Hypnosis & Relationship,A Good Match by Eric Greenleaf, PhD

Much modern therapy, like much of modernity, is self-oriented. Yet much of human life and living is in relationship with others. When confronted by problems, we conceive of them as being within us – of our feelings, or from our past, or because of our conflicts. Yet when we wish to resolve problems in living, we reach out to others – best friends, ministers, spouses, therapists – for help, counsel and shared understanding.

Modern neuroscience and evolutionary findings both support the uncontestable notion that we are social animals and communicative creatures, from birth and throughout our lives. Attempts to change the course of those lives must involve the relationship with others as means to changes in our individual life experience.

Among therapists, with the exception of family therapists and couples therapists, the professionals who most readily employ interpersonal methods to deal with human problems are hypnotherapists practicing Ericksonian hypnosis. Milton Erickson MD came from a large family and was father to a large family. He was comfortable with patients in his house and with making home visits and having therapeutic encounters and interventions in public places like restaurants and classrooms. As a physician and psychiatrist, he valued meeting the patient in their own terms, within their own families and in interaction with their own work lives. And, like a country doctor, he assumed that he could be of help in families throughout the life cycle.

This tradition in therapy is carried forward in the concept of hypnotherapy as an interpersonal process in which the therapist is led by the patient’s goals, language and style and abilities and resources. Together, they construct an imagined space in which to work together, as Erickson said, “in your own way, and in your own time, to meet your needs.” Couples or families may be treated in this same context, utilizing the patients’ interpersonal resources and unconscious connections with each other to effect improvement and move patients toward their own goals.

In its simplest form, hypnosis is a process between people in which attention is focused and dissociated while the bodies of the participants [hypnotist and patient] both become more easy and comfortable. The imagination is free to roam in time and space, as in the theater, and to experiment with resolutions to problems and alternate directions in life. Importantly, the unconsciousminds of both hypnotist and patient are in relationship and the resources of both are directed toward the patient’s goals.

Now, imagine how useful this mutual ease, attentiveness and invention can be to couples. We know how a parent and child mutually focus, relax and share imagination during a bedtime ritual and storytelling, and how that mutual connection is a reliable bonding agent in families. The same holds true for adult couples, using mutual focused attention, looking in each other’s faces, for example, while they breathe in synchrony, talk, listen and touch. In therapy, the addition of a therapist can encourage and teach this hypnotic “pacing” between the couple. What is learned in hypnotic psychotherapy becomes an automatic de-stressing response to the stressors of the body, worklife and the family.