TETE-A-TETE: THE TRANCE AND THE EXCHANGE

CIARA AT THE YMCA

MY GIG AT THE BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB THIS WEEK 

MY COLLEAGUE, VAUGHN

EXCHANGE

(ex-change /iks`Chanj)

noun

1.  situations in which people give each other information or discuss their ideas or opinions (Macmillan Dictionary).

2.  any conversation between a client and therapist during hypnotherapy, and especially when the client is in a state of trance (Neil Child – Hypnotherapist).

Today I am going to coin the word, EXCHANGE, and attach it to any tete-a-tetes taking place between the client and therapist during any hypnotic state of trance.

Rarely, historically and traditionally during hypnotherapy, is there a tete-a-tete between client and therapist while the client is in a state of trance.  Stating this, there are exceptions.  Whenever the client is in a state of trance on stage (stage hypnosis) or state of trance on the street (street hypnosis), there are always tete-a-tetes, and these chats are very necessary for the comedic entertainment of the gathered sitting audiences and gathering standing street gaggles.

In the academic literature I’ve often read that when in the trance state, the hypnotherapist is gaining access to the client’s unconscious.  The unconscious mind, as coined by Freud, refers to the part of the mind that cannot be known by the conscious mind, and especially includes socially unacceptable ideas or desires, traumatic memories or painful emotions that have been, by personal design, repressed.  Repressed implies an unconscious refusal to acknowledge certain events; whereas, suppression is conscious refusal to acknowledge, but I digress. 

I shall be direct:  In my hypnotherapy practice, the unconscious mind is of no importance.  In my sessions I deal only with fully conscious minds; I exercise a process where my clients are induced to a heightened state of focused attention and into a low peripheral state of awareness.

(Conscious refers to the state of awareness, of being awake.)  Sigmund Freud gave us the concept of the “unconscious” mind with a load of drama and personality, presenting inner and raging battles amongst the Ids (our instincts), our Egos (our realities), and our Superegos (our moralities).

Note:  Carl Jung added “collective unconscious” or archetypes (a set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes operating as a unifying force within society) to all of Sigmund Freud above.   

According to Carl Jung, we have an ego, a personal unconscious, and a collective unconscious.  For the general understanding of this essay, I shall dance over three concepts, CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, and SUBCONSCIOUS.

“Un” and “sub” are two common English prefixes.  “Un” means the opposite of or not (“unlikely” for example) and “sub” means below something else (“submarine” for example). 

And so “unconscious” means not conscious and “subconscious” means a state somewhere below awareness.

“Subconscious” exists similar to the way “cognition” exists.  Subconscious is an abstract, a concept.  I do believe subconscious brain activity is real, but subconscious thought, I think is not.   I believe subconscious brain activity to be real in the same sense that cell construction and repair within our bodies is continuous and real.  I do believe that stuff is continually churning in our minds, that there are things always on our minds, that the backdrop of our brains is ever kinetic.

For whatever my words are worth (talk is cheap), we do know lots about the conscious mind, and we know zeroth about unconscious anything.  And so for the purpose of this particular writing, I shall acknowledge only and refer only to the Id concepts of both Freud and Jung, and that Id being the conscious mind.

In (my) hypnotherapy practice, I care only about the conscious mind.  I do not believe the unconscious and subconscious concepts to be of any importance in my method of best practice.  I believe that my clients have to be fully conscious, even while in their states of trance, to positively imagine and employ any benefits hypnotherapy may have toward changing their lives.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of what my clients experience during a regular hypnotherapy session:

• CONCERN

This is the reason why the client is seeking hypnotherapy. During this initial part of the session, clients candidly disclose why they are seeking hypnotherapy.  I must mention that hypnotherapy is more often than not, the last therapy resort.  Most my clients have sought other therapists with other theories for their maladies, before finally embarking to hypnotherapy.

• CAP-A-PIE INDUCTION … RELAX & ENERGY EMISSION … 10 TO 1 COUNT-DOWN

I employ a variety of inductions, all of which to solicit client relaxation.  One of my favorite inductions is simply the cap-a-pie (head-to-toe) countdown, during which I remind the client to relax, relax, relax, and to breathe deeply and rhythmically.

• SCRIPT #1 [ENTERING MOST PLEASING AND RELAXING PLACE]

Oftentimes a deepening (trance) is required.  Whenever this is the case, the client and I have initially discussed such an imaginary place before the induction count-down.   

•  SCRIPT #2 [ALTERNATIVE HISTORY INCLUDING BEHAVIOR BENEFITS]

This is the way the client wants to behave.  This is the imagined circumstance that client wants to enact in certain situations.  For example, this alternative history script represents exactly what the client will now be doing instead of smoking, overeating, and enduring another sleepless night.

• THE EXCHANGE

It is during this particular script that I engage the clients in conversation, asking them specific details of what they are doing in these imagined positive circumstances.  Having the clients provide the thicker details, I think, further reinforce and cement into their minds the desired behaviors.

And to close the exchange I simply count down … three … two … one … and then a fillip (finger-snap) and … voila … the client is out of the trance and back into reality!

Talk is cheap and is so cliché.  In most things with regard to quantity and quality, you get what you pay for.  In MY private hypnotherapy practice TALK IS STEEP!

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week: 

 

THE BAND, STRANGER.  (L-R MARK WILSON, JAY GREENMAN, AND SELF)

STRANGER WITH OUR NEW BEST FRIEND, MICHAEL LANDSBERG (OFF THE RECORD - TSN)