Our 70th HIE (Hypnotic Idea Exchange)!

Tonglen is a Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice that involves warmly receiving—breathing in—the suffering of another; transmuting it into a visceral sense of relief; and then breathing out—sending back to the other—this reformulated feeling as an expression of compassionate care. At the beginning of his talk, Douglas will offer participants an opportunity to briefly test-drive this meditation practice for themselves, and he will touch on its application in burnout prevention. He’ll then highlight intriguing commonalities between Tonglen and Milton Erickson’s utilization approach to hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Utilization involves reconstituting threats to the development of the client’s hypnotic experience as contributions to the process. And it orients clinicians toward deriving resourceful elements from the client’s skill set and from the problem itself for use in the development of avolitional solutions. Tonglen is a prototypical exemplar of this acceptance-based, inclusion-focused commitment to change. Douglas will wrap up by detailing—and if there’s time, demonstrating—how an adapted form of Tonglen can be offered to clients as a self-hypnosis method for managing insomnia.

Douglas Flemons, PhD, is an emeritus professor of family therapy and the author of several books, including two on hypnosis—Of One Mind (Norton, 2002) and The Heart and Mind of Hypnotherapy (Norton, 2022). His most recent book is Empathic Engagement in Clinical Practice (APA, 2026). Douglas is an advisory editor for the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, which, in 2021, awarded him the Milton H. Erickson Award for Scientific Excellence in Writing on Clinical Hypnosis for his article, “Toward a Relational Theory of Hypnosis.” He presents nationally and internationally on a variety of topics, and, since 1993, has offered an (almost) annual Florida-Board-approved 50-hour hypnosis intensive, Inviting Connection, Inventing Change. Douglas and his wife live in North Carolina, co-directing their private practice and training institute, Context Consultants.

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Once you receive your ticket for this event, it will give you a link to obtain your login credentials to the HIE!