Therapeutic Trances

CHAPTER 7

Depotentiating Conscious Processes: Confusion Techniques

Using just the associational strategies described in the preceding chapter will be insufficient for subjects who are willing to go into trance but are unable to set aside their conscious processes to do so. These willing but unable subjects, who comprise at least half the clinical population, may have incessant internal dialogue, or be constantly oriented to internal imagery, or perhaps be continually distracted with kinesthetic sensations. To depotentiate these trance-interfering processes, the Ericksonian hypnotherapist uses various dissociational strategies. One such strategy is boredom – for example, the hypnotist might tell story after story to wear down the person’s conscious ...