Interpersonal Trance

The primary difference between an Ericksonian styled therapeutic session, and one in which a traditionally directed hypnotherapist goes about things, is the Ericksonian tradition of joining one's clients in what is termed, the "interpersonal trance", which acts as a means of stimulating unconscious creativity and achieving therapeutic outcomes.

One way for a hypnotherapist to develop an interpersonal trance with a client is as follows:
-Both hypnotherapist and the client should be seated comfortably, facing each other. The hypnotherapist may then identify and relax any sources of physical or emotional tension.

- The next step is to attentionally focus on the subject, noticing breathing patterns, body posture, muscular tension, emotional state, etc. The hypnotherapist should at this time establish a comfortable and rhythmic breathing preferably synchronizing his breathing with that of the client, unless the client is emotionally upset and his breathing is either shallow and restricted or quick and irregular.

-The hypnotherapist is now to establish eye contact with the client, gazing perhaps into one of the client’s eyes. An effective technique for maintaining eye contact is to focus the left eye as if looking through the client’s left eye, about a foot behind it, while the hypnotherapists right eye is focused about a foot in front of the subject. This enables the hypnotherapist to both absorb the client’s attention and to continually gather information about ongoing behavioral responses.

- At this point the hypnotherapist allows any thoughts and images drift through his consciousness. The hypnotherapist may now speak freely and easily from this trance state. The then must be capable of communicating with dramatic intensity. To communicate effectively, he continuously calibrates the client’s rhythms, then matches them. And, the hypnotherapist must communicate congruently, all of his behavioral outputs (voice tonality, body posture, facial expression, etc.).

- The hypnotherapist stays tuned into a client’s ongoing experience by maintaining rapport with the client. In order to do this successfully, the therapist must have good sensory acuity, notice responses and various changes in the client's behavior, then be able to match and mirror - or at times mismatch - those behaviors. The therapist must be skilled at utilizing a variety of communication techniques to maintain rapport. That is communication techniques ranging from matching the rate of breathing, or synchronized rhythm of some behavioral pattern, to matching the preferred representational systems either verbally or behaviorally, as well as utilizing appropriate linguistic patterns.

email: dr_frank@hypnoticadvancements.com

Mailing address:
Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)
Hypnotic Advancements
3126 McCarthy Court
Mississauga , ON
Canada L4Y-3Z5

© 2004, Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)

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