If you are depressed, then you are living in the past. If you are anxious, then you are living in the future. If you are in a state of peace, then you are living in the present. Eastern wisdom
Many books are devoted to the question of what is the essence of psychotherapy, and each branch of psychotherapy offers its own answer. Since you are reading this text, you have at least once approached this question and probably have not encountered a concise, comprehensive and universal description of the purpose and mechanism of psychotherapy. They vary in nature from global, vague philosophical concepts to detailed and sophisticated technical details. Many clients and patients, when coming to an appointment, are quite rightly interested in what exactly they will get from psychotherapy, what its result will be. Almost always we talk about the goals that they set for themselves, and, if possible, we try to help them achieve these goals, but we often find it difficult to answer how exactly we are going to do this and how exactly our actions will lead to the agreed upon goals.
Some theories give quite logical and visual descriptions: completing tasks, developing personal skills, resolving traumatic memories, and so on, others vaguely hint at awareness of unconscious emotions and a better understanding of oneself.
Yet, each therapist develops his own understanding of why and how his therapy works. Because I practice hypnosis and strive to continually incorporate the principles of hypnosis into my work, my understanding of the therapeutic process is infused with hypnotic ideas.
Between the applied level - techniques, experiments, role-playing games, exercises - and tangible results - increased self-esteem, resolution of conflicts, disappearance of symptoms - there is a certain layer of ideas and processes that today I would like to touch upon only superficially - in a good way, discussion of this layer deserves a whole book.
"And then a miracle happens..."
Get to the answer to the question “How does therapy work?” not easy. If we consider a psychotherapeutic course as a path from starting point A to destination B, it is interesting to compare how the person at point A differs from the person at point B? Let's say this is a person with depression, suffering from lack of appetite, depressed mood, apathy, insomnia and "mental chewing gum" - obsessive internal monologues. With these complaints, he comes to the therapist and after N days leaves him in a normal mood, with a good appetite, good sleep and lives for his own pleasure. This is the external setting; but if we dig deeper, we will see that in addition to these external differences there are others, less obvious: the person at point A is more focused on thoughts about the past, while the recovered person looks more actively into the future; at the beginning of the journey, the patient is more absorbed in his bodily sensations of heaviness, weakness or emptiness, while the recovered person is more occupied with the play of his imagination, fantasizing about visual images and conversations with people; the patient is dominated by a viscous internal monologue, while the healthy person communicates more with the outside world and switches easily; the attention of the first is scattered and difficult to focus and hold on to something, while the attention of the second is more focused and tenacious. Finally, the person at point B may occasionally experience any of the above “symptoms,” but they are not distressing and manageable, whereas the person at the beginning may not act or feel differently. He feels like he is “stuck” in his depression. It is clear that in addition to these symptoms there is another quality - their mobility and controllability.
We could go on and on, but this will suffice for illustration purposes. In addition to a set of some simple characteristics, there is a certain system quality that describes their interaction. These are phenomena of the human mind whose relationships are stable enough to persist over time. The result is a constellation of phenomena that are in dynamic equilibrium. It is the characteristics of this constellation that change during therapy, and I am accustomed to calling such constellations states .
In other words, at the phenomenological level, the essence of psychotherapy is to change the state.
Indications and contraindications for the use of hypnosis:
Indications for hypnosis are:
- various psychosomatic conditions and disorders
- neuroses
- addictions (alcoholism, smoking, drug addiction)
- symptomatic problems
- psychotherapeutic work with children
Hypnosis is a very specific method of psychotherapy, which has its own clear advantages and limitations. A significant limitation of hypnotherapy is that it is difficult to solve any relationship problems. And about 60-70% of the disorders and problems with which people turn to a psychotherapist are based on certain disturbances in the way they interact with themselves and with other people, even if the problem is initially labeled as panic disorder or depression. All problems that are based on these very violations of interaction can be solved only with the help of psychotherapy methods built on such interaction (Gestalt therapy, psychoanalysis). “Like is cured by like,” the ancients said. Hypnosis is chosen by a specialist when the client’s problem is symptomatic and is not a problem throughout his life, overshadowing the rest of the person’s life. If a specialist has doubts about the effectiveness of hypnosis for you, he has the right to refuse to conduct it for you at the initial consultation.
An absolute contraindication to psychotherapy with hypnosis is the presence of a state of psychosis in the patient or a predisposition to the development of a psychotic state, which often becomes clear to the specialist during the initial consultation.
Debunking Myths About Hypnosis
Quite a lot of people call us and ask the first question during a telephone conversation: “Do you treat with hypnosis?” These people have to explain that the choice of psychotherapy method is not something separate from the person’s situation and problem, that the method is a secondary issue, the most important thing is the person himself and his problem, the situation that is the motive for his treatment. We have to explain that hypnosis is not indicated in all situations, and issues with the choice of psychotherapy method are resolved at an initial consultation with a psychotherapist. Which is absolutely true.
Any method of psychotherapy (hypnosis is no exception) is work on oneself, and the psychotherapist in this process is a person exclusively accompanying you, but not doing something for you. He is next to you, but he does not drag you along with him, he walks parallel. You know the way! If you are ready to deal with the difficulties that you have or have accumulated over the course of your life, you can try to solve them with the help of a psychotherapist-consultant. But remember that no hypnosis and no psychotherapist can solve your problem for you!
With the right approach, hypnosis is an absolutely harmless method of psychotherapy, gives a good therapeutic result, and staying in a trance state brings great satisfaction to both the client and the psychotherapist. But other methods of psychotherapy are no less effective and can bring positive changes!
Author of the article: Kirill Sharkov
Changing states
The word "state" is sometimes controversial because it implies a frozen, unmoving structure while the mind and the world around us are constantly changing. I want to imply a more abstract concept, just as “weather” characterizes specific atmospheric phenomena at a given point on the Earth, and “climate” indicates a stable relationship between temporal, territorial and weather factors. And even if on the scale of the Earth the climate in different places can change, then the state of a person’s mind can change over a very wide range.
In my practice, state change is the main applied goal of therapy. If I work with a depressed person, I try to change his condition - an established system of mental processes, each of which can change individually within very wide limits, but together they support each other and turn out to be very stable. They are in a state of homeostasis - a dynamic equilibrium in which the system is able to dampen most external and internal disturbances. And in this task, hypnosis is an almost ideal and universal tool.
How does hypnosis help change your condition? First of all, a stable system of relationships requires that the connections between its elements be weakened. This is precisely the essence of the phenomenon of dissociation: mental processes, which are usually tightly connected with each other, in hypnosis begin to proceed as if a little on their own. The natural phenomenon of dissociation perhaps makes the very existence of hypnosis possible. And along with all other processes, our “I”—the controlling and conscious principle with which we identify our personality—is also subject to dissociation. And when control weakens, the opportunity for the next stage opens up.
Thanks to dissociation, the manifestation of an ideodynamic phenomenon is possible: an idea that arises in the mind itself seeks a way to manifest itself. This phenomenon was discovered a long time ago using a very simple example (the Chevreul pendulum) and was studied far and wide by practitioners of hypnosis in the twentieth century. Since, thanks to dissociation, mental processes acquire some isolation, it is possible to offer a person ideas, some of which can be “picked up” by the unconscious and “germinate.”
Returning to the previous example of the depressed patient, the simple idea that our predictions for the future may be based on misinterpretations of past experiences can have a profound effect and introduce a new element into the condition that will change the entire condition. One, two, three such ideas - and the state can shift to a new equilibrium, more mobile and flexible.
Slightly deviating from the topic, I’ll say a few words about where such ideas come from. Often the ideas that give rise to internal changes in the patient come from the therapist, sometimes in the form of direct instructions and explanations, but more often in an indirect form. This transfer of ideas is served by a special multi-level communication, which is mastered by a hypnosis specialist. We are studying and improving the skill of how to simultaneously convey two or more ideas that lie at different psychological levels during communication. The master of this multi-level communication was Milton Erickson, and it was thanks to this talent that he became famous. It is enough to refer to a clinical case published by Erickson, when he veiledly conveyed to a seriously ill patient the ideas of relaxation, comfort, and tranquility in a story about a tomato bush. Thanks to Erickson's skill and the patient's receptiveness, these ideas had the effect of greatly reducing the pain the patient was suffering from. An idea can be conveyed using a life story, metaphor, allegory, wordplay, intonation...
Resources
But whatever the idea, it cannot help a person if it remains foreign to him. Therefore, therapeutic interventions, the ideas that the specialist tries to convey to the patient, have one main goal: to generate and awaken in the patient his own unconscious ideas, experience, knowledge and skills, what we call unconscious resources. Reasoning about why a person cannot use his resources now fades into the background - this is rather the province of psychological theory, although it is to a certain extent necessary for understanding the patient’s condition and choosing a treatment strategy. But when the condition is clear and the strategy is clear, the task comes down to helping the person find the strength to recover. Not a single psychotherapist has managed to heal anyone - the patient and client changes and heals himself when the necessary conditions are created for this.
Thus, the state of mind changes due to the awakening of ideas, a person’s own unconscious resources, which “germinate” and take hold on the fertile soil of dissociation thanks to the ideodynamic phenomenon.
What amount of resources is needed to radically change the state from “illness” to “health”? Always different. Sometimes one small impulse can shift the equilibrium, and sometimes a long period of “acceleration” is required before the quantity turns into a qualitative shift.
It is a remarkable fact that a state of mind that was recently unpleasant and painful, thanks to some ideas and resources, is sometimes transformed beyond recognition. It’s amazing that sometimes you don’t have to do practically anything special for this - the change happens spontaneously and as if from within. It is not uncommon for the subject (the one on whom the techniques are demonstrated) to have profound transformative experiences during demonstrations of basic hypnotic techniques. We owe our therapeutic successes to the ability of the human unconscious mind to create and heal. Sometimes one is surprised by the vitality of the human mind, which maintains integrity and balance in the most terrible and inhuman conditions, its ability to draw resources and inspiration from innermost sources. Any description of the principles and techniques of therapy must do justice to the wisdom and power of the unconscious mind, without which all our efforts to help and cure would be doomed to failure.
The impact of hypnosis in psychotherapy
During sleep, the hemispheres of the human brain are subject to inhibition. During hypnosis, its individual parts continue to function. They come into contact with the person who is conducting the hypnosis session and “tell” him about the psychological ailments of the hypnotized person who has asked for help.
The therapist uses hypnosis techniques to:
- relieve a person from anxiety and chronic fatigue;
- normalize sleep and wakefulness patterns;
- analyze the cause of stress and find a way out of it;
- resume functionality;
- improve your overall mental state.
The moment when a person goes into a trance is the same for the treatment of all diseases: the person focuses on a specific subject. The psychotherapist begins to speak special words and phrases in a quiet monotonous voice, devoid of any intonation. Sometimes quiet unobtrusive music is turned on. The person falls into a trance - the psychotherapist begins to work with his psyche, helps to work through the moments that bring the patient anxieties and problems, helps him get rid of stress, and also activates the work of all internal organs aimed at fighting the disease.
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