The Four Essential Aspects of Every Relationship ($)

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes, and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.”— Robert Collier

State Work is More Than Hypnosis

Hypnosis gets overblown. Sure, some people enter a trance state more easily than others, but what’s the point? I feel my clients enter the trance states appropriate for them at the right time and context. My job is not to induce trace, it’s creating context and suggest trance.

All states are trance states. Each has its role and purpose. I’m not particularly concerned with somnambulistic states because they’re disconnected from normal states and, in my work, I’m not providing assertive suggestions. I’m interested in evoking emotional insights connected with conscious awareness.

I’m working across states, trying to get a person’s parts to align. I contrast this with a hierarchical approach, where a higher level action rests on a lower level attitude or inclination. Much of psychotherapy takes a hierarchical approach.

I ask clients to relax, disconnect, and imagine themselves in a different state of mind. While they’re in that different state of mind, I want them to speak from their ego state. I work them back and forth between emotional and rational states to create a broader dialog.

Drawing from Past Life Regression, during which a person takes an authorial role, I ask clients to speak as a witness. I regress not so much to cause as to ideas, looking for ways to explore whatever we can uncover. These causes need not be any more real than the parts or the past lives.

I’m motivated by parts therapy, which says there are embedded personalities within us that exist with a degree of independence. I may explain it’s like Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy if that’s what someone is familiar with, but it’s not really. It’s more personal.

A recent client had a shadowy character that appeared beside their bed in recurring childhood nightmares. The shadow held a knife and it would stab them. I asked them to recreate the dream and for the shadow to give them what it held in its other hand. It gave them a golden ring, and that made them laugh. Not exactly IFS!

Reality Versus Honesty

Each state has its own reality. What’s important is to be honest in each. People’s situations are made more complex and intractable when they are evasive or dishonest—and most people are both to varying degrees.

I am willing to be brash and uncivil. I will call out a person’s pretensions in a manner that is both invitational and confrontational. I want to out-game their ego. I will be offensive if that’s what it takes to break the container. Nothing works better than breaking character. When in trance, honesty is relative.

Once a client has established and I have affirmed that they are smart and capable, I may point out their misunderstandings and contradictions. I may gently accuse them of twisting the truth. Once it’s clear they are generous, I’ll point out their selfishness.

These are emotional forms of distraction and confusion, much as we employ in a hypnotic induction or pre-induction patter. I want to challenge preconceptions of what we’re allowed to say, whose side I’m on, and what parts are present. This is semi-conscious state hypnosis.

I don’t use arm levitation or eye lock inductions as I feel these distract from the emotional conflicts between the parts. Such convincers seem like doing yoga before entering a conflict.

Couples and Relationships

Most clients come with a relationship issue. Hypnotherapy sounds as relevant as a vacation, and that’s not what they’ve come for. Relationship issues carry a legacy I don’t expect to fix. I don’t even expect to understand the issues as they go far back in memory, family, and culture.

I will do couples therapy, but I’m inclined to think it’s an oxymoron. A couple’s success is built on the success of each individual. If that cannot be achieved, then I don’t think deep couple repair can be accomplished.

Couples usually come with preservation first in mind. I do not endorse alignment if the individuals are not aligned. Even where kids are involved, I place honesty over status quo. No kid grows up straight when the parents are twisted.

The Main Ingredients

The four ingredients of all relationships are…