Self-image Building protocol for treating depression in hypnosis.

This article explains the method of treating depression with an intervention called Self-Image Building. Several antecedents or correlates of depression are briefly discussed as they form a gestalt backdrop for the many therapeutic approaches that have been researched and promoted as treatment or solutions to depression. The rationale and construction of the intervention is illustrated with a brief case example. Self-Image Building is discussed in the context of other theories of self-image, over-generalization, negativity bias, and as an internal discriminative stimulus for performance. Self-Image Building is used to construct an actual referent and not a cognitive abstraction about how people make conclusions about themselves.

Emanated imagery: Shaping presupposed success.

It is common for psychotherapy interventions used in the context of hypnosis to address events in the client's past or present including decisions, traumas, parataxic distortions (Sullivan, 1970), suppressed emotions and so on. Unlike conventional psychotherapy, hypnosis has a well-known and commonly referred to perceptual phenomenon called "future-orientation in time." While this feature has been used by various therapists, it does not appear to be routinely used as the foundation for crafted interventions. This paper briefly discusses the historical emergence and the progressive logic of using imagery in various hypnotic and non-hypnotic therapeutic approaches, how this progression from using past imagery to present imagery has currently culminated with future-to-past oriented imagery interventions and outlines the minimum necessary steps for conducting an intervention within hypnosis called Emanated Imagery. The rationale and step-by-step procedure for constructing Emanated Imagery, as well as a case example, is presented.

What Milton Erickson said about being Ericksonian.

Over the last 15 years, as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, I have seen papers by hundreds of authors. Many authors discuss the research, theories, and case presentations without identifying their allegiance. However, an apparent trend has developed in the last decade in which many therapists prefer to identify their work as being "Ericksonian." Yet, there have only been few authors identifying as such who go on to explain what it means to be Ericksonian. It is concerning that few authors seem to have returned to the original source when citing concepts that have been developed by, or attributed to, Dr. Milton Erickson. The vast majority of authors who quote techniques such as utilization or naturalistic induction usually cite a third source rather than Erickson's writings directly. Often this cited third-party author is someone who never studied with Dr. Erickson and whose writing about the cited techniques has also not been directly taken from Dr. Erickson's work. What evolves from this practice is sort of like the childhood game of "telephone." That is a game where a story is repeated down the line by another author which is repeated by another author until, downline, the entire matter becomes radically incorrect and incongruent with the original. In this article, I will describe Erickson's work regarding naturalistic induction, utilization, techniques for depotentiating conscious sets, and conscious-unconscious dissociation in his own words and also illustrate the evolution of his induction techniques over the years from 1929 to 1980.

Training in Therapy-Induction Without Scripts.

Hypnotic induction for the purposes of psychotherapy is more than a collection of techniques. Instead, the induction process should be individualized to each client as Erickson (1958) explained years ago. Training professionals in hypnosis and induction then must avoid reading written scripts and healthcare professionals must understand that attention and personal contact are required in order to successfully participate in improvisational communication and the nuances of interpersonal entrainment of psychotherapy. And this all begins with the induction.

Conscious/Unconscious Dissociation Induction: Increasing Hypnotic Performance With "Resistant" Clients.

Milton H. Erickson promoted several approaches to psychotherapy using hypnosis. In the last decades of his life, his work moved away from the use of redundant suggestion and a predominance of direct suggestion in favor of indirect suggestion. In addition, he frequently employed a type of storytelling (that has come to be called therapeutic metaphor) to indirectly convey learning. Another change that occurred during the last decade was his definition of the cause of a symptom. However, there were two important areas of his work that he did not change during his career. These two components of his work he did not change were his definition of a cure and the importance of a naturalistic induction. This article concerns his naturalistic approach to hypnotic induction and especially his use of conscious/unconscious dissociation in the induction process and how indirect suggestion and therapeutic binds can be used to facilitate that type of induction and a cure.

Hypnosis and Therapy for a Case of Vomiting, Nausea, and Pain.

In this case study the author illustrates the treatment of idiopathic gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms that practitioners sometimes encounter and for which none of the usual medical explanations apply. In this case, the symptoms have deeply personal and intricate causes that are explicated for the reader. A 20-year old female was vomiting six to eight times a day, accompanied with pain and nausea, for 2 years. She had medical intervention for almost that same duration. She had numerous uneventful medical tests, her gall bladder removed, and had exhausted hope for a medical cure. Working with a resource-building approach in therapy her vomiting was stopped within 6 weeks and her nausea in the following 7th week (or 13th session). Hypnosis was used during each session along with a protocol referred to as Self-Image Thinking (Lankton & Lankton, 1983/2008, 1986/2007; Lankton, 2008) to rehearse novel experiences and behaviors that she would implement in her social environment each week. She provided yearly follow-up phone contacts for 3 years and the latest contact was 1 month before this article was written. She remains symptom-free.