Hypnosis for Inner Conflict Resolution

Including parts therapy

Roy Hunter

• Verlag: Crown House Publishing
• Jahr: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781845905248
• Thema: Medicina
• Thema: Teoría, práctica y referencia médicas

Increasing numbers of therapists around the world are discovering the benefits of parts therapy and its variations to help clients get past personal barriers. Variations of parts therapy such as ego state therapy or voice dialogue are already used by many psychotherapists and psychologists who also use hypnosis in their practices. This book will provide therapists with the added knowledge of parts therapy.

Chapter 1

Overview

Parts therapy is based on the concept that our personality is composed of a number of various parts. Our personality parts are aspects of the subconscious, each with its respective jobs or functions of the inner mind. In other words, we tend to wear many different hats as we walk along the path of life.

Often we can be consciously aware of the various hats we wear as our personality parts influence our conscious actions. At work we get into the work mode, wearing the figurative hat of a dedicated worker; but the inner child, quiet while we are working, can’t wait to come out and play at home. The professional whose demeanor is strictly business in the workplace may become an easygoing person with a silly sense of humor outside the workplace. The freshman attending a college class takes on the role of the student while listening attentively to the professor’s lecture, but that same person could become loud and boisterous at a Saturday-night party.

Some people are accused of being “two-faced” because of displaying very obvious personality changes in different circumstances; but a change of face is not limited to a few. It is actually common to all of us to greater or lesser degrees. These personality changes may become more obvious during times of inner conflict, such as when a smoker trying to quit is caught in the act of lighting up.

Inner conflicts occur when we have two different parts of the subconscious pulling us in opposite directions. The smoker mentioned above might have a strong emotional desire to quit in order to have more money to spend on recreational activities, but another part of the mind provides pleasure in lighting up after meals or at other times. Every year countless numbers of smokers make New Year resolutions to quit, only to find their resolutions literally going up in smoke. This is only one example of many types of inner conflict. The most common one weighs heavily in the minds of millions: weight loss.

Over the years I’ve often said that diets work on the body, but not on the mind. Dieters keep on losing pound after pound, only to find the pounds they lose just pile back on. The never-ending quest for maintaining an ideal weight is one goal among many that drive millions of people to seek ways to overcome undesired habits. Increasing numbers of men and women around the world are now achieving weight management and other goals through a modality that in only a few short years has emerged from skepticism into public acceptance: hypnosis.

Does hypnosis help all the people all the time? While the obvious answer is no, even a partially trained hypnotist can help some of the people some of the time. A competently trained hypnotherapist can help many more clients successfully quit smoking and/or achieve other goals through common hypnotic techniques; but it is a fact that some of the people seeking help will have inner conflicts that are strong enough to prevent positive suggestions from providing any permanent benefit. These clients need more than hypnosis alone: they need parts therapy.

1.1 What is parts therapy?

Parts therapy is the process of calling out and communicating directly with any and all parts of the subconscious involved in helping a client achieve a desired result. The use of parts therapy for inner-conflict resolution normally involves mediation between the two primary parts in conflict, which I call the conflicting part and the motivating part. Many of my sessions involve calling out only two parts, but other parts do exist—and, occasionally, I call out more than two parts during a session.

The hypnotic state makes it easier to communicate with each part, and reduces the risk of interference from the analytical conscious mind. I employ and teach a process based on a discipline taught by the late Charles Tebbetts, and updated through my years of professional experience.

In previous writings, I started my discussion of parts therapy quoting the actual words of Charles Tebbetts, taken from Miracles on Demand (page 31; now out of print):

In 1952, [Paul] Federn described Freud’s ego state (id, ego and superego) as resembling separate personalities much like the multiple personalities illustrated in the celebrated case of “The Three Faces of Eve,” but differing in that no one of them exists without the awareness of the others. I find, however, that in many cases different parts take complete control while the total individual is in a trance state of which she is unaware. A bulimic will experience time distortion while bingeing, eating for over an hour and believing that only five minutes have elapsed … Both personalities know that the other exists, but the first is unaware of the other’s existence during the period of the deviant behavior.

My mentor believed that we all have various aspects of our personalities, which he sometimes called personality parts, but more often called ego parts. Some of the other names for ego parts are: ego states, subpersonalities, selves, and developmental stages.

His words continue:

Surely, at some time you have thought, “Sometimes I feel that I want to do something. But at other times I think I would like to do the opposite.” The well-adjusted person is one in whom the personality parts are well integrated. The maladjusted person is one in whom they are fragmented, and internal conflict exists.

My former instructor openly admitted that he borrowed aspects of parts therapy from other therapists and researchers, and then evolved his hypnotic application into a technique that effectively helps clients resolve inner conflicts. By teaching this complex technique in classes and workshops, Charles Tebbetts, I believe, made one of the most profoundly beneficial contributions to hypnotherapy in the twentieth century.

In a way, we could compare parts therapy to Gestalt, except that the client is role-playing different parts of his/her personality rather than role-playing other people. Competent use of parts therapy helps to discover the causes of problems, to release them, and then to facilitate subconscious relearning with the previously conflicting parts now integrated into a state of inner harmony.

The properly trained parts therapist is also a skilled hypnotist, employing parts therapy with a deeply hypnotized client, and then objectively talking to all the parts involved in attaining resolution of the client’s concern. Often the best way to accomplish this is to find compromise, acceptance and resolution through negotiations and mediation. The entire process will be explored in depth later in this book.

1.2 When is parts therapy appropriate?

How often have you wanted to accomplish a goal or overcome an undesired habit, only to find your subconscious resisting? One part of your personality wants something, while another part of you doesn’t want to pay the price.

A client experiencing such an inner conflict is an ideal candidate for parts therapy. The obvious clue would be evident in a client who says, “A part of me wants to get rid of this weight while another part wants to keep on eating!” The ego part desiring to be attractive is in conflict with the inner child (or some other ego part) wanting to enjoy eating, say, sweets. (There may be other reasons for the conflicting part to persist in overeating.) Parts therapy usually will uncover the cause(s), so that the therapist may facilitate inner-conflict resolution through a process similar to mediation.

Often the need for parts therapy may not be readily apparent. Therapists who practice diversified client-centered hypnosis learn how to fit the technique to the client rather than vice versa, and do not automatically use parts therapy with everyone. Most of my sessions begin with some positive suggestions designed to the client’s specific benefits for achieving a desired goal, because an enjoyable first impression is lasting, and more likely to result in the client’s keeping his/her next appointment. I also devote a session to teaching self-hypnosis as a way of reducing stress.

By the third or fourth session, if the client is resisting the positive suggestions, I’ll choose an advanced hypnotic technique that seems appropriate for that particular client. Naturally, when an inner conflict is apparent, I choose parts therapy. When the appropriate technique is not so obvious, finger-response questions (explored in Chapter 3) usually help me to determine how to proceed.

While my primary motive for facilitating parts therapy is to help clients resolve inner conflicts, some trainers and authors use additional applications of parts therapy or its variations even in the absence of apparent inner conflicts.

1.3 Who will most likely respond?

The deeply hypnotized client is more likely to respond to parts therapy, while someone experiencing little or no hypnosis may easily resist the entire process, whether or not such resistance is apparent to the facilitator. Some therapists who use variations of parts therapy work with a client who is quite conscious. While many of their clients might respond with favorable results, a more analytical person might experience interference or resistance to the process, with some or most benefits being only temporary.

Also, the best way to empower the client to enjoy a more permanent resolution is to practice what I call client-centered parts therapy. This means that the answers and solutions to the client’s concerns emerge from the client’s own mind rather than from the mind of the therapist, including the name and purpose of each part that emerges.

1.4 Why is client-centered parts therapy effective?

In my professional opinion, it empowers the client when the resolution for the problem comes from that client instead of the therapist. Rather than give away his or her power to someone else who implants “spells” in the form of suggestions, the client discovers the best resolution by answering questions asked by the facilitator at appropriate times. (Later chapters in this book reveal what questions to ask, and when to ask them.)

Several years ago, a psychologist asked me to use parts therapy to help her resolve an inner conflict. Upon emerging from hypnosis, her first words were, “That solution was so simple, I wish I’d thought of it myself!” I quickly reminded her that the resolution had indeed come from her own mind, and not mine. She smiled and agreed, and acknowledged the value of parts therapy.

Client-centered parts therapy helps clients attain greater empowerment, because the power to change truly lies within the client rather than in the therapist. The facilitator of client-centered parts therapy has the task of identifying and calling out the right parts, asking the right questions, listening objectively, and following the discipline presented in this book.

1.5 Variations of parts therapy

Therapists have employed variations of parts therapy for decades. I’ll briefly discuss several of them in this chapter section, starting with my favorite variation: ego-state therapy.

1.5.1 Ego state therapy

Pioneered by Dr John Watkins and Helen Watkins over a number of years, ego-state therapy has spread throughout the therapeutic world. John and Helen Watkins started writing about ego states in publications and books during the 1970s, adding an outstanding book in 1997 entitled, Ego States: Theory and Therapy (Watkins and Watkins, 1997). Gordon Emmerson PhD, takes ego-state therapy into the twenty-first century at warp speed with his important book, Ego State Therapy (2003), which is now required reading for my hypnotherapy students.

Emmerson believes that we use five to fifteen ego states throughout a normal week, and we have more available when needed. He goes beyond the use of ego states therapy for resolving inner conflicts, providing other therapeutic benefits as well. In my professional opinion, Emmerson’s book is a “must read” for anyone practicing parts therapy. Besides calling out the ego states for inner-conflict resolution, Emmerson helps clients create a map of their own ego states. I find this process absolutely fascinating.

I believe that clients of any therapist who masters ego-state therapy as practiced and presented by Watkins or Emmerson should enjoy a high success rate. Emmerson believes that hypnosis makes ego-state therapy more powerful, which validates the teachings of Charles Tebbetts.

1.5.2 Voice dialogue

Anyone seriously searching for new ways of working with the inner mind will discover books about voice dialogue, another variation of parts therapy. Hal Stone PhD, and Sidra Stone PhD, explain voice dialogue in their voice-dialogue manual (1989), Embracing Our Selves. The client, in a manner that could compare to Gestalt therapy, plays the role of each part by changing chairs or positions (although changing chairs is optional). The therapist facilitates the dialogue and proceeds accordingly.

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