Plowing the Road For Better Hypnotic Regression

Every so often, like a great many of us, a clinical client will contact me requesting regression to find some sort of misplaced item. Sometimes this runs in cycles, from five different women one year, who during an angry moment, or perhaps for the way for safekeeping, stashed their wedding and engagement rings early one morning, only to forget where that safe spot was, to misplaced money and jewelry of all kinds; just so many people are putting things away, and forgetting what they did with these items.

The question that any practicing clinical hypnotist is, how do we effectively retrieve such information?

Last week I had been contacted by an individual who misplaced some important real estate legal documents. Before he came in, I thought about some of the more standard approaches to hosting a hypnotic regression session.

And then the stumbling points: Would he be a deep enough subject? Would he be able to attain stages five or six in the Aron’s depth scale? Would he be able to respond to me verbally while in trance? What this session turn out to be real regression or pseudo regression? Would he get the information he needed?

I started think this for a little bit. I had any insight, As I now think I came upon a better way.

Back in 2002 an older colleague in California contacted me. She told me she had a woman who had misplaced a great deal of jewelry, estate jewelry to be exact, who was not regressable through regular means. She asked me to write her script which later became titled and even later published as, “Finding Something Lost.“ Later the colleague reported to me her client had recovered well over a quarter million dollars worth of state jewelry.

I decided to use that script first, doing a straight up regular clinical hypnosis session with the client.

Then I would re-hypnotize him and question him while the in Hypnosis directly accessing the subconscious part of his mind to get the information he needed to find the misplaced documents.

For me, my thought was, plow the road before you drive on it. All too often in hypnotic regression sessions, a great many of us are attempting to achieve the best possible depth and precise response levels, when a client is desperately or frantically in need of the information to recover an item.

It occurred to me, that perhaps using this very direct approach might be missing the boat a bit. In other sessions we do, each session potentially improves the next to each even greater results. So when he came in, I discussed with him during my pre talk the technique I would use.

First, I used a standard verbal induction taking my time with it, to achieve relatively cheap levels of relaxation/trance and gave him suggestions that his mind would be able to remember the information as necessary. Much like regular clinical session for anything else, I simply brought him back to a more regular awareness, asking him if he was comfortable, and if he was ready to begin again? I then utilized a simpler induction, only to find that he was not verbally responsive while in deep hypnosis. Sort of interesting to see, almost like his lips were blue in some way.

I quickly switched to a forensic interview style using ideomotor signaling. Through a series of yes and no questions I was able to ascertain the file he was seeking, was located in a storage area he practically never used, in a box, up on a shelf, this box, was not a standard file box, but rather some sort of box that you would get from a supermarket or liquor store, marker writing on the outside.

When I brought him back out of hypnosis the second time, I then told him where he put the item, and his mind had its AHA moment of recognition. He seemed quite happy with the results.

Consequently, this particular approach will be the one I will be using in the future from now on, as it seems to work so well.

That is of course, something else even better occurs to me along the way.

Tags: Cerbone, depth, hypnosis, hypnotic, ideo, regression, signaling, technique, trance, uncovering

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Permalink Reply by Alonzo Cavazos, Ed.D., LCSW, LPC on July 11, 2011 at 7:36pm

John:

Thanks for sharing. From your description, it appears that ideomotor signaling circumvents the need for a formal regression and as well problems associated with clients who are non-verbal. In his book titled Transforming Therapy: A New Approach to Hypnotherapy (1989), Gil Boyne describes the case of Claudia who had misplaced an expensive gold necklace. He makes it look easy, but she was very motivated and had no difficulty verbalizing during the regression.

Alonzo

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Permalink Reply by Leshem Yosef on July 11, 2011 at 11:57pm

great John

can you share the script ?? only if can :-) hope not to be rude :-)

i watch one time on youtube-cant find it again-you doing an induction not the insant style -more complicate to a standing guy-in a office or a similar place [a corridor with 2 sofa i think] that was amaizing if you have the link please post it

thanx

your friend

Yosef

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Permalink Reply by John Cerbone - The Trance-Master on July 25, 2011 at 3:08pm

Absolutely, ideomotor signaling circumvents the need for a formal regression and as well problems associated with clients who are non-verbal. There are many clients while In hypnosis are down so deep they find it extremely difficult to speak out loud.

By hosting a regular session first, and using a script I wrote called finding something lost, then re- hypnotizing him and using ideomotor signaling, it was so much more effective, than simply attempting to hypnotize him straight out, in getting results. By fractionating him, and giving him suggestions to be more in compliance with the desired result we were mutually seeking to achieve, this approach proved to be outstanding and achieved quantum results.

Alonzo Cavazos said:

John:

Thanks for sharing. From your description, it appears that ideomotor signaling circumvents the need for a formal regression and as well problems associated with clients who are non-verbal. In his book titled Transforming Therapy: A New Approach to Hypnotherapy (1989), Gil Boyne describes the case of Claudia who had misplaced an expensive gold necklace. He makes it look easy, but she was very motivated and had no difficulty verbalizing during the regression.

Alonzo

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on July 25, 2011 at 5:20pm

That's interesting, John. I have helped several clients find lost objects and I notice that they all have something in common: an emotional tie to the loss. It appears that these emotional ties are blocks to recalling the lost items' whereabouts. Do you imagine that preparing the client via the initial hypnotic session to find the lost object and collapsing any obstacles toward that goal is beneficial?

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Permalink Reply by John Cerbone - The Trance-Master on July 25, 2011 at 6:34pm

Interesting point about the emotional attachments!

But yes, the previous session and series of suggestions; suggestions focused upon opening the mind to find something lost (which has worked alone and on it's own) really does plow the road.