Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors

A mentor (if they’d permit me to call them that) tipped me off that the first section in this book is gold, and I’m inclined to agree. I’m not a clinician, and I’ll never have the psych degree and experience to be a therapist, but the principles in the first chapter here would be useful to any hypnotist, therapist or not. I’m going in (mostly) blind, but Binaural Histolog has their own short summary as well. It’s worth including their disclaimer on it before diving in…

There’s a set of principles from the Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestion and Metaphors. I don’t recommend the book as it is quite dated, but the principles have served as a kind of folk wisdom for hypnotists over the years and you may hear references to various laws over the years.

- Binaural Histolog - The Newbie Guide to Hypnosis Suggestions - Guidelines

Formulating Hypnotic and Posthypnotic Suggestions

(Wow all right, the writer is a bit overconfident calling these maxims “laws” but I’ll roll with it.)

Principles of Hypnotic Suggestions

Establish Rapport and a Cooperative Relationship

Rapport has been done to death in other guides. Collaborate with your partner.

Create Positive Expectancy

Inspire confidence. even when using permissive suggestions. For example, express something will happen, even if you’re not sure when, rather than suggesting perhaps something will happen.

The Law of Reversed Effect

When creating physiological phenomena, avoid telling them to TRY HARDER. Garden the environment to let the suggestion take place automatically. If you’re exerting a hell of a lot of effort trying to sleep, you’re not going to have much luck.

Law of Concentrated Attention (Repetition)

Shotgun your approach. Either repeat the suggestion in different ways, or start with a metaphor, then start giving direct suggestions.

The Principle of Successive Approximations

Iteratively build phenomena.

The Law of Dominant Effect

Leverage emotion. Get them in the mood for whatever phenomena you’re trying to create, it’ll help with attribution.

The Carrot Principle

Your partner is there for something they want. Highlight these reasons when giving suggestions, appealing to their desires and identity. (I’d be careful with this one in recreation.) See also, the consistency principle in negotiation.

The Principle of Positive Suggestion

I have a pet peeve towards people that say you should never use negative suggestions, since it conjures malarkey about how the “subconscious can’t process negatives.” 🤮

Put differently, and mostly aligned with the book, I think a better way to think of this is to prefer actionable suggestions. For example:

• You won’t daydream of suave, attractive werewolves anymore.
• You’ll find that, as time goes on, the parts of you that were attracted to werewolves simply fall apart. Perhaps they begin to remind you of of what a womanizer Sean Connery was in old James Bond flicks, or that their charismatic expression is fictional and fur deep. Hell, what’s a werewolf look like when you shave them? Pathetic and irritated. And what’s attractive about that? It’s easy to find reasons to be less attracted to these creatures, and you’ll find yourself finding them automatically.

The Principle of Positive Reinforcement

There’s a reason why “that’s right” is a meme in the hypnosis community. Just don’t be too ham-fisted with your compliments. The book suggests complimenting the subconscious and it’s abilities, which doesn’t vibe with me, but it may work with your style.

Creating an Acceptance or Yes-Set

Thanks NLP for rebranding acquiescence bias. /s

We’ve done this one to death. Rotate through truisms, then slip in your suggestion payload.

Interactive Trance and Confirming the Acceptability of Suggestions

Hey guys - pro tip. Hypnosis is (at least) a two player game. In ‘trance,’ you can ask your partner for a verbal response, or use suggested nonverbal cues. You can also use a contingent motor response to check for or imply acceptance. EG: “And as you think about *cough* what a terrible idea it *gag* was to crack open a can of Surströmming in the living room, you’ll find that as that hand finally rises, your unconscious mind has agreed to never do that again. *sniffle*”

There’s a ramble here about obtaining commitments from the person and the subconscious, but eh, if you’re here, you probably know how I feel about that.

The Principle of Trance Ratification

Sell the power of trance to make the suggestions more believable. Any sufficiently impressive hypnotic phenomena will do as an example. Really it’s a form of “your mind just did some cool shit you didn’t know you were capable of… and even if you’re not consciously aware of it… you’ll find your mind capable of many more experiences that once felt out of reach…”

Timing of Suggestions and Depth of Trance

The book says give your suggestions last, when your partner is the most zonked. I’m going to tell you to give ‘difficult’ or ‘daring’ suggestions when your partner is sold on the process and impressed with the effectiveness of hypnosis, and will actually believe something crazy will work.

The Principle of Interspersing and Embedding Suggestions

You can change the meaning of a sentence by adding pauses. It’s just crafty wordplay. You can pause to emphasize something, or change the meaning mid-sentence. While I don’t think it has much utility, it does add sex appeal when giving a recreational session.

Boring example: And you can find yourself relaxing deeper and deeper as your hands get heavier.

Hot, oversold example: And you can drift… as you listen… to your own thoughts… and my words… that continue to comfortably and easily let yourself… GO DEEPER… into your mind… your body… just sinking… into the chair… as you continue to… LET GO… further… than you thought you could… as you find yourself… GOING EVEN DEEPER… than you did before… you started out as a subject… that can go so deep… (etc etc)

Erickson’s Principles of Individualization and Utilization

I’m going to bullet point this - I’m lazy:

• Make sure your partner can follow your suggestions. Ya know, talk to them. They highlight making sure they have the ability to imagine visual / auditory / kinesthetic / olfactory qualities, I prefer to just ask them to imagine suggestions however they like.
• There’s a huge (and, for the time, reasonably well researched) rant here about how indirect suggestions aren’t inherently better. IMO, just don’t shoot yourself in the foot with a suggestion that can fail. Work with your partner. Permissive suggestions are just harder to fuck up.
• Use exact components of your partners language and descriptions to ensure you don’t unintentionally misinterpret or reframe something they said. I don’t buy the bit about “conforming to the patient’s pattern of thinking… (P26)” It’s a bit too simple to assume you’re thinking in their terms by matching their language.
• Utilize everything. For example bind suggestions body language. If they have a tendency to let their mind wander, suggest that’s not a problem, and they can go ‘deeper’ or whatever even as they daydream.

The Law of Parsimony

Keep it simple, stupid. (Or, as simple as possible to achieve your shared goals.)

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I’ll probably be back here later to summarize the sections on Types of Hypnotic Suggestions, The Phrasing of Suggestions, and The Process of Suggestions in Facilitating Phenomena. I don’t agree with everything, but their format is neat and concise, and the bullshit ratio is pleasantly very low.