Advantages of Hypnotic Training for Everyday Clinical Work

In his 1986 article, in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, Michael J. Diamond of Los Angeles outlines 9 specific advantages and contributions to psychotherapy practice by the hypnotically trained therapist. 

1. Communication Focus: a focus on the subtleties of communication in order to insure that maximal receptivity toward and meaningfulness of the therapeutic messages takes place for the patient.

2. Maximizing Expectation and Belief: positive expectation and belief, fostered by the competent practice of hypnotic ritual and suggestion, can serve to enhance the success of the therapeutic relationship and empower the patient in dealing with internal and external realities and experiences.

3. Mind-Body Emphasis:  the hypnotic experience often provides physical sensations of increased comfort, calm, anesthesia, and a deeper level of awareness of how the mind and body communicate and interrelate. This increased physical comfort and insight provide a powerful combination of healing and growth.

4. Handling of Resistance: resistance is often experienced as the initial, and sometimes “make or break” stage of change even for those patients who are highly motivated to change.  The gravitational force of habit can present a serious challenge to be overcome. By adopting a collaborative perspective, articulated by the late Milton Erickson and others, the hypnotically trained therapist is more likely to maintain a therapeutic alliance while respecting the boundaries and processes of the patient. Giving permission, allowing for, the resistance as well as reframing the

experience positively are two prominent aspects of this alliance.

5. Employing Trance Phenomena: at any stage of the therapy process, hypnosis can be used as a tool for a) an increased availability of affect, b) change in attention and awareness, c) enhancement of imagery, d) increasing dissociative abilities, e) greater suggestibility, f) increased compulsion, g) increased bodily-sensory experiences.

6. Using Archaic Levels of Relationship: it has long been known that transference, issues of safety, and regression are some of the more archaic levels of the therapist-patient relationship. These issues are extensively written about in psychoanalytic literature. Some believe that the sensitivity to these issues gained through hypnotic work puts the therapist in a position to provide a safe and comfortable therapeutic atmosphere through which the work of suggestion can occur.

7. Stressing Healthy, Adaptive Ego Function: by encouraging a more positive perspective of the unconscious as a resource and not a haven for pathology and disease, the hypnotically trained therapist can promote a respect for and enjoyment of the autonomous, creative, playful, and conflict-free characteristics of the unconscious. This allows for the enhancement of the integrity and trust of the self and a stronger ego.

8. Using Therapist Trance: when the therapist can make use of their own trance experiences it can further facilitate the ability to be empathic and receptive to the process of the patient. This can also further enhance the therapist use of appropriate language, timing, and increased focus on the needs of the patient in determining suggestion and outcomes.

9. Permitting Responsible Creativity: hypnosis offers the opportunity for competent therapists to be creative, thoughtful, surprising, and even humorous while operating within an appropriate therapeutic framework of practice. While at times the practice of hypnosis has attracted those from “outside the mainstream” and led to controversy, it has over time provided an link or conduit for interdisciplinary discussion and innovation to the point that hypnosis is now incorporated in a wide range of therapeutic models and practices.

Diamond, Michael Jay, (1986) Hypnotically Augmented Psychotherapy: The Unique Contributions of the Hypnotically Trained  Clinician.

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, Volume 28, Number 4, 238-246