Erickson hypnosis

How did this method come about?

1870s The French physician Jean-Martin Charcot began to actively use classical hypnosis (or trance, an altered state of consciousness) for medical purposes. Later, hypnotic techniques began to be used in many areas of psychotherapy.

Ericksonian, the so-called “new”, hypnosis is a method associated with the name of the American psychiatrist and psychologist Milton Erickson. While ill with polio, he used self-hypnosis to soothe the pain and then began using hypnotic techniques with patients. Today, Ericksonian hypnosis is considered one of the most effective and elegant methods of modern psychotherapy.

What are the features of Ericksonian hypnosis

This is “soft”, non-directive hypnosis. He uses our ability to involuntary hypnotic trance – the state of the psyche in which it is most open and ready for positive changes.

Moreover, each of us plunges into a state of trance every day. So, when we fall asleep, but do not sleep yet, before our mind’s eye there are different images that immerse us in a world that is between reality and sleep.

During Ericksonian hypnosis, a person remains awake: he sees, hears, feels. But the focus of his attention is directed not to the outer world, as in ordinary life, but to the inner one: to memories, fantasies, images … In this state, access to internal resources, forgotten by a person, but stored in his unconscious, opens up.

Operating principle

Unlike classical hypnosis, the patient enters a trance due to the psychotherapist’s leading questions, but on his own, and not by the will of the hypnotist.

In moments of trance, structures responsible for intuition, imaginative thinking and creative perception of the world become active, access to the resources of positive experience opens up. It is in this state that all kinds of insights come to us or suddenly answers to questions that we have been struggling to solve for a long time are found.

In a state of trance, Milton Erickson argued, it is easier for a person to learn something, to become more open, to change internally. As a result of the joint work of the therapist and the patient, the resolution of the problem (getting rid of the symptom) comes, as it were, “from within” the patient, that is, it is carried out thanks to his own resources.

Progress

The therapist and the patient usually sit in identical chairs at a slight angle to each other, as if looking in the same direction. By helping the patient go into a trance and immerse himself in his memories, the therapist also immerses himself in hypnosis, but of a different kind, more superficial and controlled. With its own state, it models the state of the client.

In this type of psychotherapy there is no clear scheme, for each client the therapist builds a new construction of techniques – Erickson was said to be similar to the actions of a polite burglar methodically picking up new master keys.

Here is an example of one possible technique. The therapist tells a story, an anecdote, a fairy tale or a parable, but does it in a special way – using metaphors in which messages are “hidden” for the unconscious. Listening to a fairy tale, the patient imagines the images of the characters and sees the scenes of the development of the plot, remaining inside his own inner world, living according to its own laws.

An experienced hypnotherapist tries to understand these laws and offers to expand this “map” of the inner world. He offers several options for changing the situation, one of which will be chosen by the patient, sometimes unconsciously. In this way, the therapist helps to overcome the limitations that consciousness imposes on our behavior and actions – and which create problems for us.

Indications for use

Ericksonian hypnosis helps with a variety of problems – psychological and psychosomatic. The method is effective when working with phobias, addictions, family and sexual problems, post-traumatic syndromes, eating disorders.

With the help of Ericksonian hypnosis, you can work with both adults and children. In most cases, this is individual work with the client, but family involvement and group therapy are also possible.