Therapeutic Interventions in Three Sentences

Reshaping Ericksonian Hypnotherapy by Talking to the Brain and Body

Stefan Hammel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000752700
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Following tenets set out by Milton Erickson, Therapeutic Interventions in Three Sentences: Reshaping Ericksonian Hypnotherapy by Talking to the Brain and Body presents an array of short, effective commands which have been developed for use in connection with a wide range of mental and psychosomatic disorders.

Examining in detail the basic building blocks which must be in place in order for someone to send an effective command to his or her sub-conscious mind, the book presents an elegant way of using informal variations of Ericksonian hypnotherapy in awake states and transferring these principles to a variety of therapeutic settings. The methods described follow specific rules derived from hypnotherapy but can be integrated into any other form of counselling or therapy and can be used in short sessions, in telephone consultations and with patients in critical states, as well as conversations of a therapeutic nature by non-therapeutic professionals. The book explains why and how these interventions work, their general structure, and how they can be used to tackle specific needs such as trauma, depression, and anxiety disorders.

The book will be of great interest to counsellors, doctors and therapists of different orientations who are looking for therapeutic methods that can be used in short sessions or with patients in critical states, as well as non-therapeutic professionals who engage in conversations of a therapeutic nature, such as social workers, pastors, nurses, carers and teachers (including SEN teachers).

II When to say “hello” to the mind

Greetings can be used to achieve significant progress towards all of the goals which clients typically wish to achieve in therapy, including those which they only reveal upon further questioning since they do not initially regard them as achievable.

Greetings can accordingly be used to heal physical or mental ailments; resolve interpersonal problems; improve attitudes to restrictions such as ageing, mortality, an uncertain future or doubts regarding a current relationship and reduce or overcome any obstacles which might stand in the way of successful therapy.

In order to allow readers of this book to identify greetings which are relevant to their work more easily, each greeting is preceded by a number of entries labelled with the abbreviations “T,” “R” and “M.” “T” stands for the topics which (in my opinion) are most pertinent to the particular greeting, e.g. “depression” or “addiction”; “R” refers to the recipients of a greeting, e.g. “the mind” or “the brain”; and “M” stands for the message conveyed by the greeting (in summary form).

Effectiveness of therapy

The purpose of the greetings in this section is to increase the effectiveness of therapeutic work, i.e. to destabilise attitudes and beliefs which prevent clients reaching their therapeutic goals, to ensure that they are not “overloaded” either during or after the therapy session and to stabilise and build upon what has already been achieved.

The amount of time available for therapeutic work is always limited, and so it is a good idea to avoid wasting this time on therapist/client question-and-answer sessions; instead, the therapist can offer vague interpretations or several different interpretations of a particular set of circumstances, and invite the client – silently, in his or her own mind – to adapt what has been said so that it better fits his or her view of the world and his or her memories, goals and desires. An invitation of this kind is formulated in the intervention “Adapt everything to make it even better.”

The greeting “Only 90%” offers another option for maximising therapeutic effect; the therapist explains to the client that regardless of what is achieved during the therapy session, a certain fraction of it will probably be lost afterwards. Clients who have this explained to them tend to lose less of what has been achieved than those who are confronted with the phenomenon without having received any such prior explanation. In order to avoid causing loss through a suggestive effect, it is also possible to tell the client that although some people experience a small loss, others find that the benefits of therapy keep on growing due to spontaneous training effects, and to ask the client to identify the group into which he or she falls.

The section on depression contains additional greetings which promote positive ways of handling sceptical voices.

Adapt everything to make it even better

T: Ethics, safety of therapy, values, effectiveness of therapy

R: The unconscious

M: You have the power within you to adjust my message in such a way that anything which does not fit your needs can still be received in the most appropriate form.

Tell your unconscious that it can adjust everything I say to make it a better fit for your own personal situation, even if the words I use are not entirely right.

This greeting is suitable for universal use.

Sit back and let the problem be solved

T: Autism, effectiveness of therapy, giftedness, perfectionism, stuttering, tics, compulsive behaviour (OCD)

R: The mind, body, spirit (two-level greeting)

M: Your thinking mind cannot, but other parts of you can.

Greet your thinking self in a friendly manner, and tell it that it cannot solve this problem itself, but it can also invite your body and mind to take over, and simply sit back and look on with amazement as they get on with the job.

The greeting is particularly suitable for people with a strong need to stay in control, and more generally as a way of reinforcing suggestive messages. The skills needed to solve a particular problem will be searched for in parts of the body where resources are potentially available, and a distinction (i.e. separation) will be made between parts of the body which might be sceptical about any such solution and therefore unhelpful, and those which believe that solutions are possible.

Only 90%

T: Effectiveness of therapy

R: The mind

M: A little is lost, but most is retained. What is retained grows from hour to hour.

Greet your mind and tell it that sometimes a therapy session goes particularly well and you go home feeling really happy, but afterwards what you have achieved is partially lost, and perhaps only 80%, 90% or 95% is retained. Tell your mind that this is sometimes unavoidable, but that therapy also has a “training effect”; experience shows that more of what has been achieved in a therapy session becomes permanently available as every hour passes.

When choosing between three quantified options which appear to be of the same value, people generally choose the middle of the three. By asserting that some of the good effects of the therapy session will be lost, the therapist saves the client’s inner sceptic from the trouble of coming to the same conclusion. Such an assertion sounds plausible, and helps the client to accept what is also implied, namely that most of the effects of the therapy session will be retained. The client will be so busy considering whether 80%, 90% or 95% of the effects will be retained that he or she will not question whether the percentage will indeed be this high, and his or her expectations will be adjusted accordingly. The greeting therefore reduces to around 10% the likely loss of positive expectations, which give rise to positive experiences, which give rise to positive memories, which give rise to positive expectations, and so on.

Turning the sceptic into a silent observer

T: Scepticism, disappointment (and the desire to avoid it)

R: A guardian who raises objections in order to protect against disappointment

M: Instead of raising objections out of a desire to prevent disappointment and thereby giving rise to the very disappointment it wishes to avoid, an inner authority should observe the client silently for a period of time in a spirit of trust.

Sometimes when people return home after a therapy session, they notice that some of the positive effects of the session have vanished. Perhaps there is part of you that wants to enjoy what you have achieved, while there is another part of you that wants to criticise and object in order to avoid being disappointed – but these criticisms and objections end up causing the very disappointment they were intended to prevent. Please tell this guardian inside you that he or she would be able to protect you against disappointment much more effectively by remaining silent for a whole week, and observing how well you get on with your life while he or she simply sits and watches.

The purpose of the greeting is to make the client more confident that the course of therapy will have the desired effects, and to invite him or her to adopt a playful attitude to any lingering doubts.

The Minister for Confidence

T: Scepticism, disappointment (and the desire to avoid it)

R: The inner sceptic

M: You are more likely to avoid disappointment if you trust in the process than if you raise objections.

I have the feeling that there is someone inside you who is still unsure about how much you have achieved, and how long these achievements will last. Let’s imagine that this person who has been sceptical up until now leaves your body invisibly, and goes over there – now that you can see him properly, he does not seem very happy at all. If we were to ask him, “Would you like to take on the role of Minister for Confidence in Mr M.’s life?”, what do you think he would say? Would he accept the appointment?

When offers of this kind are extended to inner persons, they are accepted almost without exception; the outcome is typically the disappearance of more or less all the objections that were unintentionally hampering the progress of therapy.

I belong to you and I do things differently!

T: Borderline (BPD), family, identity, migration, trauma, compulsive behaviour (OCD)

R: Parents (family)

M: I choose both: I belong to you, and I do things differently to you!

Send a greeting to the image of your parents which exists in your imagination, and tell them, “I choose both: I belong to you, and at the same time I do things differently than you!”

Some of the most intimidating inner sceptics are or were sceptics in the external world, including the members of a client’s family of origin and their beliefs. This greeting can be varied in many different ways; it can be used to teach clients who have experienced family-related trauma to differentiate the different components of their sense of belonging to this family – for example, by amending the first part of the greeting as follows: “I belong to you in my own way,” or “I belong to you in some ways.” The second part of the greeting can also be adapted: “… and at the same time I do things differently than the way that you think they ought to be done,” or “… than you would do them.” Depending on the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Naaman, or: surely it can’t be that simple!
• I How to say “hello” to the mind
• II When to say “hello” to the mind
• List of greetings
• Bibliography
• Index