Trance–formations. Neuro–Linguistic Programming™ and the Structure of Hypnosis

This afternoon we're going to describe, demonstrate, and have you practice very systematically a variety of specific hypnotic induction techniques, so that you will begin to have choice in how you induce trance. What you did this morning is all you will need with some people, but you will not be successful with others if that is all you have in your repertoire.

Traditional hypnotists have done research which "proves" that only a certain percentage of people are hypnotizable. The way they proved that is by using exactly the same induction with everyone, so of course they are only successful with a certain percentage. If you have only one induction, it's going to work with some people and fail with others. Most traditional hypnotists don't even bother to add some of the basic pieces you used this morning, such as matching your voice tempo to the person's breathing. The wider the range of induction possibilities you have, the more people you will be successful with.

This morning we spent some time discussing what physiological signs accompany an altered state of consciousness. You were able to detect at least some of the distinctive changes in muscle tonus, breathing patterns, skin color, lower lip size, etc., in the person you were putting into an altered state. Those particular signs of an altered state are precisely what you will be watching and listening for this afternoon as you continue learning about inductions.

The basic principle of doing a hypnotic induction is to watch for the physiological signs of developing altered states, and to do anything you can to amplify those signs. There are also specific ways of proceeding. There are generalizations—patterns that you can use which are likely to lead in the direction of altering someone's state. I remind you that all the generalizations we offer are lies: that is, they will not work for every person or at every time. They are good generalizations because they force you to go to sensory experience and notice what's going on. Always give up a generalization or a pattern in favor of what is actually being presented to you in the way of sensory feedback. We will be presenting these patterns to give you specific ways to proceed. As you proceed, if you see signs of trance developing in the other person, continue; what you are doing is working. If you don't see those signs developing, do anything else.

The first two methods I am going to demonstrate are similar to some of the methods you already used this morning. However, they are important and useful enough that I want to describe them in a slightly different way.

Verbal Pacing and Leading: 5–4–3–2–1 Exercise

This morning you did verbal pacing and leading when you made three sensory–based, verifiable statements, used a transition, and added a non–verifiable statement. You can make this method more elegant by making your beginning statements almost entirely externally–oriented, and then gradually increasing the number of non–verifiable internally–oriented statements you make. Milton Erickson often described trance as having an inward focus of attention. By gradually increasing the number of internally–oriented statements, you use pacing and leading to shift the person's attention inward.

So when you practice this method, start by making five statements: four which are sensory–based, and then one which is internally–oriented. Connect them with some transitional word like "and" or "as." "You are listening to the sound of my voice and you can notice the colors in the room as you feel your arm on the chair and you can begin to have a sense of contentment." Then you make three verifiable statements followed by two non–verifiable, then two and three, one and four, and at that point you should have a fairly nice trance state developing.

I would like you all to think for a moment: what would constitute an example of a non–sensory–based description that you could offer in conjunction with your verifiable statements? I want to make sure you understand what constitutes a non–sensory–based description of an internal experience.

Man: And you will become comfortable.

Woman: And you will experience the feeling of delight.

Woman: Satisfied.

"And you will be satisfied with the progress you are making."

Man: And you will feel some things being different.

Man: And you will remember pleasant memories.

"And you will remember a specific pleasant memory."

Man: Are you intentionally using the future tense?

Actually, I suggest that you use present progressive tense for now. "And you are becoming aware of the delightful experience, and you are beginning now to remember. …" "Now you are becoming aware of the sense of being able to learn about hypnosis."

Would you come up here, Barb? I'd like to demonstrate.

There are two things that the rest of you can attend to as I proceed. One is to keep track of the observable physiological changes that Barb goes through as she alters her consciousness. The other is to keep track of what I am doing verbally, because 1 am going to be using the pattern I've just been talking about. That way you can correlate what I am doing with her responses.

Now, Barb, with your eyes opened or closed—it's entirely a matter of your own comfort in this—I would like you to sit there and allow me to offer you some verbal descriptions. One thing you might consider doing is questioning whether or not the verbal descriptions I am offering you are accurate for your ongoing experience. For example, at this moment you are sitting there and you can hear the tone of my voice. And you can feel the warmth of your fingers being interlaced.

What just happened? I hope you can detect that, because Barb's response just now is an important beginning.

Man: She was nodding.

Yes she was, but there was something even more profound. Man: She closed her eyes and opened them.

Well, her pupils dilated. The part that I think you could have seen even from the back row is the smoothing out of her facial muscles. You all know the phenomenon called the "blank stare"? You are talking to someone, and suddenly you have the feeling that you are all alone? There's a technical term for it in Northern California called "spacing out."

I said two things to Barb, both of which she could immediately verify. As she verified that those two statements were true, and especially as she verified the second one, there was a sudden congruence between what she was hearing and what she was feeling, which allowed her to begin to change the way she was perceiving the world around her. She began to go into an altered state. Let me go on a bit so you have a chance to watch this.

As I said, Barb, you can do this with your eyes open or closed, whichever one is more comfortable. And as you sit there, you can feel the support that the chair offers you along your lower back, and you can feel the place where the rungs are supporting your feet just in front of your heels. And you can notice, as you sit there, the warmth where your hands are resting on your legs and thighs, and a sense of growing comfort. And the next time that your eyes begin to close, simply allow them to stay there and enjoy a growing sense of comfort internally. (Someone sneezes.) The sound of a sneeze washes through you, leaving you even more comfortable. And as you sit there breathing in … and out … you have a growing sense … of comfort… . Listen for those particular sounds … and enjoy a growing sense … of security . . for the purposes that we have here… .

At the moment, Barb, I'd like your unconscious mind to make a choice … about giving you a sense of refreshment … and renewal . . as you sit there listening to the sound of my voice … as well as the tinkling of the china … but with a sense of growing independence of your surroundings … and a comfort … internal … and for the purposes of what we have come here to do … as a demonstration … you have already succeeded very well… .

And I am going to request of your unconscious mind … that it cause … one …or both … of your hands and arms …to begin to lift, if indeed … it is appropriate …in small … honest … unconscious movements… . And you can wonder …as you sit there … breathing in … and out … whether or not … that particular response will be the one selected by your unconscious mind .'. . or … equally useful … for the purposes we have here this afternoon … would be for your unconscious …to give you a sense … of comfort … and if more appropriate … to cause you " . . with a sense of refreshment …to slowly drift back and rejoin us … here … in this room … pleased with how quickly you could learn … these initial phases … of altering your state of consciousness… .

In either case …I would like this opportunity …to ask your unconscious to prepare some material… . The carpenter who approaches … the construction of a building… has … as his basic … tools to begin with … boards … nails … and the tools he brings… . The boards and the nails … have no meaning … until they are assembled … in a particular form … and attached to one another, … So, too, with little marks on paper… . The particular marks on paper that we call the alphabet are constructed … by small … boards or sticks… . And it's a lot easier to see … clearly … the finished product … that the carpenter … can construct …a house … a garage … than it is to see that same form … while the boards … and the nails are still separated … one from the other… .

There are natural … ways … of perceiving … which can be learned… . From the air … an entire skyline … for example … the San Francisco waterfront … can be taken in with a single glance … and its meaning discerned… . And indeed … from an airplane it's much easier to see such things , . . and to grasp … the entire … meaning of the waterfront of San Francisco … than it is to wander down among the buildings… . The same is true in many other areas of our life… .

So whether your unconscious chooses … to have you return with a sense of refreshment … or causes you to go in deeper, so signal me by causing one or both hands and arms to lift… . It's a choice that Heave entirely to your unconscious. … I would request that whichever choice it makes, it begin to assemble those materials … that I have been referring to … so that your perceptions can be ordered … in a new and more efficient way… . (She opens her eyes and stretches,)

As usual, I spent only the first four or so utterances staying with the pattern I said I was going to use, and then just went into everything else I wanted to do. I began by making statements that could be immediately verified in Barb's experience. At any point in time, we all have available to us a potentially infinite amount of sensory–grounded experience. The artistry is in knowing what part of sensory experience to choose to mention. It's particularly useful to choose anything that you guess would be outside of her awareness until you mention it. I was fairly certain, for example, that she was aware of the tone of my voice. And indeed she was. That came as no surprise. However, she was less aware of the feeling of the rung of the chair and the support it offered to the heels of her feet. So when I mentioned that, you could see more observable changes in her. She had to change her present consciousness in order to verify that what I said was true.

Two things happened by that maneuver. Number one, I gained credibility; what I said matched her experience. The second thing is that since she wasn't attending to the sensation of her feet touching the rung of the chair until I mentioned it, it was also a covert instruction to change her present consciousness—in this case in the direction of attending to a body sensation.

I made half a dozen remarks like that. Then there was a sudden shift in the kind of verbalizations I offered Barb. What did I do?

Woman: Then you went into metaphor,

I did something else before that.

Man: You started leading.

Yes. First I was just pacing: making statements describing her experience. And then what kind of statements did I make? Man: Suggestions to close her eyes.

I made suggestions about eye closure, but she was already doing that. We call that an incorporation. She was doing something, so I incorporated it into what I said.

Right after eye closure, I started making statements about internal states that I wanted her to develop. I said things like "a growing sense of comfort and security as you sit here." For me, the nonverbal signs that she already offered—slower breathing, muscle relaxation, etc. — have the name "comfort." They may not for Barb. The word "comfort" has as many different meanings as there are people in this room. When I use words like "comfort," I'm no longer talking in sensory–grounded terms. I'm suggesting that such states develop in her—whatever those words may mean to her.

I hope that you all have some appreciation for what the rest of my statements were about. I have to explain that Barb had asked me earlier for a particular kind of change with reference to an academic skill that she wants. I told a series of metaphors directed toward preparation for that change. You may be able to find some way of making sense out of that, and you may not. She has a way of making sense out of it, and that's the important thing.

Barb: I didn't at the time. It was just so many words. I just quit trying to deal with it consciously.

Exactly. And that's one of the responses that I want. "It was so many words that I just quit trying to make sense out of it. What the hell are you talking about? Carpenters and the San Francisco skyline. And from a plane, it's different than it is walking around among the buildings,"

In other words, the latter part was tailored to the request that she had made of me earlier. As I told the metaphors, her conscious mind did not understand. However, I received signals that her unconscious understood the reference and was beginning the preparations that I had requested of it. Are there any questions about what I did?

Man: You decided not to pursue the hand levitation?

No, I offered her a choice. I always do.

Man: Didn't you get some resistance to levitation and then give her an alternative?

There was no resistance. Her hand began to lift. The movements in her fingers and thumb were already there. Then I offered the second alternative, and her unconscious selected that one. If I had not offered the second choice, her hand would have continued to rise.

I made suggestions about hand and arm levitation and got twitches, which almost always precede the actual movement. At that point I remembered I was supposed to be demonstrating inductions, not trance phenomena. So I made the suggestion about her bringing herself out with a sense of refreshment and renewal and delight that she had achieved so much so quickly.

A good hypnotist is like a good government. The less you do to achieve the outcome effectively, the better you are at your job. My way of thinking metaphorically about what Barb and I did is that she allowed me to enter a loop with her in which I could feed back certain parts of her experience which allowed her to alter her state of consciousness radically. But the entire time, she was leading in the sense that I was being responsive to the changes in her, incorporating those, and then making a suggestion about where we ought to go next. She accepted all the suggestions I made to her. If she had indicated at any point that I was making a suggestion that was not appropriate for her, I would have offered alternatives.

Man: How would you know when a suggestion was inappropriate for her?

A reversal of all the growing signs of trance would indicate that. Any reversal of the muscle flaccidity, the breathing changes, the lower lip size changes, or skin color changes would have indicated to me that I had just proposed something that was not appropriate for her.

Man: I was wondering what you thought of her nervous laugh at the very beginning when you said her hands were experiencing warmth. She laughed but you ignored it.

'That was when I interrupted and said "I hope you noticed that response." The response I was referring to was the muscle flaccidity, the pupil dilation and an immediate body sway. Immediately following my comments she laughed. She would not have laughed if I had gone on with the induction. Her laughter was a recognition that it was working. I had said only two sentences and it was already working and she detected a change. Is that true, Barb?

Barb: Yes.

So the laugh would never have emerged if I had gone on with the induction. Her response was so immediate and distinct that I wanted to make sure all of you noticed. Woman: What happened to me when you did the induction is kind of strange. I was trying to watch you, because that was my job, and instead I went through the whole thing myself. I was really embarrassed because my hand was coming up and—

Well, you had lots of company. About thirty other people sitting out Where did, too, so don't be too embarrassed.

Larry: Can you give us more words that you use for internal responses—things you were guessing she was feeling inside?

Well, I wasn't guessing. I was leading at that point, I was asking her to create those experiences. I didn't use the words "security" and "comfort" based on what I was seeing, because 1 don't know if the signs that she was offering me mean security and comfort for her. I just know those are general words that are often associated with muscle relaxation.

Larry: Right. I am trying to find out other words you would use for 'that,

There are lots. You can use words like ease, peace, serenity, calmness, or being centered. They are all just words. They don't have any intrinsic meaning. They are interpreted individually by each person for his or her own needs.

I'm insisting on making a clear distinction between sensory–grounded descriptions and non–sensory–grounded descriptions. The sensory–grounded descriptions allow me to get into synchrony with her. The non–sensory–grounded descriptions allow me to offer her very general procedures that she can use idiosyncratically. Her interpretation of these will be rich and meaningful and individual to her. I have no idea what they are, but that's fine. That's content, and that belongs to her. My job is to run the process.

This is a very simple word induction, and you can always fall back on it. It will work. It just takes longer than some of the other fancier ones. When you use it, remember to connect the statements about sensory–grounded experience to the statements about internally–oriented states. This is called "causal modeling." The simplest and weakest way to connect statements is to use the word "and." "You hear the sound of my voice and you feel the warmth where your hands are resting on your thighs and a growing sense of comfort and, …"In the induction I did with Barb, I started linking with the word "and," and then I moved to a stronger form of linkage. "The feeling of warmth and support as your body fits against the chair will allow you to grow even more comfortable."

There are three kinds of linkage. The simplest is "X and Y." The next stronger form is "As X, Y" "As you listen to the sound of my voice, you will become more comfortable," or" When I reach over and touch you on the knee, you will have a sense of dropping into an even more relaxed state." " While you are sitting there listening to the sound of my voice, your unconscious mind can prepare a particularly interesting recall of a pleasant childhood experience." The strongest form "X causes Y" uses words like "cause" or "make" "The lifting of your arm will make you drift off into a pleasant memory."

So the pattern is to say four things that are immediately verifiable, and then connect them with an "and" to an internally–oriented state that you are proposing. First you have the pacing and then the leading. As you proceed, you can gradually increase the number of internally–oriented statements, and you can gradually go from a weaker form of linkage to a stronger form.

Linkage can be very powerful. It's astounding how much linkage goes right by people's conscious minds, and yet has an impact. Once I literally had somebody go totally blind in a seminar. I was demonstrating something, and I said "All you need to be able to do is see in order to do this" I had linked seeing to being able to do the task. After I went through the demonstration, a woman raised her hand and said "I have a question." I asked her what the question was, and she answered "What do you do if you can't see anything?" I thought she meant she hadn't noticed the person change in my demonstration, so I said "You weren't able to sec any responses?" She said "No, it's totally dark."

She wasn't worried at all, but I was thinking "Hey, wait a minute here!" I went over to her and said "You don't have to learn this" and poof … her vision came back.

That woman's response was very unusual. For most people, the linkage will work the other way. Since they can see, they will be able to do the task. As long as you know what you're linking to what, you'll be able to deal with whatever impact it does have.

Nonverbal Pacing and Leading

All hypnosis can be usefully thought of as feedback. At this moment Bob is sitting in front of me. We are passing lots of information back and forth both verbally and nonverbally. Out of all the messages that we offer each other, some are conscious—that is, he and I know that we are offering them—and some are not.

One thing I can do with Bob's messages is to select those which I can identify as being outside of his awareness, and begin to feed those back by body mirroring. As 1 feed those back, one of two things will happen. His consciousness will alter and he will become aware of those things, or his unconscious responses will simply be amplified, so that more and more of his responses will be unconscious and fewer and fewer of them conscious.

After you have paced some unconscious response, you can begin to amplify or lead into some other response. I can pick out any portion of Bob's nonverbal behavior and do this. I can pace his pupil dilation by dilating my own pupils, and then, as I look at him, begin to defocus my eyes only as fast as he will follow me. Defocused eyes are a good indication of trance, because they accompany internal processing as opposed to focusing on something in the external world.

1 can match his eyeblinks and then gradually blink my eyes more often and more slowly until I get him to shut his eyes. I can mirror his muscle tonus and then slowly relax my own muscles to assist him in relaxation. When you pace and lead nonverbally, there's no need for talk. You just mirror to get rapport, and then slowly put yourself into an altered state of consciousness, making sure that the other person is following you.

Pacing and leading is a meta–pattern. It's actually a part of every other induction we'll be teaching you. You can use nonverbal pacing and leading either by itself, or as a part of another induction. I recommend that at some point you practice just the nonverbal portion. Without words, just arrange yourself in a mirroring position. Then you can very slowly—noticing how fast the person follows you—put your self into a deep trance. Be sure to have some way for you to come back out.

Overlapping Representational Systems

For those of you who don't know what representational systems are, let me explain briefly. We noticed some time ago that people specialize in the kind of information they process and pay attention to. If you divide experience into information in the different sensory channels, you have a visual chunk of experience, an auditory chunk, and a kinesthetic chunk. You also have olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) chunks, but those two channels don't generally take up very large portions of your experience unless you arc cooking or eating. In our normal state, some of us are primarily aware of visual experience, some primarily auditory, and some primarily kinesthetic. We call these representational systems, because they are the systems that we use to represent our experience. The words we use when we talk about our experience are an indication of which sensory channel we are consciously using.

Now the interesting thing is that if you ask someone to describe her normal state of consciousness and then to describe what it's like to be in an altered state, she'll often use a different representational system. For example, someone might describe her normal state as "having a clear, focused sense of who I am" (visual words), and her altered state as being "in touch with the universe" (kinesthetic words).

This means that when you find out what state someone is in normally in terms of representational systems, you have an excellent indication of what would be an altered state for that person—anything else. If someone comes in who is really in touch with her feelings and has a firm grasp on her life, you might want to take her to an altered state where she is primarily aware of visual images. So if she came in and said "Well, I just feel like I want to go into a trance, because I'm in touch with having a lot of needs, and I get irritated sometimes, and I want to feel relaxed and smooth out some of the difficulties in my life" I would have a subtle indication that her awareness is mostly kinesthetic.

Jan, would you come up here a minute? Tell me something you like about your house.

Jan: Oh, I love the view. I've got a place overlooking the ocean—it's just beautiful.

She is offering me visual information, so I know I'm safe if I begin talking about visual information. That will pace her experience. Remember, the meta–pattern is pacing and leading: matching what the client is already doing and then leading to something else. That "something else" is to go to systems which she doesn't ordinarily use. That will be an altered state for her.

I'd probably begin by asking for a context that is visually pleasing. I already know Jan likes the view of the ocean. Do you like the beach?

Jan: Oh, yes!

I would like to invite you, with your eyes open or closed, to follow along with me as I offer you a description of the experience … of being at the ocean. … If you were actually able … to go to the ocean … on a day like today … one of the first things that you can become aware of… is that as you look up … you see clearly … the distinctive lighting of the sky… . You may be able to see some clouds floating across the sky … and as you look about … you can enjoy … the clarity of the air … and you glance down and see … the surface of the beach … and as you stand there … looking down at the beach you're standing on … you can see your feet … and you can feel … the feeling … of your feet … on the beach… .

And when you look out across . , . the ocean … you can see wave … after wave … after wave … rolling from the horizon … toward you … each one having a unique form …a particular curl …a particular color as it splashes… . And as you look out at the waves … moving in … you notice … the wind is blowing some of the spray off the top of each wave as the breaker hits the shore… . And as you watch that spray, you can feel … the moisture in the air, . . as the breeze blows on your face… . And if you were to

now take … a couple of steps … into the water … and feel the coolness of the water swirling around your feet … and ankles … and you can really enjoy it. …

Now if you look up or down along the beach, you can see a familiar figure … someone you had not expected to find there … and you wave … and that person calls across to you … reminding you of another time and place … and something rather pleasant and surprising … that came from that experience … and enjoy the experience … and learn … from it … whatever might be useful for you… . And when you are prepared … and have enjoyed them … at your own rate … taking all the time you desire … come back.…

Now, what form of communication was I using?

Woman: You seemed to be using primarily visuals and a lot of going back and forth between those and kinesthetics. Did you reach a point where you decided to stay in kinesthetics?

I would have if I had continued the induction. When I go back and forth, I'm testing to find out if she can follow. Think of this as a verbal counterpart of breathing together. I breathe with her for a while and then I alter my breathing. If she follows, I now. have rapport; I have the lead and can continue to develop whatever kind of experience is appropriate.

How did I know that she was able to follow me, by the way? After I said the first few things, I knew immediately that she was able to go along with me. How did I know that? ' Man: Her head moved congruently with your instructions.

Yes. When I talked about looking up, her head moved up. When I talked about looking down, her head moved down. When I talked¹ about looking out at the waves, she looked out at the waves. Her body responses indicated that she was having the experience I was suggesting. That is enough information to know that I have rapport. Now, the question is: do I still have rapport if I switch systems? Answer: try it and find out. So I had her look down at the beach. Then I said "And feel your feet against the sand," Jan: I did.

Woman: So then when you get her into another system, do you tend to stay there?

Yes. Then I would talk mainly about the sensations in her body. As she steps into the water, she can feel the swirling of the water … and the moisture inthear… as the wind blows against her face.

I first develop a visual image about where she is and then find a point of overlap between the visual image and any other system. So, in this case, if she looks down at the beach and sees her feet against the sand, then she can feel the firmness of her feet upon the beach. If she looks cut and sees the wind blowing spray off the top of the breaking waves, then she can feel the breeze against her face.

There is always a visual, an auditory, and a kinesthetic dimension to every experience. So you begin with whatever representational system the person offers you. That's pacing: joining the client's model. Then you can use a simple verbal formula which is "You see the clouds moving across the sky … and as you watch the clouds move, you feel the breeze against your face." Seeing the clouds moving suggests wind.

The point of overlap between the visual image of clouds moving, driven by the wind, and the kinesthctic system I want to lead her to is

the feeling of the breeze upon her face. The verbal formula is "as X," which is the pace, "Y," the lead.

Woman: You only used auditory once that I was aware of. You said she could hear the friend calling to her. Is there a reason why you did not emphasize auditory?

I didn't need it. In this culture the auditory system is seldom well–developed except in musicians. There were lots of other places where I '-could have included auditory elements: the sound of the wind, the sound of the waves breaking against the shore.

I want to distinguish between induction and utilization. An induction of going visual–visual–visual, then overlapping to kinesthetic, and .when she follows, continuing with kinesthetic, will radically alter her state of consciousness. Once that has happened, and I've got all those physiological signs that we were talking about earlier, then all I have to do is build a full experience again. Then I would include all three 'systems. I would have her walk up to the person, reach out, touch the person, look carefully at his or her face and notice what expression is there, and then listen to what the person has to tell her. Then I would use that fantasy with all three representational systems as the matrix for whatever changes she wants to achieve. Woman: There was an auditory interruption. Somebody's tape recorder clicked loudly, and I was wondering why you didn't utilize that. It certainly interrupted you.

It interrupted me, but it didn't interrupt her. She didn't hear it. I knew that because she didn't respond. There was no change in her breathing, her skin color, or her muscle tonus. Since there was no response, it would have been absurd for me to mention it. Woman: If she did hear the tape, how would you have included that in the induction?

"And there are disturbing noises, even at the beach."

Man: What about incorporating the swinging of her leg? I could have. I could put her on a swing at the beach. That would have worked nicely. Utilizing the leg swing and some other pieces of her behavior would have been good choices to make. You don't have to use all the good choices every time that you do an induction, only enough of them to get the response that you want.

Jan: I can remember my leg going around, and at the time I knew why, but I don't now.

How could she recover that information, using the same principles of representational system overlap? … Jan, swing your leg again. Close your eyes and swing your leg again and notice what comes in visually. …A little bit faster.

Jan: Just people's faces.

My interpretation, when I think back about it now, was that she age–regressed as she was doing it—she became a little girl again at the beach. There is a difference between the way an adult swings her leg and the way a child swings her leg. The way she swings her leg now is relatively adult. The way she was doing it when she was in the altered state was more childlike. She was a little girl back at the beach. Do you have any idea how old you were at the beach?

Jan: The same age I am now.

She said she was the same age that she is now, but she also offered me nonverbal facial and tonal changes which are characteristic of age–regression. That's also how I would describe the way she was swinging her leg previously.

OK, any questions about this kind of induction?

Man: I don't remember how you first started. Did you ask her something?

Yes. I did something that I think is extremely useful. I said "Do you like to go to the beach?" and noticed her response. If I had just automatically assumed she liked to go to the beach, I couldn't have known if her entire family had drowned when she was three years old as she stood on the shore watching. In that case, a beach would not have been a good choice for a relaxing induction.

The principle is to discover what representational system a person typically uses in her normal state. Some people utilize all systems, and with them you could actually begin anywhere. In the context of stress—and therapy is one such context—people typically have become specialized. That's part of the way they got stuck and came to you for help. With respect to the presenting problem, they will be specialized in one representational system or another. Simply introducing the other two representational systems will often be adequate for them to come up with some new behavior for themselves. You can do that by using overlap.

Overlap will always be evident in what we do. Not only overlap from one representational system to another, but overlap from the outside to the inside. I know a man who said "I do inductions a hundred different ways." I was interested, so I had him demonstrate as many as he could think of. They were all identical from a formal point of view. On every induction he used the following sequence: outside visual, inside visual, outside kinesthetic, inside kinesthetic, outside auditory, inside auditory. Each of his inductions had different content, but that's the only pattern he used to do inductions. Even though he has only one sequence, he's a very effective hypnotist in terms of achieving the usual outcomes of a traditional hypnotist.

In the context of working here in the group, you could begin with any system unless you have a partner who is already severely specialized. However, I'd like you to take that initial step in order to go through exactly what you would actually do in practice: ask the person something about her previous experience, notice which predicates she uses, and use that system as a place to begin. Offer four or five descriptions in that system, and then find a point of overlap to lead her into another system.

Accessing a Previous Trance State

The easiest of all inductions is to ask your client if she has ever been in a trance before. If she has, you ask her to recount in great detail the sequence of events that occurred the last time she went into a trance. Ask her for the exact configuration of the room, the sound of the hypnotist's voice, and exactly what the hypnotist did to lead her into that profound trance. You will notice that she will relive the experience for you as she describes it. It's an example of automatic regression. In order for her to go back and get all the information in response to the specific questions you are asking, she will re–experience the trance state.

If she rushes over the experience too quickly, and you arc not getting a full response, you can either indicate nonverbally for her to slow down, or ask her questions which require that she give you more detail. You can ask "Were you seated just as you are now?" "No, very differently." "Well, would you show me how?" The body position which she last associated with the altered state of consciousness will help her overlap back to that trance experience.

"Were you in a room like this?" "No, no. The walls were green." "Allow your eyes to close and form a mental image of the room you were in the last time you went… ." You divorce her from her present state, the present space–time coordinates, to give her more freedom to access all the information, and therefore to re–enter the trance state which was most effective for her in the past.

You can add other delivery techniques like embedded commands (sec Appendix II) to your questions to reinforce their power. "Well, was he leaning to his right or to his left when your eyes first began to

close?"

That really is the easiest of all inductions. Usually all you need to do is ask her to recount in detail the sequence of events that occurred when she last went into a deep trance. When she has accessed that trance state, you simply utilize it.

How many people here have ever had the experience of visiting Milton Erickson?

If you look around now, you can tell which of the people here have visited Milton, because as I ask that question, they access the trance experience of being with him.

Naturally Occurring Trance States

There's another really easy way to go after a trance state. Everybody has been in a somnambulistic trance; it's just a question of whether they have recognized it as such.

This morning we asked each of you to pick some state in your personal experience in which you have a limited focus of attention. The other two people in your group talked to you about that experience in order to amplify it. You can get the same kind of response without knowing anything about the person by choosing and describing somnambulistic trance states that naturally occur in our culture. What you do is very easy. You sit across from a person and say "Well, before we begin, let's talk about common kinds of experiences, because it is of use tome asa communicator to know what kind of personal history you have, as a way of drawing upon your resources to instruct you in this new matter of hypnosis." Then you describe five very powerful, commonly–occurring trance states. You will notice that as she attempts to understand your words and find examples of what you are talking about in her personal experience, she will go into an altered state.

What happens in your experience when I talk to you about the feelings you have on a long car trip? That's an example of not giving a direct suggestion to go into trance, but simply mentioning a situation where trance states occur naturally in our culture.

For example, I drove yesterday from … Santa Cruz, California, where I live … up and over the Santa Cruz mountains … and back down the other side … to the airport in San Jose. And as has happened so many times when I am driving … especially along a route which I know … a great deal about … I have driven it a number of times … the last thing I remember … before arriving at the airport I , . was turning onto Highway 17, the freeway that I took all the way across the Santa Cruz mountains to San Jose to catch the airplane. And I evidently drove quite safely … and during the drive … the monotony of the road … I assume … induced in me a sort of automatic … and unconscious response … which I could trust …to get me safely from where I began … to where I wanted to go. …

And that was a great deal … like another experience which I'm sure you and many people listening to me have shared … which is the experience of sitting in a lecture … where attendance is mandatory … but the person who is talking …is not a very exciting speaker . someone who is simply … talking in a way that induces a sense of … boredom … and offering you words without a great deal of attention to stimulating you… . And in such experiences I've noticed my mind tends to wander … to other places and times … which are less boring and somehow more stimulating than my present environment… .

Or the experience I've had in my life …of walking through the woods … on a quiet day… . Some of the prettiest areas in the part of the country that I live in … are the marvelous redwood forests… . I've heard people liken … the visual impact … of those redwood forests …to being in a cathedral …a large church of some kind … and the sense of majesty … and calm … serenity that they bring… . And as I walk through the redwood forests … one thing about redwood forests …is the fact that they are so homogeneous … that they do not support … much in the way of wildlife, especially birds …so often there is a majestic sort of silence associated … with … walks through the redwood forest … and although there is not a lot of variation …in the experience I have … as I do walk through them …I certainly have a sense of calm … and relaxation … which I deeply … appreciate, What one thing do those three experiences have in common? Woman: Relaxation, solitude. Man: Serenity. Woman: Repetition.

They are repetitious. They are monotonous. And if any of you were looking around as I was talking, you could see the physiological signs that you're learning to associate with trance developing in most of you. So a very natural and covert way of leading a person from the state of consciousness she is in toward an altered state, is to tell a series of stories or little episodes as I did, which have in common only the kind of response that you want to elicit from that person. At that point it is entirely a question of how acute your own sensory apparatus is, so that you can notice whether you have achieved the kinds of responses you want. You tell as many stories as necessary to achieve the response. You can talk about riding in an elevator. Almost everybody goes into a trance in an elevator. They look up at the numbers and then their pupils dilate and they become immobilized. In elevators the only place it is culturally acceptable to look is at the numbers or at the walls or the floor.

Another example: What happens when you are driving along a street and you drive up to a red stop light? You stop. When the car stops moving, you stop moving.

What are other naturally occurring examples of trance states?

Woman: Watching a movie.

Man: Sitting in church.

Yes, although sitting in church is getting less universal. A lot of people haven't had that experience and won't be able to identify with it, but it's a good one for those who have.

Woman: Watching television.

Yes. If you want to pass information to your kids—if you'd like them to clean their rooms or something—get them while they're watching TV. They're going to be gone: living what's going on in the TV show. So you sit next to them and say—softly so you don't disrupt them—^u… and you have this overwhelming compulsion to… ,"

Man: Chronic mental hospital patients watch television all day. I never thought of reaching them there.

You might try it that way.

When we were first learning hypnosis, Richard Bandler and I used to play a game with each other. We'd get a group of "naive subjects" — people who had never been officially induced into a trance. Then we would challenge ourselves to get them from the present state to a somnambulistic trance state in a minimum number of steps. One of the first things I always asked for was a meditative state. Meditation is a very altered state relative to normal consciousness. I would ask if I could be allowed the privilege of watching them go into the meditative state without interfering in any way. They would go into the meditative state—a dramatically altered state.

When they were there, 1 would say "With your permission, I will now offer a suggestion for you to move from this meditative state, leaving its integrity fully protected, to a state called a general somnambulistic trance, from which we can then begin to make the changes you have asked for." I make a clear distinction between trance and meditation, because if there is not a separation between what is called meditation and somnambulistic trance, every time they meditate they will go back into the trance state. I don't want to connect the two, unless I have a specific reason to.

If and when you do official ritualistic kinds of hypnosis, I suggest that you wait until you have already covertly succeeded in getting a couple of trance states with the client. Let me give you the most common example. Somebody comes in and demands that you do hypnosis with her for a presenting problem and you say "Of course. However, before we begin there are a couple of things I need to know." •Then you induce a series of trances. You say something like "Well, the first thing to do is to check your ability to recall in detail information that I'm going to need for your case history." So you induce a trance by taking a case history. You ask "Now, where were you born?" and you have her describe in detail the house in which she lived, and the sounds it made, the feelings she had there, etc. And, of course, she is gone; she age–regresses in order to get the detailed information about her past. One description of trance is getting the person independent of her present time/space coordinates. This fits that definition. The only link between her and the present time/space coordinates is your voice. [Along all other dimensions, she is somewhere else.

Regression is considered one of the "deep trance" phenomena by traditional hypnotists. It's actually something you get all the time. Gestalt therapists typically get deep trance phenomena automatically, much more easily than a hypnotist, and yet most of them would resist the label "hypnosis." All over the world people are looking at empty chairs and seeing their mothers or their fathers and talking to them and hearing responses. Those are positive auditory and visual hallucina–Egns. They constitute deep trance phenomena. But it's not labeled that way, so there's no resistance involved.

By the way, just as a teaching device, let me make a point here. If you ever lecture on hypnosis, of course the group is going to be going in and out of a trance. The only way that the group can make sense of your descriptions of hypnosis and trance is to access their own experiences that fit those descriptions. Depending on how confident you are in your own personal power, you will get perhaps a hundred people in deep trance rather rapidly- -or not, depending upon what outcome you want. There isn't an easier subject in the world to lecture about, because as you talk about it, it is happening.

You can also use your observation of people's responses to know whom to choose as a subject when you arc doing groups. You choose one of the twenty percent of the group who have already been in and out of at least five somnambulistic trances during your fifty–minute presentation. By the end of this workshop you ought to have the sensory experience to know who's responding by going into a deep trance and taking in all the material at that level of consciousness; who's in a mixed state, responding consciously and unconsciously; and who's staying entirely conscious. To demonstrate teaching points, you should always be able to pick out exquisite demonstration subjects. If there's a particular response you want to demonstrate, you can talk about what you are going to do, instruct people in what responses are appropriate, and notice who develops those responses most rapidly. That person will be the subject to select.

Some of you here may be drifting off a little more rapidly than might be useful to you for the purpose of learning this material. You might consider stopping for a moment to silently drop inside and ask some part of you to maintain a state of consciousness which is most useful to you for learning purposes. It would be nice to have some blend of having the experience and also being able to keep conscious track of the patterns being used. Let's have a moment of silence while you make those arrangements. You can use the reframing format if you already know it. …

Exercise 4

I've just given you five specific induction techniques: (1) verbal pacing and leading, (2) nonverbal pacing and leading, (3) representational system overlap, (4) accessing a previous trance, and (5) describing commonly occurring trance situations. Get into groups of three, and each of you pick a technique that interests you, and which you haven't done systematically before. Person A will pick an induction and do it with B. B can just enjoy it.

Person C will use all of his conscious attention to notice what changes occur as B goes into trance. Pay attention to which statements and behaviors produce the most response, and whether there are any statements or behaviors that bring B back out of trance. C is going to be a "meta–person" to keep track of what's going on. As person C, if you notice that the hypnotist is talking too quickly, give her a hand gesture that indicates "Slow down." If the hypnotist's voice is too high and it seems irritating to B, give her some signal to lower her voice.

When you are A, after you have induced the trance, I want you to give B some general instructions for learning, and then for returning. When you've gotten good trance responses of the nature that Barb offered us here earlier, then simply sit there, take a couple of deep breaths, smile and mentally pat yourself on the back. Look at your observer, and give some minimal cue that you are satisfied that you have achieved a trance. Then match breathing with your subject and when you speak make your voice tempo match her breathing cycle. "And enjoy … those particular experiences … which your unconscious mind … can offer you at this point … a sense of wonder … and adventure …as you enter … new states of consciousness . . , gleaning from this experience … a sense of assurance . , . about your own capabilities … and flexibility … as a human being, . . , And after doing that fully … and deeply … your unconscious, slowly … with full respect … can bring you back to this state … giving you a sense of refreshment and renewal. … I will be attentive… . If at any point … you would be interested … in my assisting you … in getting back … indicate that with a hand movement."

Then sit there and watch. This will be an excellent opportunity for you to train your perceptions to notice the changes that a person demonstrates as she goes in and out of altered states. If you get a hand wave, then you can match her breathing as you say "I am going …to count backwards … from ten … to one … slowly… . When I reach 'one' … your eyes will open . . , and you will have a sense … of refreshment … and you will be … totally present here." Then count backwards with her breathing until you reach one."

Take a few minutes for feedback when you're done. B can tell A about anything in the induction that was particularly helpful, or about anything that B found disruptive or got in the way of developing the altered state. C can add anything that she observed from the outside, especially relationships between A's suggestions and B's responses. This will be really useful feedback for A. After the feedback, switch positions and give both B and C a chance to try an induction.

So A is going to first induce a trance, then give general learning instructions, and finally give instructions to come back out of trance. Go ahead.

Man: I have a question. When I was putting Lynn under, she began to demonstrate a lot of shaky movement in her left hand. Later, she said that that was connected to a nerve center in her cheek which had been operated on a long time ago for a cyst, and that supposedly there's still nerve damage. But at the time I didn't have the faintest idea what— if anything—to do with that.

The minimum response to anything that happens which you don't directly suggest as you are inducing an altered state of consciousness is to verbally incorporate it immediately: "Yes, and you continue to have those specific experiences and the body sensations connected with them." That validates the response and reassures the person that you are alert to the signals she is offering you, even though you may not understand what the signals represent.

"Organ language" is another really powerful pattern which I find useful in dealing with any phenomenon that is significant. By "significant" I mean there's no doubt that something unusual is going on–but I have no idea what it might represent.

"Now, the first time that a person … goes into an altered state of consciousness … it often shakes them up a little bit… . But they often find it handy … to come to grips with the part … of the problem … that may be attached to this particular syndrome in a way that … allows them to put their finger on changes … which they can really grasp the reality of." I included four or five allusions to the part of the body and to the activity that is being performed by that part of the body. If there are still any remnants of the person's conscious mind left around at that point in the trance, it typically won't understand those allusions. However, the unconscious mind typically will understand and take that as a validating message.

The two maneuvers I just offered you are ways of incorporating an obvious response that I didn't ask for, and validating it. It's my way of saying "OK, I recognize what you are doing, and it is perfectly all right with me for you to continue to do that." That kind of response is usually adequate.

Another slightly more powerful method you can use is to say "… and with each such movement you'll go deeper into trance," Then you typically get one of two things: either they go really deeply into trance, or they stop shaking.

You could also use the shaking as an access point to do some therapeutic work. "Those particular experiences . . , connected with those dramatic movements of your hand … at this point in time … will become available to you … only when you reach an adequately deep state of trance … for you to appreciate them … as experiences from your past … which may or may not have had negative repercussions then … but which you can now recognize with comfort … as something that you survived … and to draw from a review and a rehearing … of those particular experiences … ways in which you might protect yourself … in the present and in the future … learning from your own experience … which is the foundation of your present resources."

All that is "fluff" in the sense that it includes no content. Hut it is an appropriate and meaningful communication in the sense that you are telling her to do something with the experiences she is having in order to learn from them.

Woman: What do you do if the person doesn't come back out?

If you tell her to come back and she doesn't, that indicates that you've lost rapport, So you have to go back and get rapport. You might just pace her breathing for a while. Then ask her to gather up all the 'enjoyable, positive aspects of this experience, so that she can bring these back with her when she returns in a few moments. Count backwards slowly from ten to one, saying one number for every other breath that she takes. This will help insure rapport. Give instructions that when you reach "one" her eyes will flutter open as control is returned to her conscious mind, and she will be puzzled and delighted by the experience she has just had.

Woman: I've had clients who apparently go into physiological sleep. I have assumed that somehow the unconscious is still listening, but I'm not at all sure of that. There's no response to me at all.

OK. First of all, I don't believe the last statement: that they don't respond to you at all. I would suggest for your own learning purposes, that you use several simple nonverbal devices to find out if they are still responsive to you. The easiest way to do it would be to get in close enough that they can hear your breathing, and then breathe with them for several minutes. I assume that you have the internal flexibility not to simply fall asleep yourself. You can give yourself instructions that you are going to copy their breathing and even though that breathing is typically associated with physiological sleep, you are going to maintain a certain level of alertness. After a minute or two of breathing with them, change your breathing pattern very slightly, and they should follow at that point.

You can get rapport without running the risk of going to sleep by putting your hand on their shoulders and varying the pressure of your touch with the rhythm of their breathing. You can increase the pressure when they exhale, and decrease the pressure when they inhale. We call this "cross–over" pacing, because you pace with a different sensory channel–Do this for two or three minutes, and then change your pressure pattern slightly, noticing whether their breathing follows you.

Woman: What if they don't follow?

If they don't, then they are in a physiological sleep state, and you need to spend more time building rapport. You can still do it, but it takes more time.

We made up something called "sleep therapy" once when we were working at a mental hospital where people had access to their clients twenty–four hours a day. We had been there several times; this was our third visit. The staff members were delighted with the responses they were getting using our patterns, and dealing very effectively with all their patients except the anorexics. They were having trouble with the anorexics.

Anorexics are people who consider themselves grossly overweight. The perception of the rest of the world is that they are about to starve to death. They are extremely skinny, to the point that their health is threatened.

One of the things that we instructed the staff to do with the anorexics—which wiped out this last stronghold of unresponsive patients–was what we called "sleep therapy." If you live with someone for whom this is acceptable, you can try it out yourself.

Go into the place where she is sleeping and use one of the two techniques I just mentioned to you to get rapport. Breathe with her for three or four minutes to get rapport. Since she is in a severely altered state, it takes some time to get rapport. Or instead of breathing with her, you can touch her and use pressure differences. You could get rapport auditorily by singing or humming little soft notes with her breathing movements. You can use any repetitive pattern that you can control in your own output to match her breathing cycle. Then very carefully and very slowly change what you are doing, to find out if you can lead her. Don't change your breathing radically, because part of a person's ability to be asleep and to stay asleep without interruption depends on her maintaining that breathing pattern. Unless you want to wake her up, it would be inappropriate for you to change her breathing radically.

You then proceed to set up finger signals—something that we'll teach you tomorrow. "As you continue to sleep deeply and rest yourself completely, you can respond to certain questions that I ask you by lifting one finger for 'yes' and another for 'no.'" The person is in a severely altered state in which her normal conscious resources are not available, and therefore not in your way. You can now begin to access information directly by getting yes/ no signals, or propose changes and new behaviors. You can do all the work in that state without interrupting her sleep.

Woman: And what if her breathing doesn't change when I change mine? Does it mean she is indeed in a physiological sleep state?

No. You can gain rapport with people who are in a physiological state of sleep. The difference is that you have to spend more time following them before you attempt to lead. If you attempt to lead and you do not get the response, take that as a statement that you didn't pace long enough; go back and pace longer.

People who arc asleep do respond, but more slowly and less overtly. The same is true of people in an anesthetic sleep state during opera: lions. Many doctors think that their patients are completely out when they are on the operating table. It's just not true. People accept post–I hypnotic suggestions under anesthesia faster than they will just about any other way. Just because their eyes are closed and their conscious minds are zonked, doesn't mean their ears don't work.

Once I worked with a woman who was living a very wild and rowdy life. Some of the things she was doing were destructive to her, so I was trying to get her to change. I worked with her for a while and couldn't make sense out of what she was doing. Finally I turned to her and said emphatically "Look, you absolutely have got to stop living wildly like this. It's not doing you any good, and it's just a waste of time. And what makes you do it?" Immediately her nostrils flared dramatically, and she I said "Oh, I'm really dizzy!" I asked "What do you smell?" She sniffed again and said "It smells like a hospital." I asked "What about a hospital?" She replied "You know that ether smell?" It turned out that some time earlier she'd had an operation. She'd been anesthetized, and since the doctor "knew" that she wasn't there, he talked freely. He looked at her insides and said "It looks terrible. I don't think she's going to make it for very long."

She did make it. Sometimes it's nice to be wrong! However, somehow or other she got the idea that the doctor's statement meant that she wasn't going to make it after the operation, not that she wasn't going to make it through the operation. The statement was ambiguous; the doctor hadn't specified "If you make it through the operation, everything will be fine." His statement didn't get sorted out in any meaningful way; she just responded to it. She came out of the operation thinking that she wasn't going to live very long, so it didn't concern her that some of the things she was doing were self–destructive.

Martha: When we did the exercise, and I was going into a trance, some part of me wondered "Am I really in?"

Right. And now we are talking about the whole interesting area called "convincers." The thing that convinces Martha a bout the experience of hypnosis will be different than what convinces Bill or someone else.

Martha's Partner: I'm really curious about that. Her eyes dilated and closed, but later she said that she had an internal dialogue going on the whole time. So that's not a somnambulistic trance state, right?

Different people have different understandings of somnambulistic trance. There isn't any way I know of defining it for all people. Generally people are convinced that they are in a trance when they experience something very different from their normal state. One person's normal state may be another person's trance. For a person whose consciousness has been specialized into kinesthetics, the con–vincer will probably be a set of visual images that are vivid, colorful, and stabilized. A person who hasn't had a body sensation in thirty years will probably be convinced by an experience of detailed and strong kinesthetic sensations,

Man; I heard you say earlier that if someone has been in a somnambulistic trance, she will not have any conscious memory of it.

Right. Typically when you alter a person's consciousness that radically, when she comes back somebody in the audience will ask "Were you in a trance?" and she'll say "Oh, no! I knew what was going on the whole time." If you then mention some specific activities she carried out, she will say "I didn't do that! You're kidding!" That is, she has complete amnesia for a large segment of that trance experience. To assist that person in being subjectively satisfied that she was in a trance, I often set up a post–hypnotic suggestion that I will trigger by kinesthetic cueing. I'll have it be something obvious and inexplicable like taking one shoe off. That way she will notice that something has happened for which she has no explanation.

You can also find out in advance what a person's "complex equivalence" for trance is: what specific sensory experiences would constitute proof to her that she was in a trance. Then you can develop that kind of experience for the person.

Actually, for the purpose of personal change, it's irrelevant whether the person believes that she has been in trance or not. If you can achieve an altered state and use it to help the person make appropriate changes, that's all that matters.

When you have thoroughly learned about hypnosis, you will find that you will never again have to do any "official" trance inductions that your clients will recognize as such. You will be able to induce altered states naturally, and you will be able to utilize them to achieve changes without the person consciously realizing that anything like "hypnosis" has ever occurred.

Anchoring Trance Stales

For those of you who are not familiar with the term "anchoring," we want to give you an idea of what it is and how you can use it. Anchoring is already written up in detail in our book, Frogs into Princes (Chapter II), so we won't repeat that information to you now. However, we do want to talk about anchoring as it relates to hypnosis.

Every experience includes multiple components: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. Anchoring refers to the tendency for any one element of an experience to bring back the entire experience. You have all had the experience of walking down the street and smelling something, and then suddenly you are back in another time and place. The smell serves as a "reminder" of some other experience. That's an anchor. Couples often have a song that they call "our song." That's an anchor too. Every time they hear that song, they re–experience the feelings they had for each other when they first called it "our song."

Many of the inductions you just did made use of anchoring. When you helped your partner access a previous trance experience, you were making use of anchors that were already set up in that person's experience. If you asked your partner to assume the same body posture she had during a trance experience, to hear the sound of the hypnotist's voice, or do anything else paired with trance, you were using naturally occurring anchors.

If a person can tell you what her experience of trance is in sensory–based terms, you can use anchoring to construct that state for her. All you need to do is to break down her experience of trance into its component visual, auditory, and kinesthetic parts.

If you start with visual, you can ask "How would you look to other people if you were in deep trance? Show me with your body here. I'll mirror you so that you have feedback about what you're doing, and you can adjust your body until what you see looks right." When she tells you it's right, you anchor her with a touch or a sound.

Next you find out if she would be making internal images, and if so, what kind. If her eyes are open in deep trance, ask her what she would be seeing on the outside. As she accesses the answer, you anchor her state.

Then you go on to feelings. "How would you feel if you were in a deep trance? How would you be breathing? Show me exactly how relaxed you would be." When she demonstrates how she would feel, you anchor that state.

That leaves the auditory component of "deep trance" to be anchored. You could ask her if she would be aware of the voice of a hypnotist, and what that would sound like. Then find out if she would have any internal dialogue or sounds in deep trance.

As you systematically go through her visual, kinesthctic, and auditory experience of trance, both internal and external, you can anchor each component of "trance" with either the same anchor or with different anchors. If you use different anchors for the different components, you can then trigger all the anchors simultaneously to "remind" her of what trance is like. That's another way to use anchoring to induce a trance. By using anchoring in this way, you can even build an experience that the person has never had previously. You simply anchor the component parts of the experience together.

Once you've induced a trance state, you can set up anchors so that you can quickly reinduce a trance whenever you want to. Whenever I do hypnotic inductions, I always change my voice tone, movement style, posture, and facial expression so that one set of my behaviors is associated with trance, and another set is associated with a normal state of consciousness. Once I have induced an altered state, this gives me the ability to reinduce one quickly simply by beginning my "trance" behaviours. Those behaviors will serve as unconscious signals to go into a trance. The "reinduction signals" that hypnotists use are a special case of this kind of anchoring.

Effective communicators in many fields are already using this kind of anchoring without knowing it. On Sunday morning I turned on the television and watched one of the preachers. This preacher talked very loudly for a while, and then all of a sudden he said "Now I want you to stop, and (softly) close your eyes." His voice tone and volume changed entirely, and people in his congregation closed their eyes and demonstrated the same behavior that I see in people who meditate, people in deep trance, people who sit on trains and airplanes and buses, passengers in cars, jury members, patients in group psychotherapy, or psychiatrists who are taking notes about what a client is saying. That preacher had paired one tone of voice with his usual talking, and another tone of voice with the altered state he called "prayer." He could use that tone of voice to quickly induce an altered state in his entire congregation.

If you change your tone of voice slowly when you notice somebody going into an altered state, the change in your tone of voice will become paired with going into an altered state. If you maintain that changed tone of voice when she reaches a state that you want to keep her in, she will tend to stay there. Your voice tone anchors that altered state.

If a client walks in the door of your office, and you seat him and immediately do a trance induction using your normal tone of voice, normal posture, and normal movement style, you will be in trouble the next time you want to talk to his concious mind. The experience he has of you and your office will be a "reminder" to go into a trance. The next time he walks into your office, when you seat him and begin to talk, he will automatically begin to go into a trance.

Early in my career as a hypnotist I had a lot of problems with clients dropping into a trance when I just wanted to talk to them. I wasn't yet making a systematic distinction in my own behavior. If you don't make distinctions, your normal behavior will be a reinduction signal, whether you want it to be or not.

If you make a distinction in your behavior between when you talk to a client at the unconscious level, and when you communicate at the conscious level, that gives you systematic choices about whether or not to keep his conscious resources around. If you have a private practice, you can use two chairs: one for trance states, and the other when you want to communicate with his conscious mind. Soon just indicating which chair to sit in will serve as an entire induction.

Analogue Marking

A special kind of anchoring is particularly useful when you want to elicit hypnotic responses. It's called analogue marking, and involves marking out certain words nonverbally as you're talking to someone. I can mark out these words as separate messages with my voice tone, a gesture, a certain expression, or perhaps a touch.

I might talk to you about people who are really able to relax–people who can allow themselves to be comforted by the situation they find themselves in. Or I could tell you a story about a friend of mine who is able to learn easily to go into a deep trance. As I said that last sentence, I was marking out "learn easily" and "go into a deep trance" with a slightly different tone of voice and with a wave of my right hand. They constitute separate messages within the obvious message, that your unconscious will identify and will respond to appropriately.

At this point I have connected a certain tone of voice and a certain gesture with the words relaxation and trance for many of you. Now, all I need to do is use that tone of voice more and more often, and your unconscious knows what to do. That voice tone conveys the message much more effectively than telling you to go into a trance, because it bypasses your conscious mind.

All of this is anchoring. A word like "relax" is itself an anchor—a label for something in your experience. In order to understand what I mean when I say the word "relax," you have to go inside and access your personal experiences related to that word. You have a fragment of the experience as a way of understanding the word itself. And as you are feeling comfortable, I connect that experience with a certain voice tone. Now my voice tone also becomes an anchor for that response.

You can use any discriminable aspect of your behavior to do this. Milton Erickson would sometimes move his head to the right or the left when he wanted to mark something out for special attention. The same voice will sound slightly different when coming from a different location in space. The difference may not be enough for you to notice consciously, but it will be enough for you to respond to unconsciously, even if you have your eyes closed.

By the way, analogue marking isn't something new. Your clients already do it, and if you listen to what they mark out for you, you can learn a lot. When I was running a private practice, I got really bored after a while, so I sent a letter to all the psychiatrists I knew, asking them to refer me their most outrageous and difficult clients. They sent me fascinating people.

One psychiatrist sent me a woman who would wake up in the middle of the night sweating profusely and vibrating, and no one could figure out what was wrong with her. She was terrified because this occurred quite frequently, and she had been in therapy for several years without any reduction in her symptoms. The psychiatrist was giving her pills to try to control her symptoms. He even hooked her up to an EEG machine for hours at a time, waiting for one of these fits to occur so he could measure it. Of course the fits would never happen until he took her off the machine. He'd hook her back up again, and then she'd sit there for hours longer, and again nothing would happen.

This woman was quite conservative and from a wealthy area of town. When she came to see me she was terrified, because her psychiatrist had told her I was a weirdo who did strange things. But she wanted to change desperately, so she came to me anyway.

She was sitting in my office looking very timid when 1 walked in. I sat down, looked straight at her and said "You've been in therapy too long. So your conscious mind obviously has failed utterly to deal with this problem and the conscious minds of your therapists have failed utterly to deal with this problem. I want only your unconscious mind to tell me exactly what I need to know to change you—nothing more and nothing less—and I don't want your conscious mind to intrude unhelpfully. Begin speaking now!"

' That's a strange set of instructions, isn't it? I had no idea if she would be able to deal with those instructions on any level, but she answered in a really interesting way. She looked back at me and said "Well, I don't know. I'll be sitting in my room at night and I'll switch off the electric light, I'll lie down in my bed … and, you know, it's really very shocking because I've been in treatment for years now, but I still wake up scared and covered with sweat."

• If you listen to that communication, it's pretty straightforward. The words that she marked out were "electric shock treatment." That gave me the information I needed. Her present psychiatrist didn't know it, but in the past another psychiatrist had given her electric shock treatment.

Some time ago her husband had become wealthy and moved her from a neighborhood where she lived around people whom she loved and enjoyed, to a very fancy house on a hill where there were no other human beings. Then he went off to work and left her there alone. She was bored and lonely, so she began to daydream to entertain herself. She was seeing a psychiatrist, and her psychiatrist "knew" that daydreaming was "escaping reality" and that escaping reality was bad. So he gave her electric shock treatment to cure her. Every time she began to daydream, her husband put her in the car and took her down to the hospital where the doctors hooked her up to the electric shock machine and zapped her. They did this 25 times, and after 25 times she stopped daydreaming.

However, she still dreamed at night. She tried not to dream, but as soon as she began to dream, she began to experience electric shock. It had become an anchored response. She had all the physiological indications of it. When I went to school, this was called classical conditioning. However, her psychiatrist didn't believe in classical conditioning, so this never occurred to him.

This is an example of well–intentioned psychotherapy that created a problem. The people who gave her the shock treatments really believed they were doing her a favor. They believed daydreaming was escaping reality, and therefore bad. So rather than channeling her fantasies in a useful direction, they gave her electric shock treatment.

Exercise 5

I'd like to have you all practice using analogue marking to get a response from someone else. I want you all to pair up and first pick some observable response to get from your partner. Pick something simple, like scratching her nose, uncrossing her legs, standing up, getting you some coffee—whatever you want. Then start talking to her about anything, and weave instructions to do the response you selected into your conversation. You can include the instructions one word or phrase at a time, marking them out tonally or visually, so that your partner can respond to them as one message.

You see, with what we've discovered so far about hypnosis, we've only begun to scratch the surface, and no one really knows what we'll learn next, I hope it can be an uplifting experience. But you've got to hand it to those who are facing the possibilities… . Now already there are lots of people in this room lifting their hands to their faces and scratching their noses. It can be that simple.

Often when you do hypnosis, the responses you'll go for in another person won't be quite as obvious as the ones I'm suggesting that you choose for this exercise. For now I want you to choose something that's so obvious you will know whether or not it's occurred.

If your partner is aware of what response you are trying to elicit, she may incorporate the movement you are asking for into another movement that she consciously makes. That's fine. Just notice whether you get the response you are after. If you don't, embed another set of instructions for the same response into your conversation and mark it out.

*****

Discussion: Negative Commands and Polarities

Michael: How can I gracefully set up a verification of a suggestion I make to someone to stop doing something? Let's say someone bumps into me a lot, and I deliver the message "Don't do that again."

If you say "Do not do that again," he'll do it again and again because you told him to. If you phrase any suggestion with a negative in front of it, that will happen. If you say "Don't think of blue," he'll think of blue.

Michael: All right. "You will not interrupt me again."

Then he will interrupt you again. You are giving him a hypnotic command to interrupt you again. If you say "Go away!" he is likely to go away, and you will have an immediate test: either he will leave or he won't.

Michael: Assuming you are able to phrase it so that there's no problem—I mean phrase the suggestion properly—

Yes. Assuming that you have phrased it properly, he will either carry it out or he won't. If it is something that you can't detect, then you won't have a way of knowing in that context. If you say "feel good" you won't know if he is carrying it out except by the subtle responses that he makes.

If I were you, I would very explicitly teach myself to phrase things positively, because you just went through three negative suggestions in a row. No single pattern that I know of gets in the way of communicators more often than using negation. Negation only exists in language and does not exist in experience. For instance, how do you experience the following sentence: 'The dog is not chasing the cat."

Man: I saw a dog chasing a cat and then I saw a big black "X" across the picture.

Woman: I saw a dog chasing a cat, and then they stopped and stood still.

. Right. You have to first represent whatever is negated. If I were you, Michael, I would spend a week learning to phrase everything you say positively, without negation. Learn to specify what you do want instead of what you don't want.

Typically clients come in with a long list of what they don't want, and usually they have been telling everyone around them what they don't want. That effectively programs their friends to respond in ways that bring unpleasantness and dissatisfaction. "Now I don't want you to get upset by what I'm going to tell you." "Don't get angry at what Billy did."

Of course you can use the same pattern to get a useful outcome.

'Don't get too comfortable." "I wouldn't ask you to relax."

Negation is particularly effective to use with anyone who has what we call a "polarity response." A polarity response simply means an opposite response. If I say to David "You are becoming more relaxed" and he tightens up, that's a polarity response.

Sometimes people call this "resistance" and assume you can't work with such clients. People with lots of polarity responses are very responsive; they're just responsive in the reverse direction from what you instruct them. All I have to do to utilize this is tell them not to do all the things I want them to do. They will be caught in a polarity response and do them all. "You are listening to the sound of my voice, and I don't want you to close your eyes." "I don't want you to have a growing sense of comfort and relaxation." So that's a context in which negative commands are very useful.

Another way to handle polarities is to use tag questions. "You are beginning to relax, are you not?" A tag question is simply a negation in the form of a question added on at the end of a sentence. "That makes sense, doesn't it? "You do want to learn about tag questions, don't you?"

Charles: How do we pick up on whether someone has a polarity response or not?

Think about it this way, Charles. If somebody is processing information and has a polarity response, you will be able to notice radical shifts in the sequence of expressions on his face. If somebody's process is to visualize himself doing something and then tell himself it's not a good idea, you will see radical shifts as he switches from one content to another internally. These radical shifts are different than the natural transitions in the usual sequences of expression. That's my main way of knowing.

Another way of knowing is that you will get lots of reversals behav–iorally. The classic example is the person who goes "Yes, but…" First he agrees, and then he disagrees. There are lots of other ways of finding out. One way is to just give someone a direct suggestion. You look at somebody and say "blink" and find out whether he blinks immediately, stops blinking, or just sits there. Those are all very different responses to a direct command.

You can also make a statement and observe the response, and then repackage the same statement with a negation and see if his response reverses. "You can understand that." "No, I suppose you can't understand that." If you get disagreement to both sentences, you know his response is independent of the content of the sentences.

I've talked about using negation and tag questions. You can have an even greater impact if you add the use of embedded commands. Take the statement "And I don't want you to become more relaxed as you listen to the sound of my voice." If I change the tempo, pitch, or timbre qualities of my voice when 1 say "Become more relaxed," that instruction is marked out analogically for special attention at the unconscious level.

You can use embedded commands with or without negation. "As you sit there you can begin to relax… . Don't close your eyes only as fast as your unconscious mind allows you to remember a pleasant time from your past when you didn't feel too comfortable. If you analogically mark out the instructions you want someone to follow, you will gracefully have a powerful impact.

Advanced inductions.

Leverage Inductions and Pattern Interruption

Now I want to add still more possibilities to your repertoire of induction techniques. Al, may I borrow your arm for a moment? (He raises Al's arm and holds it by the wrist, jiggling it slightly until it remains up when he lets go. As he is doing this, he is talking.)

Now what ( would like, if it is acceptable to you, is for you to simply allow that arm to drift down, no faster than you can find … a comfortable … place … and time …in your past … when you could go away … and refresh yourself for a moment or two … so that your arm should drift down …no faster than your eyes … close … with honest, unconscious movements … so that when your hand … slowly comes to rest …on your thigh … after its slow movement … down … you return … with a sense of relaxation … which wasn't present … before… . You are doing it very well… . Take your time… . (Al's hand touches his thigh and he opens his eyes and smiles.) Thank you.

{John Grinder approaches David and looks at his name tag.)

David? My name is—(He reaches out to shake hands with David. As David's hand comes up, John reaches out with his left hand, holds David's wrist lightly, lifts it up near his face, and points to David's right palm with his right forefinger.) Look at your hand. Would you consider carefully all the color changes and shadows that occur in your hand. Study the lines and creases with interest as you allow your arm to begin to drift down slowly. And I might offer you the same suggestion that I offered Al, and that is … as your arm begins to drift down … with honest unconscious movements … your eyes will begin to feel heavy … and will close… . You will see clearly …just prior to your hand … finishing its downward movement … something of interest to you … that you haven't seen … for years… . Take your time… . Enjoy it. … As soon as your hand comes to rest …on mine … at that particular moment … you will have … a sense of completion … and amusement … having remembered to forget … what that memory was… . And as you know … from having been here before … (David's hand touches John's right hand and John completes the handshake. John's voice tone, which has shifted during the induction, returns to "normal" and he continues.) John Grinder, and I have enjoyed meeting you very much. I don't know how you got the information to come to the seminar, but I am glad that you did.

These are called leverage inductions. There are many phenomena that are believed by the general population to be indicators of altered states of consciousness. Catalepsy is one such phenomenon. Hand and arm catalepsy is usually an indication that something unusual is going on. People don't typically sit around with their hand and arm suspended in the air. If you can create that experience, it gives you credibility as a hypnotist, and you can use that experience as leverage to achieve other altered states.

I asked Al "May I borrow your arm for a moment?" How do you make sense out of a question like that? He accepted that as a meaningful utterance, and allowed me to lift his arm. I gave it a little jiggle, and when I released it, his arm was cataleptic. Now the leverage part is done. By my communication I've put Al in an unusual situation: his hand and arm are hanging there, cataleptic in space. In order to utilize that in the context of a hypnotic induction, I then attach the kind of response I would like him to develop—moving in the direction of a hypnotic trance—as a way for him to escape from the leverage position. I ask him to allow his hand and arm to go down with honest unconscious movements, only as rapidly as his eyes close and he remembers an experience. I also suggest that when his hand comes to rest on his thigh, he will come back to a normal state of consciousness, amused by the entire process.

Cathy: How do you know if his arm is cataleptic?

I can feel it. As I hold it up and jiggle it slightly, it will become lighter and then stay up by itself. Kitty, close your eyes for a second. Cathy, reach over and lift her left arm. Pick it up and notice how it feels. Kitty, now I would like you to form an image of a place where you took a vacation once that was particularly pleasant. Nod your head when you have it. Now, 1 want you to examine in detail all of the objects in your visual environment. And I would like you to begin to describe out loud all the details of form and color that you can see there in your vacation spot.

Kitty: I'm in this sequoia forest. What specifically do you see there? Kitty: Many trees and deep shadows.

OK. Cathy, put your finger under her wrist. Ask her for more and more detail, and each time that she begins to talk, move your finger up and down a little to find out whether she is holding it or not. When she begins to hold it, you will know that you have got an unconscious response in her arm. Whenever she is fully involved in seeing and describing those images, she will be unaware of her arm. Doing that will teach you to feel the difference between somebody consciously holding his arm and someone unconsciously holding it. By the way, if the person is consciously holding his arm, go ahead and utilize it as if he weren't doing it consciously.

A variation on this is what we call the dreaming arm. It's a kind of leverage induction. It's a really nice technique that everyone should know, especially if you work with children. Kids love the dreaming arm.

The first thing I do with a kid is get his interest. I ask "Do you know about your dreaming arm?¹¹ He might think I'm being a little strange, so I'll start laughing at him and say "You don't know about the dreaming arm? I know about it. I might tell you, but you'd probably tell everybody else." That really gets kids going. Soon the kid is saying "I won't tell anybody. I promise. Please tell me!" So I'll respond "Oh, you probably don't really want to know." This is what Milton Erickson called "building response potential."

From that point on it's really easy. You ask "What's your favorite TV program or movie?" Nowadays it's always the "Bionic Man" or "Star Wars." Then you say "Can you remember the very first scene when Steve Austin is running along and the music is playing?¹¹ As he remembers the movie or TV show, you watch his eyes to see which way he accesses. (See Appendix I) If he looks up to his right, you lift up his right arm. If he looks up to his left, you lift his left arm. The arm will easily become cataleptic, because that arm is controlled by the same brain hemisphere that he is using to process information in response to your question.

If a person looks up to his left, he is accessing remembered images which are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. When you lift the left hand, which is also operated by the right hemisphere, he won't notice what you are doing with his arm— if you do it gently so that you

don't interrupt his images. His left arm will be automatically cataleptic, because his consciousness is entirely occupied by the images. The person typically won't have a representation of your raising his arm because all his attention is on the images.

You can also ask about music, especially if you know the person is very auditory. "When was the last time you heard a really interesting musical group?" You just lift the arm on the same side that he looks toward as he accesses.

Once you've got arm catalepsy, you just say "All right. Now close your eyes and watch the whole show in detail, with sound, remembering the most important thing is your favorite part, so you can tell me about it later. And your arm will go down only as fast as you see the whole show."

That has worked on every kid I have ever been around, except one who was the child of a hypnotist and had been programmed for years to be unhypnotizable. This child had worked with about twenty–five great hypnotists and had managed to defeat them all, Rather than bothering to attempt to play that game with her, I just congratulated her. I told her she was unhypnotizable and couldn't possibly go into a trance. Of course, then she had to try to defeat that statement, and she started to go into a trance!

After you've raised the arm and it is cataleptic, you can do the same thing you do with any leverage induction. You can say "I'm not going to ask you to put your arm down any faster than your unconscious mind can present you with a replay of that entire movie so that you can enjoy it now … watching and listening to each scene, one by one … in great detail … and it can be so pleasant to see parts that you'd forgotten you remember … now… ."

Woman: Which arm is the right one to use if they just defocus and look straight ahead?

The easiest response would be to lift both arms. There are only two. The one that falls wasn't the one.

Woman: Is it possible to look in one direction and have the other arm be cataleptic?

Yes, it's possible to do most anything. However, the explanation I am offering you gives you a principle—a way of deciding which one to use in order to be more effective.

Now let's go back and discuss the handshake interruption that I did with David. This is an example of the class of inductions called pattern interruption. If you can identify any rigid pattern a human being has—either as an individual or as part of the culture–all you need to do is to begin that pattern and then interrupt it. You will have the same situation of leverage that you have with arm catalepsy. The classic example is the handshake interruption.

A handshake is an automatic, single unit of behavior in a person's consciousness. If you and I shake hands and we ask somebody "What did we do?" he'll say "You shook hands." That verbal coding suggests that it's a single unit of behavior, and in fact it is. (He repeatedly reaches out his hand to Sue, then stops.) Even though Sue knows now that I am just playing each time I reach my hand out to her, that visual input stimulates her to extend her hand because it is part of a single unit of behavior that she has programmed in herself. If she had to consciously think about what my extended hand meant and then consciously respond, it would be extremely inefficient and clumsy.

Each of us has thousands of such automatic programs. All you have to do is notice which ones arc really automatic in the person, and then interrupt one of those. As I extend my arm to make the handshake, she will extend hers. Then I interrupt by catching her wrist with my left hand and moving her hand slightly up. She will be momentarily caught without a program because there isn't any next step. If you interrupt a single unit of behavior, a person doesn't have any next step to go to. The person has never had to go from the middle of a handshake to anything else. You are now at a leverage point. All you do is supply the appropriate instruction, which they will typically follow, In this case, it could be "Allow your arm to float down, but only as quickly as you sink deeply into a trance. , . ."

Sue: Can you give me a distinction between leverage and pattern interruption?

The distinction is more in the way you organize your perceptions than in the actual experience. Leverages create a situation in which a person is put in the unusual position of already exhibiting some trance phenomenon, for example, catalepsy. Then you use verbal linkage to attach that present behavior to whatever else you want to develop.

An interruption involves putting a person in a situation where he is engaging in a single unit of behavior, for example, a handshake. You interrupt that single unit of behavior, and he is stuck, at least momentarily. As far as I know, no one in this room has ever gone from the middle of a handshake to some other piece of behavior, because handshakes don't have middles. Handshakes did have middles when we were about three or four years old and we went through a complex perceptual–motor program of learning how to shake hands with adults. At one time there were pieces to that behavior, just as there were pieces to walking at one point in your life. However, those are now such well–coded and well–practiced unconscious behaviors, that they don't have middles anymore. If you can catch a person in the middle of something that doesn't have a middle, they are stopped. At that point, you can supply instructions about how to proceed from that impossible position to the response that you want to develop.

The distinction between leverage and pattern interruption is a perceptual distinction on the hypnotist's part. In leverage you create some unusual behavior by your maneuvers and then you attach the response you want to develop to this behavior, as a way for them to get out of that leverage position. Pattern interruption means finding a single unit of repetitive behavior in the client and then interrupting it in the middle. Since it has the status of a single unit in consciousness, they have no programs forgoing from the middle of it to anything else. I will then supply the program.

When I walked over to Al and said "May I borrow your arm?" I didn't wait fora conscious response; I just reached over and lifted his arm. He could have taken it down and said "No." That's a possibility. That kind of response isn't possible with interruption, and that's one distinction between interruption and leverage. With leverage, I create a situation in which I surprise a person by getting him into an unusual situation such as catalepsy. With an interruption, he doesn't exercise any choice, because it is a single unit of behavior; suddenly he is in the middle of it, and it's not going on to the end.

Kevin: It seems to me that one of the presuppositions that we have in this room is that sooner or later one goes into a trance. That is different in the external world. In other words, if I meet somebody on the street and go to interrupt the handshake, it's going to be a little bit more difficult.

I agree there are different presuppositions going on here than in the outside world. I would guess it would be much easier there. In here you are alerted that there will be some unusual things happening. Alerting your conscious mind in that way makes my task as a hypnotist more difficult. If you are alerted to the fact that we are going to do something like hypnosis here, it gives you choices about whether you are going to participate or not. I'll guarantee that if you walk out into the hotel lobby and extend your hand congruently and interrupt the handshake, the person will be totally stopped.

You can experiment with other patterns as well. The next time someone greets you and says "Hi, how are you?" try saying "Terrible, just awful. I'm afraid I may die!" and see what they do. In this culture the usual ritualized response to that greeting is "Fine." Most people don't have ways of responding to any other answer, and will experience an interruption. This is particularly true in a business or professional context.

For most smokers, the act of taking out a cigarette and lighting it is a totally unconscious single unit of behavior. If you interrupt that by removing the cigarette from their hands, you will get the same kind of response.

It is much easier to do this with people who aren't alerted to the fact that you are working on hypnotic patterning than it is in a group like this. If some of you are skeptical about that, please entertain yourself by practicing it here effectively, and then go out and test for yourself whether or not it is easier or more difficult with clients and strangers.

Man: What would you say once you got somebody's hand up who wasn't expecting it at all? If you were just on the street and walked up to somebody and interrupted a handshake, how would you proceed?

Well, what are you trying to do? What is your outcome? The answer is that you supply verbalizations for the outcome you want to develop, as a way for that person to escape from the impossible situation you put him in.

Man: Well, say you were just experimenting with a person.

Well, assuming that we set aside the issue of whether it is appropriate to go out and experiment on the unwitting public, as opposed to someone who comes to you and requests assistance, then what I would do is say "And allow your hand to go down until it contacts mine, at which point you will grasp it and shake hands as if nothing unusual had happened." So his hand goes down and you wait until it gets near yours. Then you grab it and say "Yeah, it's a pleasure." That way he will tend to be amnesic for the experience, and you won't encounter any negative response after you've completed the handshake.

Woman: Why will he be amnesic?

Well, because it's a single unit of behavior. What could happen inside of a handshake? If you offer these kinds of suggestions, and then complete the handshake as if nothing had happened, his consciousness will probably be simply that he met somebody.

Man: I've seen Groucho Marx on old reruns of his program, and often he did something similar. He would reach out to shake hands, and when the other person's hand came up, he'd pull his back. As soon as the other person would pull his hand back, he'd put his out again.

Woman: I would presume that people would come out of it almost instantly after you get their hands, and they would wonder what in the world was happening.

They will, if you do nothing but interrupt the handshake. That's the point of supplying verbal instructions about what you want to occur next. People can find a way out of an impossible situation, like an interrupted handshake, given enough time. I believe everybody's capable of that. I've tested that, and the length of time has ranged from about ten seconds, when the person recovers and says "That was weird," to five or ten minutes, where people have stood there until they found a way out of that impossible situation.

David: Was it important in your mind for me to not remember what happened while I was in that state?

No. It wasn't important to me.

David: Because I did remember it, but I also felt that in no way did that take away from what was happening.

Ron: Is it interruption when you expect to hear somebody and you don't, either like Milton Erickson's mumbling or when someone's voice drops and becomes inaudible?

The answer is in feedback. That would be an interruption for some people and not for others. Everybody is interrupted by a handshake interruption, but some people have a lot of ways to recover from unanticipated auditory experiences. You will discover that with people who are sophisticated auditorily, it won't have the interruptive effect. For people who are attending to you auditorily at that moment and don't have a lot of sophistication, it will.

For example, have you noticed how this TV monitor? . . ,

Now, the different times at which people laughed is a pretty good indication of how long each of you takes to recover from impossible auditory situations. That was a sentence fragment; it wasn't a sentence. So if you felt that waiting for a completion… . That is the interruption phenomenon.

Man: Is this the same pattern Milton Erickson used when he actually did shake hands with a woman, and then led her into a trance?

No. That was kinesthetic ambiguity. That's a different kind of interruption. If I reach out and I shake your hand normally, at the end of a certain period of time we're supposed to release. If I fail to release, or if, as Erickson did, I begin to release but release ambiguously, in such a way that you don't know exactly when I make the last touch, you'll be suspended without a next program. If you read Erickson's account of that, what he did was release his hand with varying touches so that the woman wasn't sure when he actually broke the contact. The last thing Erickson did before releasing completely was to make a slight push upward at the wrist, which got catalepsy. It's the same principle as holding up someone's arm and jiggling it until his muscles take over and hold the arm up.

Norma: What about incongruence as a pattern interruption?

That's an excellent way to do it. Funny that Norma would be the one to mention that. I know from other contacts with Norma that she has a really exquisitely refined strategy for congruency checks. That's a very important strategy for anybody who is a professional communicator to have. It does, however, leave her open to certain manipulations. If you present some material congruently and suddenly … (He continues gesturing and mouthing words, but without sound.) If you continue to present it as if nothing had happened but you simply cut out one channel, in this case auditory, she almost falls forward off the chair. The congruency check strategy she is using as she listens and watches somebody communicate demands that movement of the lips be associated with some sound so that she can make a congruency check. If there is no sound, it really interrupts her program.

If you know about the class of information we call "strategies" (See the book Neuro–Linguistic Programming Volume I) you have access to a really elegant way of doing pattern interruption. If you interrupt someone's key strategy, you get a more profound interruption. Those interruptions really hold.

Man: You could also feed people numbers that they're used to getting in certain chunks, like the social security number, in chunks they're not used to. The social security number is usually given in chunks of three, two, and four numbers.

Yes, or you can use telephone numbers. Seven eight two four … three six seven. You can tell what strategy the person uses by their response. If they use a tonal pattern for storing telephone numbers, presenting the numbers chunked differently will totally interrupt them. If they do it purely visually, typically it won't have nearly as much effect.

Pattern interruption can be used in any competitive sport. You can notice that every time you make a certain move, you get a certain response. Then you can interrupt that pattern to gain an advantage.

My wife, Judy, is really good with saber. She will set up a movement pattern and run the pattern half a dozen times to discover what regular response her opponent makes. When she knows what response she's going to get to this pattern, she figures out what response to that response will succeed in her making a hit. Or she'll begin the gesture and then interrupt it. Her opponent will have already committed himself to some response to Judy's gesture, and she can then utilize that. Boxers do this too. They set up a pattern and then interrupt it.

If you've watched Bjorn Borg play tennis, you know that he wastes no energy. He organizes his consciousness in a very narrow band. It doesn't matter whether the crowd is going crazy cheering or booing; he doesn't hear any of that. There is no difference in his response whether he misses or makes an easy shot. He simply turns around and re–anchors himself—he twirls the handle of his racket as he walks back to begin the next play. He wastes no energy at all; he's entirely concentrated on essentials. That concentration protects him from psychological maneuvers by opponents. If you can interrupt somebody else's altered state—the one that they need to perform well–then they will play poorly, and you may be able to beat them.

There are lots of applications of the principle of pattern interruption. Anything "unexpected" will get you that response. During that period when a person goes "on hold" because you have just done something wholly irrelevant or unexpected, that's the time to offer them clear suggestions about what response you want next.

You have to practice these techniques until you are personally powerful and congruent in carrying them out. You need to act in all of your behavior—verbal and nonverbal—as if this is going to happen, and it happens. As soon as you can present yourself fully congruently in making the maneuver, your job is to detect what response you get. You've got to have feedback. None of the generalizations that we offer you will always work. They always have to be adjusted to the feedback that you get.

Overload

About twenty–five years ago, George Miller summarized a huge amount of both human and animal perceptual research in his classic paper 'The Magic Number 7 ± 2." Human beings have the capacity to consciously attend to about seven "chunks" of information at one time, Beyond that number, a person becomes overloaded and starts to make mistakes. If I tell you a sequence of seven numbers, you can probably hold that in consciousness without error. If I give you a sequence of nine numbers, you will find it much more difficult to recall them correctly, and will start to make mistakes. Each number is a "chunk" of information. However, if you—or I —divide the nine digits into three groups of three, you will be able to recall the nine numbers much more easily. Now there are only three chunks of three digits each. By grouping information in larger chunks, it becomes possible to deal with more information with the same 7± 2 chunks of conscious attention. You can consciously attend to seven leaves, seven twigs, seven branches, seven trees, or seven forests. How much you can attend to depends upon the size of the chunk of information that you are dealing with.

Whatever chunk size you choose, when you are paying conscious attention to7±2 chunks of information, anything else will not be processed consciously. Anything beyond 7±2 chunks of information becomes overload and will be processed unconsciously.

An example of this happened in another workshop. I asked for someone who had a way of remembering names that worked exquisitely. A woman named Carla had one, so 1 had her come up to the front. Ann Teachworth was sitting in the audience, and I said to Carla "Do you happen to know this woman over here?" and I pointed to Ann. Carla said "No," When Carla was introduced to someone her pupils dilated and she made an internal image of the person's name on her forehead, Then every time she saw her again, her pupils would dilate slightly and she would see the name written there on her forehead. That was the way she always knew someone's name, and it worked very well. Since I know what she does, I know where in the sequence of Carla's experience she will be unable to consciously represent any additional input: when her attention is oriented inward and all of her 7± 2 chunks of attention are occupied with visualizing the person's name on her forehead.

I said to Carla "Look at the woman over there. Her name is Ann …"I paused, saw her pupils dilate, and then said "Teachworth." She heard "Ann" and visually wrote it on Ann's forehead. Then I asked her "What's that woman's name?" Her pupils dilated again and she said "Ann." I said "Do you know what her last name is?" She said "No, you didn't tell me." When your timing and your sensory experience are refined enough that you know when a person's attention is inwardly oriented and when it's not, you can introduce anything you want. When someone is oriented inward, she will respond appropriately to your suggestions because you bypass her conscious mind. There's no way for her to filter or defend against such suggestions.

At that point I said "Her name is Ann Teachworth" and Carla said "Oh! Now I remember." That was an elegant demonstration that although she didn't have it available in conscious awareness because it didn't go through her name–remembering process, it was there. She recognized Ann's last name when she heard it, so it had been processed and remembered unconsciously.

Whenever a person's conscious processing is overloaded, you can pass information directly to the unconscious, and the person will respond to that information. The easiest way to overload someone's attention is by having her pay attention to a complex internal experience.

I used an overload technique the second time I ever officially induced a trance. I'll demonstrate. Would you come up for a second, Bill, and stand here?

"OK, would you close your eyes? Now what I would like you to do is to softly, out loud, begin to count backwards from two hundred by threes. And as you do that, I'm going to put my hands on your shoulders and turn you around in circles. If at any point you discover it is more comfortable for you to simply drop into a nice deep trance, do so with the full realization that you are in good hands."

By doing this, I create an overload by occupying all of his representational systems. He's using visualization as a way of helping himself count backwards. Auditorily he's saying the numbers to himself. I disorient him kinesthetically by turning him in circles. He's now overloading himself with things to attend to, so I don't have to.

I could just as well have said "Now turn slowly in a circle." However, if I turn him with my hands on his shoulders, I get a lot of tactile feedback about when he's changing states and what kind of state he's going into. I also give him something else to attend to kinesthetically: the feeling of my hands on his shoulders.

To make sure that overload works, you make sure that all systems are engaged. If he's busy visualizing and counting off the numbers while he's being disoriented kinesthetically, I can offer suggestions which will go right past his consciousness into the unconscious. If I say something that distracts him from the task, I will immediately know it, because he's counting out loud. There's a built–in feedback mechanism in this traditional method. If he stops counting, I know he's either dropped into a deep trance, or he's shaken off the disorientation and is consciously listening to the suggestions I am attempting to pass to the unconscious. Then I'll either insist that he continue to count, or I'll notice that he is in deep trance, stop fooling around, and go to work.

This is a really traditional trance induction, by the way. I read this particular method in a book years ago, and having had no experience of it, just followed the instructions as if I knew what I was doing. It was only some years later that I figured out what the principle was, so that I could generalize from that specific method to overloading someone in a variety of ways. The way we teach in these workshops is designed to do exactly the same thing, because we arc interested in passing most of the messages to you at the unconscious level.

You can use any complicated task to occupy a person and distract his consciousness while you disorient him. Then you offer a very direct, immediate, and easy–to–follow instruction like "If at any point it is easier for you to simply drop into a deep trance, then do so and enjoy it with the full realization you are secure in your present position… ."

Here's another variation. I take Jack's hand here, and I want to overload him. So I say "All you have to do is sit here comfortably. I'm going to touch different fingers and your thumb, and I'm going to name the one I'm touching. Your job is to simply decide whether I'm doing this correctly or incorrectly."

Then I begin touching and labeling. "Forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, little finger, thumb. Middle finger, forefinger, ring finger, thumb." (He touches the little finger.)

Each time I "make a "mistake" he will do what he just did: his pupils dilated and there was a hesitation in his breathing. He had to take some time to compute. It took him longer to decide that I had made a "mistake" than it took him to decide earlier that I was correct.

If I were to continue, I would gradually become more and more "incorrect." Soon he would be overwhelmed by the complexity, and in defense, he would go into a deep trance. At that point I would say "As I touch your ring finger this time" — and I would touch the wrong finger — "you are more relaxed." I would continue to overload, and go on to introduce additional suggestions about the specific kinds of overt responses I want—those that indicate he is going into a trance.

I am giving the person input in all three channels simultaneously and demanding that he make a judgement about whether the auditory input matches the visual and kinesthetic input. He will soon give up, and essentially say "OK, tell me what you want me to do."

Instead of overloading all representational systems, you can give the person such a complex task in one or two systems that it occupies all of his 7± 2 chunks of conscious attention. You can ask the person to count backwards from a thousand by one–thirds, visualizing each one of the fractions with a different color for the top of the fraction, the bar, and the bottom of the fraction. Each successive fraction has to have a new color for the bar and for each number. Then you can add suggestions like "With each number you will go deeper." These are all ways of manipulating a person in such a way that you are overloading his input channels and thus his ability to make sense out of what you are doing.

Woman: Is the double induction that you describe in the book Patterns II an example of overload?

Yes, the double induction is a special case of what I've just been doing. That's where you use two people to overload one person. It works really quickly. You get a lot of overload, you get it quickly, and you get a very powerful response. We first began doing double inductions accidentally in workshops and noticed what a powerful response we got. So we started employing it in our private practice just to find out how we could use it.

About six months later Carlos Castaneda's book Journey to Ixtlan was published. Near the end of the book is a really vivid description of a double induction. Don Juan is talking into one ear, and Don Genaro is talking into the other ear simultaneously. The descriptions we had gotten from people that we had done double inductions with before I read the book matched the description that Carlos gave perfectly— feeling split down the center of his body, and so forth.

You can tell from the description in the book that Carlos is what we call a "derived kino." He takes images and words and pays most attention to the feelings that he derives from them. With such a person, the double auditory input really does cause a sensation of kinesthetic splitting. Each message will be processed by the opposite hemisphere, and the derived feelings will be experienced in the same half of the body as the auditory input. The difference in the auditory input to the two ears will be represented differently in the two halves of the body. The differences in those two kinesthetic representations will be most evident at the mid–line, giving an experience of being split or divided.

Leverage inductions, pattern interruption, and overload are all similar in that they give you ways of getting a wedge in the other person's experience to start the process. You use those methods to break the state of consciousness he walks in with, in favor of a more fluid state. Once you have overloaded, interrupted, or created a leverage situation, you simply become more directive, and link that situation with what you want to develop. "And as whatever is going on continues, you will find your eyes becoming drowsy and beginning to close and develop a deeply relaxed state." You proceed to develop a trance, and then go on to use the trance state as a context for the change work that you want to accomplish.

Personal Power

Another induction method is just straight personal power. You just congruently tell somebody to go into a trance. If they go into a trance, fine. If they don't, you wait until they do. Of course, all the other patterns—nonverbal mirroring, etc. — are available to you at the same time. If you tell someone to go into a trance, and your behavior is absolutely one hundred percent congruent that they are going to go into a trance, they will. You have to be completely congruent for this maneuver to work. If you are congruent in your expectations, you will elicit the appropriate response.

There are additional maneuvers you can add that allow you to be more effective. If the person replies "I really want to, but I'm notable to"you say"Of course, you aren't able to. I'm waiting for him, " So you dismiss the conscious response in favor of waiting for something else to emerge. If he objects, and you don't respond but just wait expectantly, he is likely to go back and try to go into trance again, until he gets it right.

A meta–strategy for creating congruency in yourself is to remember that you can fail only if you set a time limit on yourself. Most people think they have failed if they don't get a deep trance instantly. That's only a signal that you have to do more, or try something different.

If you have any personal hesitations or incongruencies about what you allow yourself to do, a way to create congruency in yourself is to use the language pattern called "quotes." You can say "Let me tell you about the last time I went to Phoenix to see Milton Erickson. I walked into Milton's office, and then Milton came rolling into the room in his wheelchair, and he looked at me and said "Go into a trance!' " When you use quotes, you set a frame around your behavior that says "This is not me; this is a report of an experience I had." However, of course, you deliver any induction you want to with full force. If you get the trance response, great; you utilize it. If you don't get the response, and you are unwilling to continue until you do, then you can always dismiss it. 'That's what Milton said to me; of course I wouldn't do that myself." The pattern of quotes is a really nice way totry on new behavior that you are unsure of. You can allow yourself to know what it would be like if you were able to do it, by actually doing it as if you were someone else.

Slacking Realities

Another induction procedure is called "stacking realities." I guess the easiest way to explain a stacked reality is to tell you about doing a group in Michigan once. I was sitting there in Weber's Inn, talking to a group of people about metaphor. And as I began to talk to them about metaphor, it reminded me of a story that Milton Erickson had told me about a group that he had done once at the University of Chicago, in which there were a large number of people sitting around just like this in a sort of semi–circle, and he was up at the front. Now, as he sat there talking to this group of people at the University of Chicago, the story that seemed most appropriate at that point in time was a story that his father had told him about his grandfather who came from Sweden. His grandfather Sven was running a dairy in Sweden, and he found that the cows settled down better if he talked to them in a calm, soothing voice about whatever was on his mind… .

What I've done is to embed story inside of story inside of story until I overload your conscious capacity to keep track of which statement refers to which thing. Even in a sophisticated group of people like this, if I were to go on with the story now and deliver induction messages inside of the story, it would be difficult for you to know which of the realities I was referring to. Am I talking about Grandfather Sven talking to the cows, Erickson talking to a group in Chicago, Erickson's father telling him a story, or is it me talking to you? While your conscious mind is trying to figure that out, your unconscious will be responding.

Let's take an example that is more related to therapy. Let's say a woman comes to see me and says "I have this presenting problem X." I invite her to notice the wind moving the tops of the redwood trees as she looks out of the office window, and begin to relate to her a story about a young woman who had once come to me and sat in that very chair and had watched … closely … the tops of the same redwoods waving … not pushed, of course, by the same wind … back and forth … and that young woman had fallen into a deep reverie, and even as she was listening to the tone of my voice, she remembered a dream in which she had gone to the country to visit someone … someone special who had made her feel particularly comfortable… .

I've just included the beginning of a hypnotic induction inside of the stacked reality. With the stacked reality I overload the person's conscious ability to keep track of what level of reality I'm now operating on. The result then is a confusion, but typically a much more gentle confusion than you get with sensory overload. One way to increase this effect is to incorporate aspects of present reality into the story. The redwoods exist in present reality as well as in the story, so if I talk about the redwoods, it is easy to go back and forth between the two realities. Soon a client gives up trying to keep track of which reality I'm talking about.

Inside of any of those realities, I can then embed a process instruction to make changes. "And as I talked to that young woman who had come to visit me … even as she had her dream … the contents of which I didn't know, nor did I need to … it was only important that she did … and the changes which are attendant upon such dreams … would manifest themselves in a graceful way in her future behavior. Even as I watched her in her dream …I remembered something that had happened once when I visited an old friend of mine in Phoenix, Arizona."

Now I'm doing two things: I'm stacking realities so it's impossible for her to keep track, and I'm giving her instructions about what she should do while I continue—namely to have a dream which changes her behaviour in a graceful way. etc. If there happens to be another person in the office, I'm all set up to do a direct induction. I'll look at the second person and say "And Milton looked at me, and he said 'Sleeepp' … only as long as you need to … to enjoy … perfectly … making a change which will surprise and delight you … the contents of which will not be available until you notice it … in your actual behavior … sometime within the next twenty–four hours … because it's always delightful to be surprised by your unconscious … and so Milton then said to that person that he could of course … at any point … where it was useful … and when his unconscious mind was satisfied … that it had identified a particular change . , . which would be of use to him … he could simply. . , with a sense of refreshment … slowly return … to the level of reality which was most appropriate for him in learning important things. …"

In all of this, I'm presupposing several very important things: (I) personal power: I am congruent in doing whatever I am doing, and (2) rapport: I have tuned myself to the person well enough that they come to trust me as an agent of change.

When you have achieved that, then you can always embed a direct command for a hypnotic response, including a deep trance. The stacked reality gives you an opportunity to create rapport and evaluate the responses you get. Stacked reality overloads more gently than the other kinds of confusion and overload techniques. It also gives you the occasion, since anything can happen in a story, of incorporating an entire induction and utilization. Of course you would need to take more time than I just took to do it smoothly.

The stacked reality can have several functions. It not only gives me an excuse for presenting something in a story which otherwise might be resisted by the person's conscious mind, it can also trigger me into the appropriate behavior, voice tone shifts, etc., for inducing a trance. As I talk about Erickson and I hear myself using the same voice tone that he uses, it makes all my experience with Erickson immediately available to me at the unconscious level. I can't think of a better model for doing hypnotic inductions than Milton Erickson.

A project I might suggest to some of you who would like to work together, is to build a very general, open metaphor designed for a trance induction. Build a set of stacked realities inside which you can embed a very general hypnotic induction. By an open metaphor, I mean that you know in general where you are going. You know where you are going to begin: you know the cast of characters. There are going to be some general interactions, and you are pretty sure about the general outcome you are headed toward. However, you leave the stories open enough that you can incorporate any response that occurs. You always have the choice of shifting to another "reality" if you're not getting the response you want.

Using stacked realities provides an ambiguous frame for what you're doing. Within that frame you can use any or all of the other techniques and maneuvers that we are teaching you.

Exercise 6

I have just demonstrated five more kinds of inductions: (1) Leverage Inductions; (2) Pattern Interruption; (3) Overload; (4) Personal Power, and (5) Stacking Realities. In a moment I'm going to ask you to get into small groups and try them out with each other.

Let me recommend that you do yourself a favor and select something new to try out. You already know how to do what you know how to do. Some people come to our seminars and learn to do what they already know well, all over again. I recommend that you select either an induction method that you are totally unfamiliar with, or one that you have heard about but haven't practiced, When you do that, you will increase your repertoire. The more ways you have to achieve a particular outcome, the more successful you will be with a wider range of people. Some methods are very effective with some people, but not with others. If you have many ways of inducing a trance, you will find that everyone is hypnotizable.

I want you to get into groups of three again. A will pick a method of induction that is new for her, and use it to induce a trance in B. The third person, C, is going to observe B's responses that indicate a change in state. There will be changes in pupil dilation, skin color, breathing, muscle tonus, etc. Cs job is to detect those changes.

A, after you have induced a trance, I want you to add four other steps:

1) Set up some obvious signal that will indicate to you when the person is stabilized at an appropriate level of trance. "Continue … deepening … your trance …to the point that you find most relaxing … and then you can indicate … that you have now reached the point where you desire to stabilize … by a simple, honest, and unconscious nodding of the head or … a lifting of the right or the left arm …a few inches off of your thigh. …"

2) When he gets there, offer him some very general set of instructions for learning "Now, I would be delighted …to notice … how well

your unconscious mind chooses some particularly positive experience

… which you have not thought about in years … and allows you the pleasure of once again seeing … and hearing … and recovering the feelings … to your delight … of that lost experience … which involved … very positive sorts of experiences on your part."

Or you can say "I would like your unconscious mind to present you with an image or a feeling or a sound … of something that you would particularly enjoy creating for yourself … as an experience … sometime within the next few days … as a way of preparing yourself to carry out … the learnings you are making …in this workshop." It doesn't matter what the content is. Stay out of content. Make general suggestions that he do something inside of that trance state so that he has an experience which unequivocally indicates to him that he was in a new state of consciousness. Some of you may have a specific request about what you want to do when you get into trance. You might mention that to the others in your group before you start.

While you're giving a general learning instruction, you might add things like "And with each breath, you continue to get … deeper or stabilize yourself at the most comfortable level of trance … for you and for the purposes that you have." Don't include any content; let him choose the content. Just give him general instructions to make unconscious choices and learnings.

3) Whatever general suggestions you give, add some statement that provides you with feedback. "And when your unconscious mind has completed offering you that experience, simply indicate that it has by allowing one or both arms to float up with honest, unconscious movements, or by causing your eyes to suddenly flutter open as you have a sense of refreshment and delight that you have accomplished what it was that you were after." This builds in a signal for him to let you know he has completed the little piece of work that he was going to do in the altered state.

4) When you get that signal, you need to build a way for him to get back out of trance. "Now I am going to count slowly backwards from ten to one" or "I'm going to reach over in a moment and touch you on the shoulder." This tells him what is about to happen, and gives him some time to prepare himself. "And when I reach 'one' your eyes will flutter open, and you will awake feeling delighted by your experience, refreshed and renewed by what just happened, and ready to begin again learning something new."

As an alternative, you could lift his arm, which will be cataleptic, and say "And your unconscious mind can allow that arm to go down no faster than you drift back to this particular reality, bringing with you any sense of accomplishment, any sense of refreshment and renewal from this experience." Or "When I touch you on the shoulder, you'll feel a sudden surge of quiet energy which will give you a tingling sense of well–being as your eyes flutter open and you reorient to this place and time."

Any questions?

Woman: You gave us too much!

I gave you a lot. You'll be surprised at how much you'll remember as you go through, step–by–step, inducing a trance, giving general learning instructions, and bringing him back. OK. Go ahead.

Incorporation and Dealing with Abreactions

There is another very important general pattern that I want to talk about called incorporation. If something significant occurs, whether it's something internal—a profound response develops in the client— or something external—suddenly a door slams or someone walks by and bumps the chair that the client is sitting in—the least effective thing to do is pretend it didn't happen. You will then lose credibility and rapport with the client, because he needs to know that you are alert enough to notice what his experience is. When something happens, your next verbalization should immediately incorporate it.

In one of your practice groups, Cathy talked about hearing the buzz of the background conversation as she was going into a trance. What does that suggest to you metaphorically?

Woman: Bees.

Sure. You can incorporate the buzzing sound by saying "And the buzz of the conversation in the room can remind you of a pleasantly warm summer day. You hear the sound of the honeybees as you lie in the cool grass, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on your face." That's one way you can incorporate.

Woman: What if the person had a phobia of bees?

If you are watching you will know immediately from his response if he has a phobia of bees.

Woman: What would you do if that happened, though? You immediately incorporate that: "And you can know that those bees are bees that come from another time and place, and that you arc sitting comfortably here in this room." You take him out of the situation where it is dangerous for him and reorient him to the present time and place. Or you can make him a bee. Have him buzz around a little bit himself. To bee or not to be.

There's no way of knowing ahead of time if a metaphor that you are going to use, or a particular maneuver you are going to try, is going to trigger a phobia or some other traumatic experience. You have to use feedback to know if the maneuver you are making is appropriate. As long as you are constantly observing the client, you will know immediately if something unpleasant happens.

The other major way to incorporate is the following: "And that loud slam of the door you just heard will allow you to be even more comfortable as you sit here listening to the sound of my voice." You begin by simply stating what happened, and then connect that to the response you want to develop.

After the last exercise a man came up to me and said that as he was going through this experience, he felt himself going into a trance, and then he suddenly felt his body jar and pulled himself back. Now he had a reason why he did that; he said it was as if he didn't want to go any deeper. His response would have been very different if the person who had been talking to him had noticed those involuntary movements and had said to him "Sometimes as you begin to go into an altered state, your body begins to jar itself slightly, just like sometimes when you're very tired, and you're going to sleep, just before you drop off your body begins to twitch involuntarily. It's only an indication that you're just about to go really deeply into an altered state." You see, there's nothing in human experience which necessarily means anything, so you can make it mean whatever you want.

Now what about strong internal responses? All of you who operate as hypnotists need to have ways of taking care of abreactions: intense unpleasant responses that sometimes occur as a person goes into a trance. Let me put this into perspective. One of the unconscious motivations that causes people to specialize in one state of consciousness to the relative exclusion of others, is that they have stored massive amounts of unpleasant or incongruent experience in a representational system that is excluded from consciousness. If you are going to specialize in certain states of consciousness, one way to protect yourself from experiences which are painful for you to consider is to put them into the system that is out of consciousness. Then you get at least temporary relief at the conscious level. The unconscious mind holds back material that would be potentially overwhelming to the conscious mind. This is appropriate, and is one of the functions of the unconscious.

So if you alter someone's state and make available an unconscious system, it may be that the material most immediately available will be junk. In gestalt terms, it's unfinished business. In TA terms, it's material for redecision. Painful memories have been re–experienced so frequently in the history of official hypnosis that this phenomenon has been officially labeled "abreaction." My understanding is that an abreaction is simply the most natural response to suddenly uncovering a system which contains material from the past that is painful or overwhelming.

Now what if someone has an "abreaction?" Let's say he bursts into tears. Being quite alert at the sensory level, you notice this. Now what do you do?

Jack: Wouldn't you do the same thing you just talked about doing for external interruptions? I'd start by pacing what I observed happening.

Absolutely. That's exactly what I would do as well. First you pace. You say "You are having feelings of discomfort and they are very uncomfortable." You have accepted his response. He doesn't have to fight with you about the validity of his own experience. You've given him a verbal pacing statement of what his experience is. "And you are crying … and those tears are representative of pain and discomfort from your past . . — and you are very uncomfortable. … As you remember … these particular feelings and they again come into your body …I would like you to consider the following… . Each of us, in our own personal history has had many, many experiences, some of which we label as unpleasant… . Those unpleasant experiences often form the basis … for later abilities … and skills … which people who have never been challenged by such experiences … fail to develop. … How pleasant it is … to experience discomfort from the past . , . with the full realization … that you survived those experiences, and that they form a rounded set of experiences from which you can generate more adequate behavior in the present."

So after pacing I did what we call a "content reframe." What I just said changed the meaning of what was occurring. Rather than just being unpleasant experiences, the memories are now the basis for knowledge and skills.

Man: After you pace, could you put that part of him in front of him ana nave him observe what happened in the past?

Excellent. "I want you to .see yourself at that particular age and have a sense of curiosity about what specifically happened … with your eyes and ears now open to what occurred and a sense of comfort in knowing that you survived it." That would create a dissociation from the unpleasant feeling as well as a content reframe. That's the basis for the NLP technique for curing phobias, described in detail in Frogs into Princes–Man: The person that I was doing the exercise with got into something very quickly. His eyes started doing lots of rapid eye movement, his head was moving back and forth, his arm started to move, and I saw a lot of tension in his jaw. I was really confused. I didn't know whether or not this was an unpleasant experience, resistance to being hypnotized, or something else. I'd like some suggestions.

This brings up the importance of making the distinction between interpretations and sensory–grounded experience. "Increased tension in the muscles along the jaw line" and "head moving back and forth" are sensory–grounded descriptions, in contrast to the last two things that you mentioned. "Unpleasant experience" and "resistance to being hypnotized" are in the realm of hallucinations and guesses. Hallucinating is fine—in fact it is an important part of the art. However I really insist that you all make a clear distinction between when you are using sensory–grounded descriptions and when you are hallucinating.

Rather than spending your time internally trying to figure out what interpretation is appropriate, you can simply begin to verbalize sensory–grounded descriptions of what you can see and hear. You can describe muscle tension, tears, body posture, or breathing, etc. That will maintain rapport by pacing and matching their experience.

You have the choice of saying something like "And what a strong experience that was, and you were a bit surprised, were you not?" Or "And these signals which you have offered me on the outside have a powerful connection with the rich internal experience that you are presently having."

Often when a person first goes into a trance, his muscles relax, and you will notice an increase of moisture in his eyes, or a few tears. Don't hallucinate. It may mean that he is really sad, or it may mean that he is just relaxing. For you to decide which it is would be to impose your own belief and value system. Stay out of the content, and simply mention the obvious. "And as that tear trickles down your cheek, you have a growing sense of comfort and security, knowing that you are fully protected." There's no necessary connection between the tear going down the cheek and comfort. However, as long as you begin with an immediately verifiable sensory–grounded description—the tear going down —and then connect it with the response you would like to develop, you utilize what occurs to lead the person where you want him to go.

Joan: I inadvertently used a very powerful word for my partner. I asked him to think of his hands as being "disembodied," He immediately went into this thing of carrying around a very heavy disembodied arm. When that word came out of my mouth, I realized that it was wrong, but I didn't know how to correct it.

Well, first of all, reorganize your own representation. There was nothing to correct. You see, there are no mistakes in communication, Joan. There are only responses or outcomes that you get by your communication. The response that you got wasn't the one that you wanted. That doesn't make it a mistake; it just makes it the next step in getting the response that you do want.

You noticed that when you mentioned the words "disembodied arm" you got a violent response. Given the principle of incorporation, what do you do? You immediately say "And that really upsets you." That is one choice. Notice that it's not a sensory–grounded statement. I am making a guess that the name of the experience that I've just elicited would fit into the general, vague category called "upset."

If you don't trust yourself to make those guesses, then you stay completely general. "And you really have a response to that. And there are many responses that you might learn to make to that particular item." You don't even know what he was responding to, so you say "that particular item." Or "You might consider how your close friend would respond to that idea in a way which is different from the way that you just did." Again, you are incorporating.

If you want to stay very general, you say "You have a very powerful response." That will always pace appropriately. You aren't even saying if the experience is positive or negative—only that it exists. If you stay very general you will always be right.

If you guess that the person is experiencing something unpleasant, after you pace you can say "And how pleasant it is to remember the unpleasant experiences of the past and have the sense of satisfaction of having survived those things so that they need never happen again." Or "And how unpleasant certain experiences are… . Knowing that such unpleasant experiences form the foundation … for present strengths … it is quite pleasant (voice tone shift) … to remember how unpleasant … some of our previous experiences have been,"

This is called content rcframing. (See the book Reframing.) You are taking a response and you are putting it in a bigger context in which the response and the experience itself now become a positive foundation upon which other responses can be built. You have accepted the behavior absolutely. That's there; you don't tamper with it. And then you put it in a frame that says to use it constructively.

You can also take measures in advance to insure that whatever material initially emerges will be pleasant, so that you associate positive experiences with altered states of consciousness. Then later you can learn to deal with the other unpleasant stuff that may be there.

An easy way to avoid the abreaction difficulty is to look meaningfully at the client before you begin and say "Your unconscious mind has protected you–which is its prerogative and its duty—during your entire life, from material from your personal history that might be painful or overwhelming if it were to become conscious. I call upon your unconscious mind to continue to perform that function as it has in the past. And as you alter your consciousness, the first experiences that you have will be designed specifically to remember and uncover and enjoy once again some positive and delightful part of your past. The unpleasant material which is also located in that system can be sorted out and set to the side in a safe place for the time being. Once you have some facility with altered states, unpleasant material can be dealt with in a comfortable and powerful way, because the so–called negative experiences in our past often form the foundation for the very powerful resources that we have in the present, when seen, heard and felt in a new way."

If you do this, you will get the very positive rapport that you need with the other person's unconscious, because you are validating one of its most important functions—protection and you are requesting that it continue to carry out that function as you work with it. You will also have made a special request: that the material that comes up be material that creates a very positive desire on the part of the conscious mind to continue to explore this new dimension of experience.

By the way, there's nothing wrong with abreactions. I'm just saying that it makes sense to find some very powerful pleasant experiences when you begin trance work. A lot of people believe that pain has to be associated with change. If the two become anchored together, people will resist change, because they don't like pain. It's not that they don't like change; it's that they don't like pain. If you make a clear distinction between change and pain, then people can change much more easily. You make your life much easier as an agent of change, because there's no necessary connection between pain and change.

Stan: In other words you are saying that this is mental judo, except that in judo you are always using what the person is doing against them. In this case you would use it for them.

Yes. Stan, would you put your hands together above your head?

Now, would you push with your right hand? Shirley, would you do that for me too? Put your hands together above your head and push with your right hand.

Now, in both cases, when 1 asked them to press with their right hand, they also pressed with their left! This is a kinesthetic metaphor for what's often called "resistance.¹¹ You can push against people, and if you do, you will get resistance which you will then have to work with directly. Or, you can recognize that every response is the best choice that a person has available to them in that context. Rather than push back against it, which will cause an expenditure of energy and time and effort on both people's part and doesn't guarantee any useful response, you can accept it and turn it around.

The same difference appears if you compare American boxing and Oriental martial arts. In the Oriental martial arts you never oppose the force from another person; you take the force and utilize it to move in the trajectory that you want to move anyway. What I just had you do is a very precise kinesthetic metaphor for the difference between some traditional direct–command forms of hypnosis and the kind of patterning that we're teaching you here.

Man: When you notice an abreaction, do you ever ask the client to supply the content?

I don't. Asking for content is a traditional psychotherapeutic choice. I don't need content, so 1 don't ask for it. It slows me down. But each person has needs for feedback, and a belief system about what is appropriate and important. Your clients may have been trained by you or other psychotherapists to believe that they have to talk about the content of their experience. If either one of those conditions is true about the interaction, then you ought to involve content in it to satisfy those needs.

Man: Did Milton Erickson ever ask for content?

I think Erickson's done everything. I'm sure that at some point with some clients, he has gotten lots of content. I've also seen him do pure process, content–free therapy, so I know he had the full range. If you can do pure process work without any content, you already know how to work with content. That gives you the full range of choices about how to proceed.

This afternoon you've done two exercises out of the ten methods we've talked about. You did them very well, and were able to induce relatively nice trances. You won't know any of these other eight induction techniques until you do them. Make yourself a little promise for your own evolution as a human being. I'm only a hypnotist, so this is only a suggestion. As a communicator you owe it to yourself to have lots of choices about securing various outcomes. Make arrangements with friends and / or colleagues, or use your private practice to practice privately, and systematically go through the other ways of getting the same outcome. If you have ten ways to induce a trance, you'll always get it. Using a meta–strategy called "finesse," you can begin one type of induction, and if the response is not emerging quickly enough to suit your needs or the client's needs, you very smoothly go on to the next class of inductions and do one of those. If the response still isn't developing rapidly enough, you go on to the next one. The client's experience will be that you are smoothly going through a number of communications with him. He wilt never know that you tried one method, decided it wasn't working quickly enough, and went on to another.

Benediction

We have attempted to engage your attention today, and to indicate that there arc worlds upon worlds of possibilities that each one of you brought here with you, that we would like to help you find the resources to get access to. Today we have covered a significant number of the patterns that we consider important in successful hypnotic communication and successful communication in general. We have gone through a series of induction techniques, and we ask that you add those techniques to your present unconscious repertoire as alternative ways of accomplishing things that you already know how to accomplish by other methods.

If you felt that we were moving too fast today, covering more material than you could assimilate at the conscious level, let me reassure you that you are absolutely right. That's a deliberate part of the technique that we have evolved in doing this kind of instruction, understanding that your unconscious mind will represent for you anything that you missed consciously. We thank your unconscious mind for its attention, and ask that your unconscious mind make use of a naturally occurring set of states that is going to happen later on for you tonight.

Sometime this evening you are going togoto sleep. During sleep and dreaming, natural integrative processes go on all the time in very dramatic and interesting ways. Sometimes you remember the content of such dreams; sometimes you do not. That's irrelevant with respect to the integrative function that dreaming has. I call upon your unconscious minds, during the natural integrative processes of dreaming and sleep tonight, to make use of that opportunity to sort through the experiences of today. Your unconscious can select and represent those portions of what we or someone else did that were effective in eliciting certain responses that you would like to add to your repertoire.

So your unconscious can sort through the experiences of today, both the ones you are aware of and the ones that were going on outside of your awareness, and store in some useful form whatever it believes would be useful additions to your repertoire, so that in the days and weeks and months to come, you can discover yourself evolving your own behavior, coming up with new choices appropriate for your needs in context, and doing things that you learned here without even knowing about it.

At the same time that you are having these bizarre and unusual dreams, we call upon your unconscious to ensure that you sleep soundly and that you will awaken rested and refreshed, and join us here to being the seminar tomorrow morning in this room.

Thank you for your attention today.