Dr. Michael Yapko on Depression, Hypnosis, and How People Change

And, you know, I don't think there's been a day in my life since when hypnosis hasn't featured one way or the other.

David, I'm wondering if I could ask a follow-up question.

Please, yeah.

So Michael, in your book, Trancework, you wrote that hypnosis is not a cure and hypnosis is not a therapy, but what hypnosis does have that is so essential is possibility, that it's about unlocking what is possible in, in our clients.

And I, I hope I'm accurately quoting that.

What I was wondering that if you could speak to was how you believe relationship and how you believe utilization unlocks what is possible.

And for our, our listeners and viewers, utilization has to do with the subjective process of identifying and utilizing elements that are happening in a process of trance with a client.

So it might be how they're sitting, how they're moving, their non-verbals, the sound.

It could be anything.

But I, I just...

I wonder if you could speak more to the realm of possibility and how hypnotherapists access that, uh, towards change in the relationships with their clients.

Yeah.

Well, there's-- it's a big question, and I can come at it from, from many different angles.

You know, the-- I think the first thing I wanna say about it is what a distinction there is within the field of hypnosis.

The field of hypnosis is internally divided, much the way the field of psychotherapy is internally divided.

You have many different models, many different viewpoints about the nature of hypnosis and the nature of hypnotic phenomena.

The key different-- one of the key differences is whether you use a technique-oriented approach that imposes on the person.

For example, if I say to you, "I'm going to count downwards from ten to one, and you're gonna relax with each number that I say," you're imposing this technique on the person.

You decided you're gonna do the countdown, and you just hope that they can comply with it.

Uh, but it's very different when you take the other approach, which speaks to utilization, which is the elicitation approach.

That instead of imposing a technique, you're eliciting from within the person their own ideas, their own values, their own experiences.

And the only way that you can do that is in the context of a relationship.

You would have to know something about this person's experience, whether you learned it through the clinical interview preceding the hypnosis, formal hypnosis session, or whether you're learning it as you go.

That when you ask somebody, "Okay, I'm gonna suggest to you that you go someplace you find relaxing.

Okay, where are you?" And then you, they-- you utilize the imagery that they provide you.