January 2.2021
Ego-Strengthening
The concept of “ego-strengthening” was popularized by John Hartland (1971). His ego-strengthening approach reprinted later simply consisted of generalized supportive suggestions.
Their purpose was to increase the patient’s confidence and belief in him or herself, enhance general coping abilities, and minimize anxiety and worrying.
It was his common practice to give ego-strengthening suggestions as part of almost every induction, seeking to reinforce self-reliance and a positive self-image.
Although not a practitioner of hypnosis, Ban (1977) and others (e.g., Marlatt & Gordon, 1985) have emphasized the concept of self-efficacy: the expectation and confidence of being able to cope successfully with various situation.
This has come to be a key concept in the emerging field of relapse prevention.
Individuals high self-efficacy perceive themselves as being in control.
In the helping professions we have a relatively limited number of interventions available to us for increasing self-esteem and self-efficacy.
We may give patients positive feedback and compliment them, but they often discount such comments.
Cognitive therapists of various persuasions have provided us with some methods for helping patients examine assumptions and irrational thinking patterns that undermine esteem.
Traditional insight-oriented approaches to therapy examine the historic roots of one’s self-image and can be effective but sometimes rather time-consuming.
Behaviourists (Bandura, 1981) emphasize that self-efficacy is increased by engineering success experiences for patients, but this is often quite difficult to accomplish.
Roleplaying and mental rehearsal techniques which may also enhance coping abilities, have more recently been emphasized by behaviorists (Marlatt & Gordon, 1985) as methods for increasing self-efficacy expectations for specific situations.
Hypnosis techniques offer the clinician an abundance of other options for enhancing self-esteem and self-efficacy: rapid unconscious exploration and working through of the roots of self-image problems; obtaining unconscious commitments from the patient (as modeled by Barnett’s approach); direct suggestions and indirect suggestions and metaphors; positively-focused age regression to successful and happy life experience; age progression and mental rehearsal; hypnotic conditioning techniques (e.g., the clenched fist technique); symbolic imagery techniques; methods for altering imprinted ideas (as modeled in one of T.X. Barber’s contributions); the use of trance ratification procedures to convince the patient of the power of his own mind and inner potentials; the use of personalized self-hypnotic self-management skills for coping with anxiety, anger or other emotions; hypnotic
reinforcement of cognitive (e.g., rational-emotive) therapy concepts; and hypnotic reinforcement and facilitation through posthypnotic suggestions of positive internal dialogue and self-talk.
The enhancement of feelings of esteem and self-efficacy has been found to be a powerful tool in working with a great diversity of patients and problems: depression, low self-esteem, over emotionality, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and victimization; patients with developmental deficits, anxiety and phobic disorder, grief reactions, coping with chronic illness; athletes, business executives, students, children, and patients
with eating and habit disorders.
“Hypnosis is a natural state of aroused, attentive focal concentration
with a relative suspension of peripheral awareness. “It involves an intensity of focus that allows the hypnotized
person to make maximal use of innate abilities to control perception, memory and somatic function.
“Spiegel, 1994”: Hypnosis is power of inner self which is mostly undiscovered.
Hypnosis is a strong key of self rediscovery and by going through trance state that self will explore inner energy and power.
Experiencing alter state of mind will help to understand the root of inner and outer conflict.
An individual through hypnosis can deal with her or his chronic pain, for ego-strengthening, self efficacy and confidence, anxiety, fear of flight or heights, sleep disorders, emotional disorders, sexual dysfunction and list goes on.
Clinical Hypnosis is useful in a very broad context such as: sport, education, medical filed, dentistry, pain management, forensic sciences, addiction, organizational redevelopment, business, psychotherapy, psychiatry, obesity, stress, depression, panic attack, fear, fear of height, phobia, tics and lots more.
Hypnosis is strong tool that can use for purpose of growth and development of desired and needed satisfaction of the self.
Self-Hypnosis: Client is given the time to participate actively in the safe environment.
This is part of treatment program rather than a self-help process.
Some believe all hypnosis is self-hypnosis and some other still believes that is auto-hypnosis as reflexive biological state.
Trance state stimulate unconsciously and it has own complex and unique behaviour.
Ability to enter such state (trance) is natural behaviour yet, most often we are not aware of it or just we do not want use it.
Trance state that happens in a post traumatic stress or dissociation’s also derived from natural state of trance.
Dissociation’s
most often happen to protect self and because they do functions separately rather than systematic integration then they become part of pathological system itself.
In treatment these separate parts must identify, modify and integrated to the self as whole. In working within hypnosis I use wording, images, memory, story even automated writing and drawings.
I teach how to become aware of ones unconscious mind’s power and most importantly how to use such power for benefit of self.
In trance state most of the work will done by the client rather than I, matter of fact I am facilitator in this regard contrary to believe other wise.
Clinical Hypnosis
A Multidisciplinary Approach
William C. Wester, II, EdD
Alexander H. Smith, Jr., EdD
Symbolic Psychotherapy
The process of fostering changes in a person without a direct discussion of the reason for certain therapeutic interventions, allows a patient the illusion of control that symptoms are changing under his care and direction.
Symbolic psychotherapy entails the use of homework assignments that incorporate indirect reflection of the patient’s symptoms.
The following quotation is offered to illustrate Erickson’s belief about psycho-therapeutic fact: I think about the elaborate schools or theoretical schools of psychotherapy.
Freud developed psychoanalysis to apply to all people, male or female, of all ages, in all situation, in all cultures, and he uses the same format on all and developed his school of psychotherapy to apply to all times.
He analyzed Moses, Edgar Allen Poe, Winnie the Pooh. I do not think that any school or theoretical school is any more than a religion to which you try to fit the patient.
Adlerian schools emphasize masculinity, inferiority, and compensatory reaction.
Adler never did any experimental work to prove his concepts of how a right-handed person writes, how a left-handed person writes any better than a right-handed person …compensatory inferiority with compelling drive a most compelling thing.
And there is a Karen Horney with her school of psychoanalysis and Sullivan’s school… Jungian school… Religion School… all well developed orderly psycho-therapeutic schools of thought to which the patient is fitted.
I think the individual is the individual entirely, so therapists should be in accord with the individual’s own personality, own life experience. Nobody can understand anybody else language.
I had you put down whether you came from an urban or rural background because that has big influence
on you (referring to an exercise required of participants).
And I grew up on the farm. I left it more than 50 years ago. Now on the farm you ate breakfast, dinner and supper.
In the city I learned you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, never supper.My sister left the farm nearly 50 years ago and lived in the city.
I hadn’t seen her in a number of years. She made a trip around the world and she was relating her
travel within this country and that country and son on. My wife, who grew up in Detroit, happened to hear my sister and me talking about supper. She listened for a while and she added, “How come you are talking about supper?” and we realized that our farm, so long ago, still carried over an old association, no matter how old has an influence on you. And it is amazing the amount of influence your past has….