The comfort of validation

If someone goes into a supermarket and they don’t know what they went there to buy, they can be there a long time and end up getting frustrated with the outcome. If the same person goes into the same supermarket and they know they want bread and milk, they may have to ask for help to find them, but there would be no problem. They will get what they went for. 

In the process of supervising people over the years, the questions that always helps to clarify stuckness for a therapist, when they're working with a client, the questions that I found so helpful are the basic questions that we are exploring: what does this client like to do and what's missing for this client?

When we ask, “What does this client like to do?” that tells us where to look for the resource of someone that is stuck because they’ve become disconnected from it. Asking, “What's missing for this client,” helps to focus our attention on this client and what it is that we’re looking for. So then we have a winning combination of knowing what we’re looking for and knowing where to look for it. Clients get stuck when they don’t know what's missing. And therapists get stuck if they don’t know what's missing for their client or for themselves. So we can all get stuck if we don’t know where to look or what is missing. 

There's a wonderful Sufi story about Mulla Nasreddin. He was down on his hands and knees under a streetlight, obviously looking for something. And his long-suffering, well-intended neighbour comes along and says, “What are you doing?” Nasreddin said, “I'm looking for my house keys.” So the neighbour joins Nasreddin on his knees, looking for the house key. After a while, they're not finding the key and the neighbour says to Nasreddin, “Are you sure you dropped the keys here?” to which Nasreddin replied, “Oh, no. I dropped it over there.” The puzzled neighbour says, “If you dropped the keys over there, how come we’re looking here?” to which Nasreddin replied, “Well, the light’s better here.” 

A friend told me of two tourists, who were lost in Ireland. They went into a local pub, put a map on the bar and told the publican that they were lost. The publican scratched his head and, after some time, perusing the map said, “Well, I wouldn’t be starting from here.” The Irish have a wonderful way of revealing some of the absurdity of our human condition. 

A man had been in a psychiatric hospital for a long time and all he would say was, “I shouldn’t be here.” Erickson replied, “But you are here.” And when this eventually clicked with the man, he said, “Oh, my goodness! What do I need to do to get out of here?” He needed to get to where he was before he could move on. 

Many clients can only begin to resolve their stuckness after their suffering has been significantly acknowledged. We can help by saying sincerely to such a client, “You’ve been through hell. This has been terrible for you. You’ve suffered so much and nothing seems to have helped. I can imagine that you must feel desperate at times.” These kind of statements can be like water in the desert. They are affirming of the client’s legitimacy in their experience.

I've also noticed, when I've offered these comments to a client, they have often been so relieved. It’s brought tears to their eyes at times. When they experience the relief that, at last, someone recognises the intensity and the legitimacy of their suffering instead of rushing in to assist to relieve them. It’s so tempting for us therapists to want to lessen the client’s suffering so that we don’t feel bad. 

Validating a client’s suffering, letting them know that we see that their suffering is legitimate, can be a wonderful first step towards finding what’s missing and getting some movement where there had previously been only stuckness. 

The relief of incorporation

Hypnosis used to be thought of as a rather delicate state, something to be protected, and so should happen in a quiet, climate-controlled environment, with soft lighting and peaceful music playing in the background. We now see that hypnosis is not like an anaesthetic, and more like an experience of focused attention, familiar to all of us in our everyday life. And so we can look to see how we can facilitate attentiveness and absorption rather than avoiding any minute potential distraction.

While some find focusing on reading, learning, etc., easier in a silent environment, others don’t mind or even prefer some background activity, doing homework better while watching TV. Also the quieter the environment, the louder any noise seems, so it can be useful to have everyday experiences including potential disruptions and noises be part of the hypnotic experiences. If someone comes in from a hot day into an air-conditioned office, enjoys the coolness and has to return to the heat, how long does the coolness last. My preference is to connect the hypnotic experience to everyday life as much as possible, and for most of us, this includes noise, concerns and a multitude of potential distractions.

Incorporation is a wonderful expression of the principles in the Ericksonian approach – accept what the client brings and use it – and extends the acceptance and utilisation to include potential external distractions, client and therapist concerns. 

It is a process that can achieve an acceptance and inclusion of external sounds, and concerns of the client and therapist. Instead of being disruptive, they can become part of the hypnotic experience. When more potential disruptions are included as legitimate components of the hypnotic session, the experience becomes fuller and rounder, making the translation and transportation of the experience with us into their own living smoother and more real. This can keep the therapist alert, and so add to their attentiveness and delight.

Incorporating externals:

We can offer a direct suggestion that the louder the external sound becomes, the more absorbed the client can be in their experience of hypnosis. This can be helpful when we know something is disturbing, but risks introducing a disturbance by bringing a client’s attention to it when they may not have noticed it. We can be more indirect and playful by alluding to an experience [phone ringing, plane overhead] with comments such as “This experience can ring true to you,” “Your learning can go to a higher plain [plane].”

Incorporating client concerns:

Clients have concerns which can distract them from their experience. They might be thinking “Am I doing the right thing?” or “How should I be behaving?” or “Is this hypnosis?” We can reassure individuals if these concerns are expressed or we can pre-empt them by suggesting “Feel free to do what you need to do at any time, recognising that you will at any moment be doing exactly what you need to do to achieve what is useful to you.” or “Hypnosis is different for different individuals. It’s more important for you to have the experience you are having so you can learn what you need to learn, so you can be unconcerned.”

Should a client be concerned that they don’t understand, we can say, “Your understandings are yours and you can reach them in your own time, at your own pace, in any way that feels right to you.”

If a client has some fear of losing control, we can offer “I’m talking, but this is your experience and you can respond in any way that is helpful to you. I can suggest that you close your eyes, but you can let your eyes close when you are ready.”

If someone is worried they might not remember the content of the session and so lose any benefit, we can suggest “You can be unconcerned knowing that you will only recall what is relevant to you and your learning.”

Concerns about going deeply enough can be addressed with “You won’t go any deeper than you need to.”

Incorporating therapist’s concerns:

As therapists, we find ourselves getting stuck, having doubts, feeling uncertain. We could just suffer, stutter, and hope; we could say, “I’m stuck”, or “I’m uncertain,” etc., and while this may provide some personal respite, it is hardly helpful to the client. It can, however, be extremely helpful if we express our concern, externalise it, but in a way that can aid the process rather than hinder it.

If we are thinking “What do I say next?” we can say, “I don’t need to talk all the time.”

If we are stuck on what to do next, we can offer “What I do is much less important than the way you can use this experience for your own benefit and betterment.”

If we feel uncertain about how we are doing, articulating, “You don’t need to attend to me except [accept] in ways that can be useful to you,” or “This is your experience, not mine; is happening for you, not for me; so you can look forward to discovering how you can make your own good use of this experience” can be a relief to us AND benefit the client.

Incorporation can take care of our shared mood, so a potential block is averted, doubts are averted, and the hypnotic process can proceed towards the client’s goal with mutual satisfaction.