide
to believe. Consider the example of a person in a state of agitated
obsession about a keynote address about to be made to a large
conference. Entering an elevator, the person encounters a colleague
also on the way to address the same conference. He is holding
his plastic nametag clinched between his teeth and repeating the
sentence out loud: 'I do this because I like it.' The wisdom in
this tactic was immediately appreciated by the first person who
might have been repeating internally something like 'I hate this
and I don't want to do it.' Ultimately, people do the things they
want to do, purposefully, and with some good reason. Choosing
to remind oneself of that truth will contribute to a more desirable
outcome.
The hypnotist can assist clients as they address the mixed feelings
that result from successfully considering an attitude change and
initiating a shift in beliefs. There is a cognitive dissonance
that is uncomfortable and disorienting. For example, a person
might experience a logical wish to feel safe, worthwhile, and
appreciated but simultaneously believe it might be dangerous or
incompatible with task oriented, responsible behavior. Significant
anxiety will result at the thought of risking such a bold departure
from conditioned beliefs. The woman who loses sleep over her diabetic
husband and chronically worries that her normal impulses are unacceptably
selfish is torn between expressing her needs and feelings but
fearing that she will lose her self respect as a nice person.
She is trying on the alternative idea that it isn't nice to be
too nice and that many people actually prefer to interact with
others who have and share their clear preferences. Similarly,
she is considering the bold move of simply quieting her worry
about various concerns that are beyond her control and engaging
her choice to entertain thoughts consistent with relaxing and
sleep. But there is an obstacle born of her almost superstitious
belief that she somehow keeps the fears from becoming reality
by her agitated worrying.
But worldview beliefs can change in a single moment when perspective
shifts and somehow a glimpse of the big picture comes into focus.
Usually a person doesn't recognize the exact moment when such
a shift occurs because it is a process that is often subtle and
largely unconscious. But minds can change as a result of active
intention, freeing the self to engage in new behaviors and feelings.
Setting the mind to lasting change is often as simple as volitionally
switching verb tense: 'I used to be a tense, rigid, perfectionist
but now I am becoming calm, focused, forgiving, and free to do
what I want to do. In fact, the more I was driven by tension and
fear, the more I am able to recognize and embrace the inverse
of that lifestyle.' Putting their active intentions into validating
suggestions they repeat to themselves, silently or externally,
is an excellent content for self hypnosis sessions.
CHANGING BEHAVIORS TO PUT BELIEFS INTO ACTION
Once a new belief superstructure is in place, a decision can
be made about what it now makes sense to do differently. An inventory
of what a person has been doing helps assess which behaviors are
valuable enough to keep. It's a bit like conducting an analysis
of space use in a vegetable garden. One would assess how easily
each item grows, whether the produce is actually liked and consumed,
its nutritional value, its compatibility with the other plants,
and whether it grows there by accident or intention. Most gardeners
will probably realize that they could use their space differently
in order to better meet their unique needs and wishes, keeping
some plants exactly how they are, expanding others, eliminating
some altogether and replacing them with things they might have
never grown before. When I planted my first garden in sandy Florida
soil, it was a complete waste of time except for the learnings
about what not to do. But across the street where the grass is
always greener, my neighbors, in the very same soil, produced
the most bountiful garden imaginable. I immediately selected them
as my gardening mentors and did everything exactly as they were
doing with similar results.
Examining a behavior repertoire usually reveals behaviors that
aren't working so well and will need to be replaced. Often the
new behaviors are essentially unknown to the person desiring to
use them and research into their operation may be required. It's
the kind of research every two year old child intuitively knows
how to do when they model via deep trance identification with
the human representative of any behavior they are interested in
acquiring. Either through behavior observation assignments or
through skill building metaphors told in trance (4), someone who
is a model of the desired behaviors is studied, interviewed, observed
for breathing, movements, speed of speech, selection of words,
facial expression, etc. Anyone willing to tolerate the initial
awkwardness can claim the selected behaviors.
Behaviors such as excessive worrying, competition, criticism,
perfectionism, and blaming self and others are likely to be presented
as sleep disrupting factors. After generating likely replacement
behaviors that will still satisfy the positive intention, the
hypnotist can again use the trance context as a mental stage for
clients to remember, retrieve, and rehearse essential aspects
and nuances of the desired behaviors. A story might be told, for
example that illustrates how the character exchanges worrying
for relaxed but attentive behaviors. It would detail how the character
can continue to anticipate the future when necessary, but is not
constrained to do so in the same old way where they imagine everything
going badly while feeling anxious. Instead, the character imagines
the self in the future, handling the situation in the preferred
manner while feeling relaxed and capable. Perhaps they rest from
anticipating the future altogether by learning to be really present
in the moment, attending to nuances and details of it that had
been ignored. The character might be observed as he systematically
identifies current data from each sensory modality, thoughtfully
attending to what he sees, hears, feels, and smells. He might
then go even deeper into the moment by doing it again and noticing
more data in each channel.
Being able to quiet the mind and simply observe thoughts while
disengaging judgment is an excellent internal behavioral prelude
to sleep. Most people are not able to make the mind go blank and
it isn't really necessary since the limited conscious mind is
easily overloaded with selected goal directed material. A wide
variety of goals might be chosen such as the goal of becoming
completely relaxed, both physically and mentally for a specified
period of time. It is easily accomplished with one of those self
hypnosis, present tense, self fulfilling prophecies discussed
earlier.
Clients learn to repeat silently to themselves: 'I am completely
relaxed, at this time, both physically, and mentally.' They enhance
the effect by thinking each of the four parts of this sentence
in rhythm with exhaling four different breaths and associating
any helpful imagery with each phrase. When they say 'completely
relaxed' I suggest they search through the body, willfully relaxing
any obviously tense muscles, letting the jaw go slack, and maybe
imagining something melting or the body becoming limp like a cooked
noodle. Then as they say 'at this time' I might suggest they imagine
being in a safe little envelope of time, temporarily free from
doing anything other than being relaxed in this moment. When they
say 'physically,' they can discover that the already relaxed body
is able to release further tension. Then comes the phrase 'and
mentally' which raises the logical question of what mental relaxation
is. Since they can think of the flow of thoughts through the conscious
mind as an indicator of an active brain and a healthy nervous
system, they don't necessarily need to try and stop that. But
they can stop their involvement with it. It might be helpful to
imagine sitting beside a river, just passively observing the variety
of thoughts that flow by. I encourage them to concentrate on watching
the thoughts come and letting them go, just like they are doing
with each breath that comes and goes. Or perhaps they would prefer
to imagine standing in front of a blank chalkboard and writing
the current thought in a rainbow shaped arc. Then, upon exhaling,
they imagine the hand coming back across that arc from the opposite
direction, holding an eraser with which to erase and let the thought
go, knowing that it will be available again when it is needed.
But at this moment in time, they are electing to let it go. There
is nothing they need to do about that thought other than observe
it, validate it, and let it go.
New behaviors such as efficient worrying, breathing, resting,
and quieting the mind may well be instrumental in reconstructing
symptomatic behaviors like extreme competing, blaming, or controlling.
Often it is simply a matter of backing off of the extreme, keeping
the behavior as a choice, but also developing choice in what seems
like polar opposites to these behaviors so they do not need to
be relied upon so extensively. There is often a yin/yang type
interconnectedness between what first seem to be polar opposites.
For example, the more they have been driven to compete, the more
they can recognize and develop the innate ability to cooperate.
Or, the more they have blamed and criticized themselves or others,
the more they are free to truly recognize and compliment significant
components of progress. And the more they have carried the burden
of controlling everything, the more they can expect to appreciate
the relief that comes when they create a more satisfying balance.
The more they used to think they had to be the expert, the more
they can let themselves ask for help expertly.
One client who wanted to use hypnosis to lower his hypertension
explained that he had always had these characteristics and that
he considered himself to be genetically, emotionally, and culturally
predisposed to this symptom as his father, who had just died of
a heart attack, had also been that way and thus passed it on to
his son. Certainly the man identified with most of these disease
prone behaviors just discussed. He was a professor who believed
he had to know all the answers and criticized himself severely
if he did not. He was also a father and husband who thought he
had to be the strong leader. He even tried to control his hypertension
with obsessive running, biofeedback, and meditation until he could
prove to his satisfaction on a monitor he used that he had forced
his symptom into normal range. But his success was short lived
because as soon as he would return to the self inflicted stresses
of his life, the monitor would reflect the return of the hypertension.
So, rather than using hypnosis to force him more effectively somehow,
I encouraged him to use his trance to make peace with his fear
of emotional vulnerability as the means to accomplishing the true
control that his healthy development required. Because the more
he was free to allow his vulnerability, the more he could know
his true confidence and power. In this paradoxical way that appealed
to him intuitively, he told his father goodbye and, while thanking
him for doing the best he could, informed him that he was going
to go further than the father had been able to teach him. Therefore,
he released his father from any haunting guilt that his own limitations
had permanently limited his son. Then my client proceeded to launch
a whole set of uncharacteristic behaviors: asking for help, letting
people help him, saying 'I don't know' without anxiety, welcoming
mistakes as learning opportunities, and a host of breathing and
'being' behaviors that were largely unknown by him. He even exercised
differently. Instead of forcing himself on a treadmill track,
he began to swim regularly, describing the act of letting himself
enter the water and float out on its surface as a stimulus that
reminded him to breathe, relax, and move accordingly. He forgot
to worry about his hypertension which coincidentally stayed within
an acceptable range.
AFFECT AND EMOTION AS THE LOGICAL RESULT OF TRANSFORMATION
I have been suggesting that what people think and do are crucial
steps to transforming certain sleep disruptions. Feeling different
may, in fact, simply be the logical result of creating new beliefs
and making different behavior choices. And feeling good has enormous
benefits in addition to the obvious one of feeling good. There
is an entire science devoted to the study of psychoneuroimmunology,
which essentially describes the miracle of the mind-body connection
with regard to disease and wellness. What people think effects
the body, both physically and emotionally. What we do similarly
influences how we feel. What feeling good means has to be determined
by each individual as there are lots of variations and one person's
pleasure may be another's pain. I endorse the assumption that
all feelings are part of health and balance. Carl Jung (6) once
said he would rather be 'whole' than 'healthy.' He was using 'healthy'
to refer to society's current prejudice as to which feelings are
approved. Erickson told clients that they deserved to have all
of their feelings by virtue of being alive (7). Unnatural imbalance
which can lead to disease can occur as easily when any feeling
is blocked completely as when it is overused to an obsessive extreme.
So, there are no purely bad or good feelings but rather how we
balance, allow, contain or release natural emotion that effects
us negatively or positively.
Emotions that are considered negative include aggressive or vulnerable
experiences like hostility, anger, impatience, fear, or sadness.
Emotions of strength, confidence, pride, and capability are considered
desirable by almost everyone. Tender emotions such as joy, happiness,
safe, calm, compassionate, relaxed, satisfied, hopeful, while
generally considered desirable, still can be considered possibly
dangerous or suspicious. They might lead to messy, mushy, emotional
displays in business settings or worse, to someone losing their
drive to perform, keep up, and successfully compete. Obviously,
there is unavoidable overlap when discussing matters of belief,
behavior and emotion. And there are always good reasons everyone
has learned to have the feelings that are characteristic of them
and to avoid the feelings they consider foreign, weird, undesirable,
or unattainable. But everyone has the capacity to claim their
human birthright to have all of the feelings available to humans
and to be in control of how and when they will be dispersed.
Agitated clients may particularly appreciate experiencing the
tender, vulnerable emotions such as patience, compassion, calm,
satisfied, safe, relaxed, hopeful, even sadness, and making an
ally out of fear. All of these feelings have value and they have
been known all along at some level. In therapy the hypnotist can
help clients focus awareness on these feeling experiences with
the goal of becoming healthy, happy, balanced, and free to be
whole. This focus can be as simple as a direct suggestion to pay
attention to components of the indicated feeling or as elaborate
as an affect retrieving story complete with character development,
dramatic movement, metaphorical intensification of the feeling,
and indirect suggestions for the identifying client to experience
the emotion personally (4).
SELF IMAGE THINKING TO ORGANIZE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVES
When clients simply imagine seeing themselves having the characteristics
and feelings they want to feel in the contexts where they want
to have them available, they begin to experience benefits even
while part of the conscious mind may still be analyzing and criticizing
how this would never work. In this mental rehearsal aspect of
both clinical and self hypnosis, the client is most effective
in channeling the power of active intention. They are free to
'borrow' any desired feeling characteristic from someone else
who has it abundantly if they cannot remember any aspect available
in personal history. Even more interesting is to borrow it from
the older, wiser self from the future who has so much of it that
sharing with the current self would be a pleasure. I frequently
suggest to clients that they employ the 'drag and drop' computer
analogy method. That is, while they are picturing themselves,
they imagine 'clicking' on the example of that trait as exemplified
in someone else, and then 'dragging' it over and releasing it
onto their own image.
I help clients create a visual self image on which they represent
with behaviorally specific cues the various experiential characteristics
they value and want to have available (8). They can see themselves
feeling the way they want to feel and can then merge with that
image to actually experience the feelings directly. Back in the
observer role, they are instructed to let various background scenarios
emerge around the central self image and to watch that self interacting
in these situations in an acceptable way that reflects the desired
characteristics and experienced feelings. Eventually, the situations
that had been problem contexts are reviewed in this manner guided
by the client's active intention to interact according to their
preferences and feel the different way they want to feel. This
includes watching themselves going to sleep, staying asleep, quickly
returning to sleep if awakened, sleeping restfully, waking up
rested at the desired time, and attending to any dream material
in a relaxed and curious manner. The person can consciously and
unconsciously orchestrate all this complex mental imagery in trance,
creating a map of images that will guide affect and behavior in
future similar situations, even while the conscious mind may be
full of doubt.
CONCLUSION
Hypnosis is an extremely effective modality to allow clients
to immerse themselves in a comfortable cocoon where they can discover
the ability to freely feel the relevant emotion at the proper
intensity in the current moment of ever changing experience. I
often conclude such trance work with the post hypnotic suggestion
to look forward to the days when they will be able to look back
and review the ongoing transformation from that vantage point,
remembering to accept the self unconditionally in the past, present,
and future time, both awake and deep inside dreams within dreams.
And in that review, perhaps they can appreciate that the multi-faceted
transformation of an entire lifestyle was somehow initiated by
the awareness of a sleep problem they had once experienced long
ago. This sleep problem, like images encountered in dreams, revealed
that which was needed but not yet grasped and articulated. But
symptoms and dream images alike have the capacity to inform, guide,
and reveal aspects of self outside usual awareness. And in this
light, clients can come away from the therapy experience not only
free of their presented difficulty but with a new attitudinal
appreciation for the wisdom within the symptom they had once only
seen as a problem. And this is the essence of therapeutic transformation.
REFERENCES
1. Freud S. The Interpretation of Dreams. In: Brill B, ed. The
Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud. New York: The Modern Library,
1938.
2. Erickson M. Hypnotherapy. New York: Irvington, 1979.
3. Erickson M. Hypnotic Psychotherapy. In: Rossi E, ed. The Collected
papers of Milton H. Erickson (Vol. 4). New York: Irvington, 1980.
4. Lankton CH, Lankton SR. Tales of Enchantment. New York: Brunner/Mazel
Publishers, 1989.
5. Northrup C. Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. New York: Bantam
Books, 1998.
6. Jung C. The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung. DeLaszlo VS, ed.
New York: Random House, 1959.
7. Erickson M. Personal communication. Phoenix, Az, 1979.
8. Lankton SR, Lankton CH. The Answer Within. New York: Brunner/Mazel
Publishers, 1983.
Carol Lankton is a Consultant in Clinical Hypnosis by
the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, Clinical member of
the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, and licensed
as a Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of Florida. Address
reprint requests to: Carol Lankton, M. A., P. O. Box 958,
Gulf Breeze, Florida 32561 Phone: 850 932 6819. Fax: 850 932 3118.
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