Hypnotic Language Patterns: A Comprehensive Guide
Hypnotic Language Patterns
The Prerequisite Involved
The purpose of this implication is to utilize the tacit commitment assumed by the patient to accept the first part of the suggestion. For example: “Maybe when your unconscious mind decides to begin to understand the reasons why you want to continue with therapy, it may prefer to communicate to you before…”.
Mechanism of Action
The structure of the phrasing makes the potential reward of the second part of the suggestion (something desired) contingent upon the execution of the prerequisite.
Splash
The splash, also known as planting ideas or words, involves spreading certain suggestions related to each other throughout the entire session script. For example: “Maybe this time you’re looking at how to make a change to your life… you can admire your ability to see things from another point of view… sometimes you let yourself be surprised with the choice of another way.”
Indications
This technique is very useful when the patient is beyond the direct control of the therapist and suggests new ways to approach a problem.
Metaphorical Language: Stories, Parables, Jokes, Riddles, Analogies, and Metaphors
This is a hypnotic pattern of communication that works with two levels: an overt level directed at the conscious mind and a covert level within the contents of the narrative, addressed to the unconscious mind.
Tales and Dishes
These are used to present the patient with new opportunities in their actions and to highlight the attitudes that the hero has within their story. They also serve as a discursive substrate where to insert other types of indirect suggestions: puns, the splash, and elements of symbolic imagery. For example: “He never goes out alone who only leaves” attached to a story can focus attention on the pun and simultaneously send a message to the patient’s unconscious mind about the relevance of the content of the story in relation to their sense of loneliness. For example: A patient who constantly expresses feeling trapped may respond favorably to a story in which the protagonist finds themselves trapped in a cave.
Jokes
Humor in psychotherapy is primarily a tool to communicate an attitude between therapist and patient. This attitude in the patient generates a process of positive self-exploration. The essential element in the use of jokes within the therapist’s interventions is the ability to laugh at oneself, accepting one’s limitations and those of others, and seeing their weaknesses from the perspective of humor. For example: “Child, it’s your birthday today and I’m calling to congratulate you.” – “Yes, but did you have to wake me up at this hour? You could have called later.” — “Son, don’t forget that at the same time you woke me up forty years ago and I didn’t protest at all.”
Riddles – Definition and Indications
Patients are presented with a mental game, of a geometrical or mathematical order, to make them understand the need to go beyond commonly used benchmarks. For example: Simply give the patient a piece of paper on which the number 710 is written and ask them to read the number in all possible ways that occur to them.
Analogies and Metaphors
Examples: (The pearls of your mouth – referring to the teeth), (A sports drink to an athlete fulfills the same function as fuel for a vehicle).
Reframing-Misframing
This involves establishing a new meaning association between current events and past events that had other meanings. Sometimes it is interesting to give a new meaning to a situation (reframing-redefinition), while in others the goal is to break certain associations. For example: “From Tom Sawyer’s adventures: ‘How are you in situations, the hearing before the ass rarely spoken account of hesitation (misframing). But that may well assume that tremor is a guarantee of what you’re counting, and is the result of your interest in an accessible way to convey what you want to tell’.”
Truism
This is the presentation of a fact as found by the daily experience of each individual, which cannot be denied. For example: “Most people would relax with the warm feeling of the sun on their face while walking on the beach… and you may have experienced this sensation yourself sometime. Maybe… at this moment you might be feeling that sense of calm… and progressively as you hear my words, you’ll feel… more comfortable and more relaxed… in the chair.”
Verbalizations Types Used
“Many times…”, “…almost everyone”, “You know…”, “Sooner or later all…”
Employ the Patient’s Representational System
This involves identifying, first, and then using, the representational elements through which the patient builds their world. There are five representational systems: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and kinesthetic.
Mechanism of Action
The therapist should be aware of verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and expressions related to each system.
Rhythmicity – Amplification and Strengthening
This encompasses everything that has to do with how we speak, not strictly the content of what is said.
Indications
This is a technique that promotes rapport and empathy with the patient. For example: “I want you to feel comfortable in your chair… well… well leaving gently support your legs parallel to the ground… that is… (progressively less intense and slower pace). You may begin to feel one hand heavier than the other….”
Anchors
An anchor is a stimulus (auditory, verbal, gestural, tactile…) that automatically evokes a response previously established in the patient’s behavior. Anchors can be created from scratch, i.e., linking a signal of any kind to a response.
Directions
To generate an emotional state associated with a situation or a thought. For example: “Once you have boarded the plane, you sit in your seat and at the moment you begin to notice the slightest feeling of anxiety, I want you to squeeze your thumb and index finger and at that moment you will notice how you progressively enter a state of relaxation similar to the one you have now been able to develop.”
Illusion of Choice
The idea of this suggestive technique is to offer the patient a variety of alternatives so that they have the feeling that they can choose one way or another, whatever the outcome. The logical trap of this technique is that any choice means that the patient will respond in the direction the therapist wants.
Examples
- Covering all alternative suggestions: “Maybe at this time you want to go into a trance and you can sit down and let your hands rest on the armrests, or perhaps allow them to rest on your legs, you can keep them crossed, or leave them open. You may also decide to find the position that’s most comfortable for you, it is essential to experience the entry into a trance.”
- Choice within such alternatives: “I wonder if you want to enter a deep trance or simply prefer to reach a state of consciousness that allows you to focus your attention on your own inner experiences.”
- Choice involved: “I’m not quite sure if you were to understand the problem that worries you at this moment or what angers you progressively as time passes.”
Non Sequitur
In this speech pattern, two propositions that do not logically follow one another are combined in order to generate a state of confusion or surprise and thus obtain the tacit acceptance of one of the two propositions. For example: “You may wish to remember a happy experience that happened when you were seven years old or you may want to become aware of the sound of my voice to be entering a deeper trance.”
Open Suggestions
This is a type of indirect suggestion where the objective is vague and should be adjusted by the patient themselves. They usually refer impersonally to a wide range of options to do or experience something.
Objective
The idea is to provide the patient with a suggestion as close as possible to their needs, but giving them the opportunity to adjust the message to their idiosyncrasies. For example: “Your unconscious mind knows that there are many ways to get into a trance.” “Nowadays, many ways to solve problems are known.” “When you live with your partner, it’s helpful to agree on how to organize the time you spend together.”
Questions
Suggestions can be presented in question format, introducing a question for which a concrete direct answer is not expected.
Objectives
To focus attention on certain ideas, encourage collaboration, and encourage the patient to find meaning. For example: “I wonder if you feel the sensation of heaviness in your left hand and then this one that will eventually fall, or maybe you’re feeling your right hand lighter and, in batches, this will be the one that rises?”
Apposition of Opposites
In this technique, the interplay between two opposite polarities is used. The linguistic structure links the increase or decrease in one of the two poles with the opposite response in the other.
Mechanism of Action
The patient may only pay conscious attention to one of the two elements, while the other will inevitably automatically react to the suggestion. For example: “The more rigid you make your right arm, the more relaxed the rest of your body feels.”
Negative Suggestion
This consists of stating the absence of a compelling need to carry out a particular type of action or thought. The formulation of such negative suggestions facilitates the automatic response by the patient, instead of promoting a conscious effort.
Verbalizations Types Employed
“Don’t worry about…”, “No need to pay too much attention to…”, “Don’t make the effort to succeed, simply allow it to happen…”, “Without even being aware of it, you were able to…”, “No need to try it, it will happen by itself…”
Linguistic Connectors
- Conjunction – “A and B”: “…you notice how your right hand is becoming numb and at the same time the rhythm of your heart follows your rhythmic breathing….”
- Causative – “When, while, because, as A B”: “…while you notice how your arm becomes rigid, you enter a state of deepening relaxation.”
- Cause-effect – “A causes B”: “…paying attention to your breathing allows you to take longer and deeper breaths.”
Aim
Suggestions are more effective if they are connected to each other. This also plays a confusional function.
Types of Verbalizations
“When… you…”, “While… you notice how it is produced once you…”, “…then…” For example: “As your right hand goes down, you will progressively go further back in time until you reach the age of 6 years.”