Reintegrating the parts

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John - wizardoftrance.com on February 23, 2012 at 9:10am

Dave,

If you read the intervention, you will find this sentence in your area of question:

"It looks like you have a good support team here Jim, thank them for their support and allow them
to get back to doing what they do best."

The conference room and managers meeting are simply an imagined construct. As you have seen, this is all the reintegration that is necessary.

Glad the intervention is working well for you.

John

Permalink Reply by Dave Berman on February 23, 2012 at 9:47am

Thanks John.  When I first got the script from you, I read it all the way through and made notes.  Then on the second read I condensed the notes to an index card that I've used once my client is in hypnosis.  After doing the process three or four times I went back and read the script again to see if there were subtle things I'd been omitting or allowing to be lost in translation.  Of course there were some deletions that have been helpful to include, like having the stubborn list keeper update the DO list with all the creative alternatives. 

Now I feel so comfortable with the process I suppose I could have negatively hallucinated this one reintegration suggestion right out of the script!  Thanks for pointing me to it. 

I also wonder if you would please comment on my questions in a broader way now that Yapko has me thinking about reintegration and suggesting in some cases it may not be necessary.  When working with smokers or people with other issues, do you find that you always want to reintegrate dissociated parts?  Are there criteria you use to determine how best to do it or whether to do it at all?  Thanks again.

Permalink Reply by John - wizardoftrance.com on February 23, 2012 at 2:08pm

With regards to Mr. Yapko...

At no time are the "parts" dissociated from the rest.

What is being done in this construct is an interview with selected managers.

We call them away from their normal functions to meet with the client.

We use part names to simply distinguish between each of them and the client, that's all.

You may notice that I just address them as such (i.e. "the part that makes (client name) smoke")

It is not necessary to require the imagination to make separate entities of them, apply names, clothing, in different modalities or any other such nonsense unless you are in a playful mood.

This is in reality, a direct interface with what I call the judgmental mind utilizing the imagination to do so.

If we said nothing at all at the end... the parts would just go back to doing what they were doing all by themselves.

As you may recall however, I do have set up a filtering system run by the part of them that first started smoking, to remind them how bad an idea it would be to start smoking again if their thoughts happen to go in that direction.

In truth, the reintegration statement was just a statement for transience from the managers meeting to the guided imagery.

John

Permalink Reply by Dave Berman on February 23, 2012 at 10:48pm

I'm trying to reconcile what you're saying with what Yapko is saying.  If it turns out you disagree with him, that is fine, but I'm not yet clear if that's the case.  You say "at no time are the 'parts' dissociated from the rest."  If I'm understanding Yapko, he's saying whenever doing parts work of this sort, it is the client that is dissociated from the parts of him/herself, getting to interact with them as if they're separate from the client even while understanding they're really aspects of the self (parts of the whole client person).  Is this just a difference in semantics or are you two in fundamental disagreement about something, perhaps what constitutes dissociation? 

Regardless, you have answered the core of my questions by noting the parts would go back to what they were doing automatically even without my suggesting reintegration, and that the script does include a simple brief mention anyway (that I had obviously overlooked).  Thanks.

Permalink Reply by John - wizardoftrance.com on February 24, 2012 at 4:32am

Dissociation is just a contraction of Dis-association which means not connected or associated with.

I'm saying: that you never feel your connection with any of your parts outside of a managers meeting yet they are still at work.

To say a in managers meeting you are dissociated from these parts of you simply because you are communicating with an imagined construct is a pretty far stretch.

You will have to ask Mr. Yapko what he meant by his statement.

John

Dave Berman said:

I'm trying to reconcile what you're saying with what Yapko is saying.  If it turns out you disagree with him, that is fine, but I'm not yet clear if that's the case.  You say "at no time are the 'parts' dissociated from the rest."  If I'm understanding Yapko, he's saying whenever doing parts work of this sort, it is the client that is dissociated from the parts of him/herself, getting to interact with them as if they're separate from the client even while understanding they're really aspects of the self (parts of the whole client person).  Is this just a difference in semantics or are you two in fundamental disagreement about something, perhaps what constitutes dissociation? 

Regardless, you have answered the core of my questions by noting the parts would go back to what they were doing automatically even without my suggesting reintegration, and that the script does include a simple brief mention anyway (that I had obviously overlooked).  Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Dave Berman on February 25, 2012 at 2:54pm

John, I don't find Yapko searching the member directory of HypnoThoughts but I can give you some specific quotes from his book "Trancework" (3rd edition, pages 368-373) to illustrate what appears to me to be the gap between his view and yours:

"Dissociation is defined as the ability to break a global experience into its component parts, amplifying awareness for one part while diminishing awareness for the others"

...

"In the domain of clinical hypnosis, dissociation relates to the more autonomous functioning of the conscious and unconscious minds in contrast to their normal, more integrated functioning.  Dissociation allows for the separation of different mental controls as Ernest Hilgard described in his neodissociation model of hypnosis..."

...

"Hypnosis is by its very nature a dissociative process.  And, dissociation is the defining characteristic of hypnosis: You can be in hypnosis without being relaxed, but you can't be in hypnosis without some degree of dissociation being evident."

...

"Dissociation may be used in a wide variety of ways.  Splitting an integrated experience into parts can make for some very interesting possibilities."

...

"Suggestions that facilitate divisions of experience are suggestions for dissociation...[which] can be facilitated through a variety of approaches, including direct suggestions for dividing experience into parts..."

...

"Anything you say that fits the pattern of the general dissociative suggestion statement that 'part of you is experiencing this while another part of you is experiencing that' is a direct suggestion for dissociation."

...

"In facilitating dissociation, the final consideration for the clinician is related to the process of reintegration.  Should the dissociated part(s) be reintegrated fully?  Partially?  Or not at all?  Certainly an area of pain is best left dissociated, at least in part.  Positive parts, such as the creative or adaptive parts, would probably need to be fully integrated."

-----

One of the defining traits of HPTI, the hypnosis school being taught by Scott Sandland (and Richard Clark and others), is that we are being explicitly directed to learn from people with different perspectives.  Scott has said that he's chosen Yapko's book for us because it too reflects various schools of thought.  Having this conversation with you is helping me to appreciate and value this approach even more.  Thanks for engaging me, and hopefully from these quotes above, particularly the last one, you can better understand where my original questions are coming from.

With respect and gratitude,

Dave

Permalink Reply by John - wizardoftrance.com on February 27, 2012 at 9:18pm

Glad I could help out :)

John

Dave Berman said:

John, I don't find Yapko searching the member directory of HypnoThoughts but I can give you some specific quotes from his book "Trancework" (3rd edition, pages 368-373) to illustrate what appears to me to be the gap between his view and yours:

"Dissociation is defined as the ability to break a global experience into its component parts, amplifying awareness for one part while diminishing awareness for the others"

...

"In the domain of clinical hypnosis, dissociation relates to the more autonomous functioning of the conscious and unconscious minds in contrast to their normal, more integrated functioning.  Dissociation allows for the separation of different mental controls as Ernest Hilgard described in his neodissociation model of hypnosis..."

...

"Hypnosis is by its very nature a dissociative process.  And, dissociation is the defining characteristic of hypnosis: You can be in hypnosis without being relaxed, but you can't be in hypnosis without some degree of dissociation being evident."

...

"Dissociation may be used in a wide variety of ways.  Splitting an integrated experience into parts can make for some very interesting possibilities."

...

"Suggestions that facilitate divisions of experience are suggestions for dissociation...[which] can be facilitated through a variety of approaches, including direct suggestions for dividing experience into parts..."

...

"Anything you say that fits the pattern of the general dissociative suggestion statement that 'part of you is experiencing this while another part of you is experiencing that' is a direct suggestion for dissociation."

...

"In facilitating dissociation, the final consideration for the clinician is related to the process of reintegration.  Should the dissociated part(s) be reintegrated fully?  Partially?  Or not at all?  Certainly an area of pain is best left dissociated, at least in part.  Positive parts, such as the creative or adaptive parts, would probably need to be fully integrated."

-----

One of the defining traits of HPTI, the hypnosis school being taught by Scott Sandland (and Richard Clark and others), is that we are being explicitly directed to learn from people with different perspectives.  Scott has said that he's chosen Yapko's book for us because it too reflects various schools of thought.  Having this conversation with you is helping me to appreciate and value this approach even more.  Thanks for engaging me, and hopefully from these quotes above, particularly the last one, you can better understand where my original questions are coming from.

With respect and gratitude,

Dave