Hypnotic Realities

By far, this has been the most interesting hypnosis book I’ve read so far (as of 7/30/2024.) Notice that word - interesting. Interesting doesn’t mean ethical, comfortable, and certainly not straightforward. Don’t get me wrong - this one’s absolutely worth a critical read. If you’re only in it for improving your suggestion style, by all means, read my notes first or alongside the book. However, there’s enough missing subtext and context that I think it’s worth going in blind for the full experience.

Objectively writing on this work is pretty much a lost cause for me. It’s likely I’ve prematurely called bullshit on some of Rossi’s psychological commentary. My voice in these notes is mixed between me calling Sus on some of the statements, and being too tired (or inexperienced) to call it out.

I think that sleepingirl’s guide to reading Hypnotic realities is a good starting point, without providing too many starting points, or leading you to any conclusions.

From h_slpeepingirl.

A last note, I’m an uncertified, recreational hypnotist. I’m halfway through a certification program, but that sure as hell does not make me ‘qualified’ to remark on this content with a great degree of confidence. Just in the same way I suggest that if you read this book you should leave your bullshit detector turned on, leave it turned on while reading my notes as well.

Forward

The book starts out with a great degree of fanfare for Erickson from Andre M. Weitzenhoffer. Have a sample and test your bullshit detector.

As I talked, partially absorbed in my thoughts, I became vaguely aware, peripherally, of Milton making peculiar repetitious gestures with one of his hands. Momentarily I made nothing of this, then with my awareness increasing, two things happened in very close sequence. My right hand moved out, spontaneous-like, to pick up the coffee pot which was on the table and begin to lift it. With this, the realization dawned on me that Milton wanted coffee… Milton’s gesturing had, indeed, clearly spelled out a non-verbal request to have coffee poured into his cup.

1: A Conversational Induction: The Early Learning Set

Takeaways

There’s no sense in working with “a patient who’s making restless movements.” You’ll get the best results when your subject is not distracted, and able to either focus on either you or your suggestions.
They suggest a mental ‘focus’ is better than a visual focus on the wall. Moreover, suggesting the images and having them appear gives you rapport for free.
Your “consciousness” need not be focused in the therapy room, as it can just focus on something else, ‘swimming’ elsewhere.

Just Cool Suggestions

There’s nothing important going on, except for the “activity of your unconscious mind”
Comfort exists, but you don’t even need to pay attention to your relaxation and comfort
“and that [concept] can be whatever [your automatic response] desires”
(your unconscious) can take it’s time, letting you (do whatever)
- This previous one is handy - implying the ‘whatever’ will certainly happen, and it’s just a matter of time, as if it’s already underway.
(something) “will happen just as soon as you are ready. We will allow the unconscious to take as much time as it needs to let that happen.”

(Performance anxiety relief)

You don’t even have to listen to my voice because your unconscious will hear it. Your unconscious can try anything it wishes. But your conscious mind isn’t going to do anything of importance.

An amusing exercise from Erickson - he asks someone if they know if they’re right or left thumbed. Likely dumbfounded, he then asks them to put their hands behind their head and fold their fingers together. While the answer becomes obvious at this point, he uses it to highlight how their unconscious and body knew the whole time.

Amnesia Suggestions

An interesting amnesia suggestion:

I can speak to you or anyone else I choose, but only when I speak to you is it necessary for you to listen. I can direct my voice elsewhere and you will know I am not speaking to you so you will not need to pay any attention.

Using truisms to create behavior:

You already know how to experience pleasant sensations like the warmth of the sun on your skin.

Everyone has had the experience of nodding their head “yes” or shaking it for “no” even without quite realizing it.

We know when you are asleep your unconscious can dream.

You can easily forget that dream when you awaken.

Questionable Thoughts

This shit was old:

It has been estimated that, at best, most people do not utilize more than l0 percent of their mental capacity.

Hm. BS.

R: And while they are so absorbed, their consciousness is distracted so you can make suggestions directly to their unconscious.

But… useful BS:

E: And then the results of that unconscious functioning can become conscious. But first they have to get beyond their conscious understanding of what is possible.

2: Indirect Induction by Recapitulation

Erickson states there’s no risk in making an inevitable suggestion, like a subject’s tired eyes closing. I’d like to add that there’s a temporal component to this sort of suggestion - you’ll have a much better time if you don’t say ‘when’ a suggestion will happen. In fact, here’s a direct quote, suggesting this very thing during the session:

And you have to discover these capacities in whatever slow way you wish.

And another set of suggestions, touching on the same concept.

you’ll have many questions about many things. You really don’t know what those questions are. You won’t know what some of those questions are until they are half answered.

A quick note on focus

Much of the recreational community seems to think you need a greater degree of focus than usual for hypnosis. From the book - I’ve heard both sides on this - but Erickson seems more keen on avoiding distraction, rather than demanding focus.

And one of the things I want you to discover is you don’t need to listen to me.

Amnesia Suggestions

In your sleep at night you can dream. In those dreams you can hear you see, you move you have any number of experiences. And as a part of that experience is forgetting that dream after you awaken. An experience of forgetting in itself is an experience that is not alien to anybody.

Forgetting structure - paraphrased:

Forgetting seems hard for some people, but if you look at their history, you can find that you can remember as easily as you forget.
(Here, an example of something someone would want to remember.)
(But, examples of all the details of something someone else forgot)

Age regression structure - paraphrased:

You can dream of yourself as a child, wondering who that child is.
(describe watching them grow up with time passing)
“Until you finally recognize”

Tidbits:

Consider the framing that yes sets could just be a form utilization. Extending this, you could even use someone’s ‘attitude’ as part of your utilization or yes set.
Erickson says take credit only when you’re given credit for (a phenomena) - I think this is worth thinking about in recreational settings as well.
“Certainly (x) won’t (have X effect) before (condition).” This implies the intended effect will come later.

Binds vs Double Binds

Therapeutic binds offer a free choice between two or more similar options.
Double binds offer options that are usually out of the subject’s control. This seems to apply more to Bateson binds, but, they use…
- 1. Your normal request - what you want to happen.
- 1. Communicating on a ‘higher level,’ or ‘how’ you want something to be completed.
- This obfuscates that conflicting messages may be being sent.
- EG: “I’m not sure if your left or right hand will start to rise automatically, unthinkingly.” Part 1 is the left or right hand, part 2 is the “automatically, unthinkingly.”

Some examples:

(Normal bind:) “Would you like a mild, medium, or spicy potato?”
(Double bind:) “When you enter trance, will you hypnotically experience eating a mild, medium, or spicy potato?”
(Temporal bind:) “Do you want to go into trance slowly or quickly?”
(Temporal double bind:) “Let me know when that feeling of warmth begins to spread in your hand. Is that anesthesia coming along quickly or slowly?”
(Useful Quoted Probable Bullshit:) “Take all the time you need to really learn how to experience that (any ideomotor or ideosensory response) in that special trance time where every moment in trance is equivalent to hours, days, or even weeks of regular time.”
(Conscious-Unconscious Double Bind) You don’t even need to listen to me - your unconscious can just respond all on it’s own.
(Non Sequitur Double Bind) This just means giving a confusing double bind where it’s difficult to figure out the two are connected, hopefully eliciting an automatic response.
- (Normal double bind:) Do you want to chat now or later?
- (After meeting resistance:) Do you want to change headsets before we chat, or would you rather chat after you move your laptop to the kitchen?

Double-Dissociation Double Bind

The book’s explanation of this suggestion was a bit rough, so I’m giving this my best shot.

(1) You can as a person awaken but you do not need to awaken as a body.

(Pause)

(2) You can awaken when your body awakes but without a recognition of your body.

I’m not sure if this is the right way to put it - but in this case, we can think of dissociation as literally just separating concepts, or just letting someone know in some way that they’re not inherently interconnected. Similar to - you can eat an apple, or you can eat the fruit of the apple without the skin. Or the seeds of an apple can be removed from an apple - and the seeds are clearly not a whole apple. We’ve dissociated the fruit of the apple, the skin of the apple, and the seeds from the apple.

In the same way, in sentence 1, we suggest that your person is separate from your body, since it can wake separately, and inferring your body can remain asleep. If we extend this a bit further, your body can awake on it’s own, but you don’t need to recognize it as your body. Or as another option, you can awaken still together with your body, but you still don’t need to recognize it as your own.

Here’s another example of a double dissociation double bind:

You can write that material without knowing what it is then you can go back and discover you know what it is without knowing you’ve done it.

Also - if you’d like some homework…

The therapist’s task is to determine which behaviors can be most easily dissociated from which contexts in which patients. Whenever a behavior is successfully dissociated from its usual context, we have evoked a hypnotic phenomenon. As the therapist develops a facility for this approach, there will be room for evoking entirely new effects that have not yet been reported in the literature. An infinite number of hypnotic phenomena can be evoked for the purposes of basic research and therapy.

Conscious-Unconscious Double Binds

A friend mentioned analog marking does the bulk of the work when doing these. The idea is to speak to the conscious or unconscious, either by making your intentions clear, as a byproduct of the double bind, or with analog marking. This is also covered in Dr Hammond’s Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestion.

3: The Handshake Induction

Do you think you’re awake?

After starting the handshake induction, Erickson asks the subject if they think that they’re awake, staring behind them. The subject chuckles and becomes increasingly unsure of themselves. Erickson, after leaving plenty of time for the subject to think, asks the same question a second time.

Erickson on Confusion

Erickson suggests that many of his confusion techniques are to create an uncomfortable outer reality, so the subjects dive into a ‘comfortable inner reality.’ This is also how they suggest their handshakes work.

Suggestion for Rapport

This feels a bit spicy for recreational practice, but Erickson used the following lines to really just ask for rapport directly.

In my voice you can hear the whispering wind, the rustle of leaves. (Pause) And then my voice becomes that of some neighbor, adult friend, relative, someone known.

Just Neat Suggestions

(Compound Suggestion) “It is going t happen and you’ll have no control over what happens.”
”… you can let the rest remain within the unconscious where it can continue its constructive work.”

Dimming the Outer Reality

When Erickson was mentioned in another book I read, and they mentioned “dimming the outer reality”, I thought it was a really cool concept. Now reading it’s source, it feels like two bros spitballing with each other like in some sort of Ed, Edd, and Eddy schtick.

E: That’s right! And you are not demanding it, but you are eliciting a receptive attitude, and your most innocent question can be interpreted by them. If you know how to ask questions, you ask them in such a fashion that they will pick out the thing you want. R: So confusion is the most basic phenomenon of induction? E: We’ll call it: The dimming of outer reality. When outer reality becomes dimmed, you get confused.

Rossi provides, in this model of therapy, using the following steps:

Dimming of outer reality
Confusion
Receptivity for Clarifying Suggestions
Trance Work Proper

Actually doing a Handshake Induction

FWIW, I feel like [[Graham Old - The Hypnotic Handshakes]] has more practical advice on how to do this.

Here’s some tips from Hypnotic Realities about improving your nonverbal hypnosis game:

Observe their eyes and face
Release slower than usual, start to read the nonverbal responses (confusion and expectancy)
- The ones who “stays with you” will be easier than the ones that run off. (No shit.)
Then practice releasing halfway, then slow slowly that the subject does not know when their hand was fully released.
- Straight from Erickson - “If you don’t want your subjects to know what you are doing, you simply distract their attention, usually by some appropriate remark, and casually terminate.”
- Paraphrased from Erickson - much like Graham Old describes, utilization will be your friend. Nonverbally suggest whatever is already happening. (Or verbally suggest they look at a spot on their hand.)

Compound Suggestions

This reminds me quite a bit of Anthony Jacquin’s Links concept, mentioned in [[Reality is Plastic|Reality is Plastic]]. These suggestions are really just built on “When you X you Y.” Something as simple as telling someone to hold their arm in an awkward position, and notice just how heavy it starts to become. They also mention using ‘truisms’ in compound suggestions as well.

Compound Statements

Shock and Creative Moments

From my understanding - this type of suggestion is to make an outlandish sentence to bring forward those associations, and then to make your suggestion acceptable with the second part of the suggestion. For example:

Contingent Suggestions

One thing is required by another part of the suggestion. EG: “Shut the door on your way out.” Or even “You’ll become even more relaxed as you continue to hold your hand there.”

Another way of using this is to disarm resistance - in the suggestion “Don’t enter trance (negative suggestion) until you sit all the way down in that chair (contingent), there (implies that they had a choice to sit in another chair).”

(In the material, there’s an ethically questionable bit where Erickson takes someone into trance immediately after saying they didn’t want to.)

Tips on contingent suggestions:

The more ‘locked into’ the behavior of the contingency, the more likely the suggestion will take
Keep your contingent suggestions simple

4: Mutual Trance Induction

Erickson takes two subjects into trance - Subject R - who is adept at going into trance, and subject H.

Erickson starts suggesting R’s experience (eyelids quivering, facial relaxation, breathing slowing down, lowering blood pressure, slowing heart rate, catalepsy, the awareness that they’re listening, and then drifting into trance.) They then start to suggest that H’s experience had changed as well, and that while they ‘don’t know exactly how R hears them,’ H can still follow along in the experience.

Further along, they just keep guiding them through trance. They even suggest that one of the subjects begins to make discoveries, and then the other one has as well, without pointing out what it is.

He then just has the two subjects looking at each other for about ten minutes without even talking to them - both of them keeping the expectation (nonverbally) to keep each other in trance. Erickson just talks with Rossi about papers they’re working on. Rude.

Neat Suggestions

“I am here, you are here.” Repeating this in different positions in the room, then suggesting “No matter where I am I will always be here.” Erickson used this for ensuring a subject would not come out of trance if they left.

Surprise

You can literally just suggest that a subject will have a surprise. This usually infers something positive will happen, and also infers the subject will have no control. Be sure to imply it’ll be the type of experience you intend, or in line with something your subject would want. I can see this becoming a hot mess with an anxious subject or an unskilled hypnotist.

Ask “Would you like to have it as a surprise?… Now or later?”
Make a compound suggestion that something will surprise them, linked either to an action you take, or some sort of automatic response on their side.
In the literature, they say that they are well aware of what they can do, but the most surprising thing is that they can discover that they can’t stand… now. Now is said slowly to give time for the realization to build.

Also, maybe don’t take all of Erickson’s advice…

Frequently the therapist can give the subject a surprise slap on the thigh so she can experience the further surprise of a caudal analgesia.

You can exercise surprise in…

A shock and surprise to disrupt their thinking. (“Depotentiate.“)
Anticipating a pleasant surprise can leave the subject open to an important suggestion or insight.
Anticipating a pleasant surprise can also encourage autonomous processes to function more effectively in trance.

Time Distortion

They used this method for teaching subjects they can adjust the experience of time, and t then just had them think on it. Not sure how I feel about it, but I’ll put a loose structure of it here - where each number correlates to maybe 5 or so ‘suggestion fragments.’

When you spend time, the intensity can change, and it can be expanded and condensed. This lets you review a week, month, or year in a moment.
That moment can be expanded, and a few days can be condensed. But you can be aware that…
You can teach a patient and teach them to experience all the pain in a moment, even though it lasts all day.
You want and need to know that time, feeling, pain, and emotion can be contracted.
A pleasant lecture passes in a moment, or a boring one can leave you wondering when it’ll end.
You’ve had these experiences. You’ll apply them to yourselves in a way that helps your understanding of yourself and others.

Weird shit

Other Names in Trance

Erickson would give different names to subjects during trance. If I re-explain it, it doesn’t have the same bite to it, so I’ll let you read this suggestion and commentary for yourself. I find it interesting that the author edited out Erickson’s exact wording…

Because I could effect an interplay that would be extremely valuable for you, for Herbie [the name previously assigned to H’s personality while in hypnosis], for R, for S.

R: When you do extensive work with some patients, as you have with H, you sometimes give them another name in trance. Why?

(Erickson gives many examples from everyday life where one person—lover, mate, parent, or child—may give another person a pet name to evoke a particular mood or aspect of their relationship. A child will say “Father” or “Dad” or “Daddy” on different occasions to constellate different aspects of the relationship with father. In trance the patient may experience a particular ego state that the therapist wants to label with a special name so he can help the patient return to it later.)

Confusion-Restructuring Approach

When working therapeutically, you can take the approach of working on what the subject is not focused on. If they’re focused on A, work on B, and vice versa. They also suggest you can use confusion (or distraction) to remove structure from thought.

CONFUSION (Due to shock, uncertainty, whatever…) => UNSTRUCTURING (of usual thoughts / perspective) => RESTUCTURING (is required because of the experience) => RECEPTIVITY (to suggestion)

5: Trance Learning By Association

On this episode, we watch Erickson be a dick by asking Dr. S to do an impromptu induction on Mrs. L. without warning. There’s some handwaving that they were trying to teach Dr. S to ‘trust their unconscious’ to do the learning for them, but really?… Really?

Erickson fucks around and doesn’t find out

After messing around with L with… what really felt like very little direction, they gave them the opportunity to hallucinate anyone they wanted. After they hallucinated an English teacher they had, Erickson tried to roleplay as the English teacher. They were visibly uncomfortable with this, so after a few moments, Erickson reassured them that they were okay… and then immediately went into age regression. Erickson directly suggested that in a moment they’d return from trance, as if they were ready to begin (inferring nothing had happened.)

WTF man. Later on during the session, Erickson suggests that L feels ‘wet all over.’ After removing that, they go on to suggest, “I want you to feel naked from the waist up,” and asks them if they’d like R to look at them. Erickson delves into details about her puberty and ‘doing things she really shouldn’t have done,’ as well as talking about her past self ‘is her, but is not her, but is her’, knocking the creep vibes up a notch from A to S tier. Y’all can read this section for yourselves if you like.

Stylin’ Suggestions

All right, ignoring ethical concerns, let’s see what useful tidbits we can scrape up out of this ~~situation~~ material.

Tips

Use opposite pairs.

“You can forget to remember, or remember to forget.”
You might see an image on the TV, or you might not see the TV at all.
Sensitize and desensitize parts. (EG, make one hand hypersensitive and the other hyposensitive.) Random Grab-Bag
Do you enjoy… not knowing where you are? (Feeling => Suggestion)
“Where does your body experience it’s greatest comfort?”
“Can you enjoy relaxing and not having to remember?”
“Can your unconscious deal with that problem?”
“Do you feel comfortable not knowing who I am?” (Yikes.)
How will you know when you are (experiencing foo?)
You will let me know when (condition,) will you not?
Suggest how interesting/surprising/amusing it will be for them to temporarily lose an ability (like the ability to move their arm.)
“Try” to not (condition you’re trying to create). This suggests fighting against it, and it’s inevitability. Ideas:
If you’re on board for the confusion breaks mental sets ideas - if there’s some phenomena you’re having trouble achieving, try to sprinkle in some confusion and re-app
Create doubt by giving them an ideomotor contradiction. “If your unconscious mind thinks you can/have (condition you may have doubts about), your (ideomotor response.)” 🤮 The bullshit is strong but it’d probably improve flexibility in some subjects.

The Implied Directive

Here’s the structure and an example of an implied directive.

“As soon as you know” (Time binding suggestion component)
“That bananas are green” (Your suggestion, even though this is a junk example)
“Your head will tilt down and your eyes will close” (Response showing the suggestion has gone through) The book talks about using biofeedback (blood pressure, muscle tension) for the response - but this has obvious limitations if you don’t have the equipment to measure the results. It’s also kinda… goofy.

Bonus Bits

6: Facilitating Hypnotic Learning

Man - it’s creepier and creeper how Erickson is super into hypnotic amnesia.

There’s brief mention of Yes Sets and No Sets, but those have been covered other places and I don’t feel like regurgitating it.

After checking my notes - I didn’t keep anything about “Facilitating Hypnotic Learning.” Nothing felt plausible enough.

Interesting Ideas or Bullshit

Appealing to both the “conscious and unconscious” is important in hypnotic work. Pg157
Use metaphors, jokes, and analogies to be indirect. The ‘conscious mind’ will follow the jokes, the unconscious mind will consume the secondary meaning.

Suggestion Suggestions

“There are many times in the past when you haven’t seen something that was there; you haven’t felt things that could be felt.”
“How soon do you think you will be willing to open your eyes and not see your hands?”

Resistance Ideas

“Resistance need not always be understood in the psychoanalytic sense as something that is continually maintained by deep and unconscious forces. Rather, resistance can be a relatively simple wrongheaded attitude that prevents people from utilizing their own abilities.”
They talk a lot about discharging resistance. Erickson would play a small mentalism game with a kid - writing down what marble they would pick from a collection of marbles with stripes. Erickson pointed out all the marbles, avoiding the one single solid one - so the kid would pick the solid marble. Erickson had written down the solid marble. (They go on to suggest that in both ways you win - you sated your subject’s need to resist, or you’ve proven to them you have something interesting to say, or you can predict their behavior.)
You could do the same with adults - with books, not mentioning the title of one book.

Amnesia or Unconscious Knowledge Frames

A story about looking for a book you’ve assumed is red. I could have looked through all the books and read every single title, and even if I saw it, I would never find it, because I was looking for a red book. And indeed the book was blue… and that was the correct color.
- And why would I have not seen this book? Because we all have the ability to not see when when we are wide awake. (And in a trance, you can call upon that ability at any time.)
You’ve learned as an adult to not see your hands, many times, when they’re in the direct line of vision. An adult can can learn to see things, or not see things.
“To discredit this as manipulation is as faulty as it is to describe food as being manipulated because you have seasoned it properly.”

The Microdynamics of Trance Induction and Suggestion

According to Rossi/Erickson - once you’ve got the first 3 columns taken care of, columns 4 and 5 begin to happen all on their own. I’m not sure I buy into this, but it is a neat concept that attention, disruption, and an unconscious search lead to trance or unconscious processing.

1. Fixation of Attention	2. Depotentiating Conscious Sets
1. Stories that motivate, interest, fascination, etc. 2. Standard eye fixation 3. Pantomime approaches 4. Imagination and visualization approaches 5. Hand levitation 6. Relaxation and all forms of inner sensory, perceptual or emotional experience etc.	1. Shock, surprise, the unrealistic and unusual 2. Shifting frames of reference; displacing doubt, resistance and failure 3. Distraction 4. Dissociation and disequilibrium 5. Cognitive overloading 6. Confusion, non sequiturs 7. Paradox 8. Binds and double binds 9. Conditioning via voice dynamics, etc. 10. Structured amnesia 11. Not doing, not knowing 12. Losing abilities, the negative, doubt etc.
3. Unconscious Search	4. Unconscious Process
1. Allusions, puns, jokes 2. Metaphor, analogy, folk language 3. Implication 4. Implied directive 5. Ideomotor signaling 6. Words initiating exploratory sets 7. Questions and tasks requiring unconscious search 8. Pause with therapist attitude of expectancy 9. Open-ended suggestions 10. Covering all possibilities of response 11. Compound statements 12. Intercontextual cues and suggestions etc.	1. Summation of: a) Interspersed suggestions b) Literal associations c) Individual associations d) Multiple meaning of words 2. Autonomous, sensory and perceptual processes 3. Freudian primary processes 4. Personality mechanisms of defense 5. Ziegarnik effect etc.
5. Hypnotic Response
”New datum of behavioral response experienced as hypnotic or happening all by itself”

7: Indirectly Conditioned Eye Closure Induction

Session Notes

After S’s blink reflex increased, Erickson asked Rossi to notice ‘something.’ They did this to essentially gaslight S into trance.
After this, E told S they’d say even and odd for a specific purpose. They started to say odd every time their blink reflex was slow, and even every time it was quick. Allegedly - they were conditioning them to close their eyes and go into trance.
E then made an arbitrary scale from 1 to 100, saying “she was going back and forth on this scale,” and pretty much just continues either gaslighting or correlating the number to some perceived trance E saw. Your pick on which one.

Erickson then continues to ramble on… Eventually using a nested example of him hypnotizing multiple people on stage, singling out a single girl. She said this girl saw nobody, and went swimming naked in the bay, and then heard his voice “50 miles away.” They then went on to say “You have done comparable things in your dreams at night,” then in a pattern moving to something less offensive about reading a book or swimming.
Much later, S came out of trance, saying she felt ignored, and she wasn’t learning any practical tools about helping her own (possible) clients with hypnosis. Unsurprisingly, Erickson and Rossi handwaved this away as giving her “unconscious learning.”

Interesting Suggestions and Bullshit

“The unconscious is a manufacturer and consciousness is a consumer; trance is a mediator between them.” (A fun way to put it. Still pressing x to doubt.)
Erickson would do a small degree of acting with his voice - such as leaning back in his chair for bringing back past memories. Or, in the words of the book: “Voice Locus and Volume for Spatial-Perceptual Associations.” The fanciest term for tilting your ass back in a chair. They said they’d also use their voice position “to induce sea sickness, vertigo, and similar conditions.”
The book mentions “Intercontextual Cues” - which may have something to do with what NLP calls analog marking. Specifically they say you can have multiple suggestions in a sentence, but your momentum moving to the ‘full’ meaning of the sentence will reduce the chance of analysis or the subject going into their internal map.

Direct vs Indirect Suggestion

So, there’s an interesting nuance to pull out of here, or at least food for thought - the difference between direct and indirect language, vs direct and indirect suggestion. The indirect suggestion of giving the subject multiplication tables earlier created boredom in the subject, therefore, leading to ‘fatigue.’ The direct form of this with direct language could be…

“And you’ll begin to notice feeling fatigued… now…”

And the same direct suggestion with with indirect language would have…

“And some people may notice themselves becoming more and more fatigued, at some point.”

The book makes a case for indirect suggestion, saying it leads to automaticity.

8: Infinite Patterns of Learning: A Two-Year Followup

After a two year break with Dr S., she came in for a follow-up appointment with Dr. Erickson. Erickson puts her back in trance, and pretty much just rambles on about some of the memories of his own childhood, and then relates it to growing and unconscious learning. They suggest amnesia by distracting her immediately after she starts to come out of trance by talking about a non-sequitur story. This is supposed to prevent the conscious mind from muddling with the unconscious healing he’s provided.

At this point in the book I’m a bit tired of Rossi taking every damn excuse he can to both suggest what Erickson is up to, then compliment him for it.

9: Summary

The Nature (Views) of Therapeutic Trance

The book breaks trance down to a few different ‘views.’ Seeing it as an inner directed state (interoception), a highly motivated state (where their motivation takes them to interoception,) unconscious learning (where changes take place without consciousness interfering,) or an altered state of functioning.

Elaborating on the state view, they mention an experiment where people can remember information about nonsense syllables drunk, when they initially learned them in that state. They suggest that trance may work the same way, as it could have ‘state bound’ learning.

They also mention the “subjective experience of trance,” mentioning automaticity.

Clinical Approaches to Hypnotic Induction

Orientation to Hypnotic Induction

The point of an induction is to…

Focus attention (usually inward, and according to the book - to a few inner realities)
Facilitate change in habit
Allow the subject to be more receptive to their inner/unconscious experiences They note suggestions can be just as effective while the subject is in a state of absorption, as well as when they’re in a formal trance.

Induction Approaches

Approach is a better word than a technique or method - be flexible in your approach. They present a pile of tools, but a few neat ones worth noting are the Early Learning Set and Rhythm Induction as Particular Approaches, and Pantomime as a General Approach. I’m not sure what rhythm or pantomime entail, but the Early Learning Set was covered by Graham Old in their book Online Hypnosis: Initiating, Enhancing and Mastering Hypnosis Online.

Depotentiating Habitual Frames of Reference

Again with the fancy speak of getting someone out of their habitual thought. Here’s some reminders for techniques to work with this:

Absence of challenge
Amnesias structured continually
Boredom
Casual and permissive manner
Confusion
Continually redirecting attention
Contradictions
Displacing doubt and discharging resistance
Dissociation
Double bind
Doubt
Expectancy and need for closure
Involuntary signaling
Losing abilities
Negations
Partial remarks and dangling phrases
Questions that distract
Rest
Tasks outside patient’s usual frames of reference
Using therapist’s rhythm
Voice locus and emphasis
Yes set
You don’t need to know

Trance Indicators

They suggest that these indicators of trance are more genuine when they come spontaneously rather than when they are suggested.

Autonomous ideation
Balanced tonicity (catalepsy)
Changed voice quality
Comfort, relaxation
Economy of movement
Eye changes and closure
Facial features ironed out
Feeling distant
Feeling good after trance
Lack of body movement
Lack of startle response
Literalism
Objective and impersonal ideation
Pupillary changes
Response attentiveness
Retardation of reflexes, swallowing, blinking
Sensory, muscular, and body changes
Slowing and loss of blink reflex
Slowing pulse
Slowing respiration
Spontaneous hypnotic phenomena - Amnesia, - Regression, Anesthesia, Catalepsy, Time - distortion
Time lag in motor and conceptual behavior

Ratifying Trance

Man. This section is lame. While I do agree that it’s therapeutically important to have your subject know they were in trance and experiencing something out of the ordinary, I don’t think that gaslighting them with the suggested double binds is a great way to maintain rapport.

My gripes aside, they suggest that if you bring them out of trance counting down, just go right back up. EG - if counting down from 20, count down to 10. Or leave a few gaps. Slowly count back to 13, then lurch them back into trance at 20. A little rude but I can see it being effective.

Forms of Hypnotic Suggestion

Be aware of how you use direct and indirect suggestion. Some people that believe in the power of the hypnotist will respond well to direct suggestion, others that are more analytical may respond better to indirect suggestion.

In a neat little side note - they mention “limited” may be a better word than “resistant” subjects - but I’m not sure I’m sold on this verbiage either. The intended implication is that limited means that they are limited skill wise in a temporal sense, and they can improve their hypnotic suggestibility. It could be taken as they are just limited hypnotically in general.

For the best bang for your buck, you can structure your acceptance set with the following tools:

The “yes set”
Truisms and tautologies
Use of interesting and personally motivating material
Intercontextual cues and suggestions
Interspersal technique
Obtaining patient’s assent
Casual, permissive, and positive approach
Vocal intonations of sincerity and intentness
Validating and ratifying suggestions
Covering all possibilities of response
Accepting all responses as valid
Building expectancy

Or, you can use “associative processes” using the following for inspiration:

Apposition of opposites
Binds and double binds
Compound suggestions
Contingent suggestions
Covering all possibilities of a class of responses
Dissociation
Ideomotor signaling
Implication
Implied directive
Intercontextual cues and suggestions
Multiple levels of communication (analogy, puns, metaphor, etc.)
Multiple tasks and serial suggestions
Not doing, not knowing
Open-ended suggestions
Pantomime and nonverbal suggestions
Paradoxical intention
Partial remarks and dangling phrases
Questions
Surprise
Truisms
Utilizing need for closure
Voice locus and dynamics

Notes Addendum

That book was a hell of a ride. After reading through Ch5 and making some inferences about Erickson creeping on Subject S, Wordweaver was kind enough to share his presentation slides at The Erickson Session from Wordweaver. The wild and possibly most damning part of this is that Subject S ended up being Sheila Rossi - Ernest L Rossi’s wife at the time. One year after this book came out, they divorced, so make of that what you will. snlfbi

Seriously - go check out Wordweaver’s slides. You’ll gleam a lot just from putting together the pieces there.

If you didn’t read the book, the whole vibe is Ernest Rossi giving Erickson tugjobs and providing rationale for whatever the hell Erickson felt like doing in the moment. I even thought about making a whole section dedicated to that behavior, but I didn’t want to spread that much salt.

From a usefulness standpoint, Rossi seems to cite mostly their own work, and not a hell of a lot of stuff outside of their own publications. 🤷