Once you have achieved a trance state, how do you utilize it in a useful way? The major positive attribute of an altered state of consciousness is that you don´t have to fight with the person´s belief system. The unconscious mind is willing to try anything.
The conscious mind is continually making judgments about what is possible and what is not possible, rather than simply trying some behavior to find out whether it is possible or not. The conscious mind with its limited belief system is typically extremely restricted in terms of what it is willing to try relative to what the unconscious is willing to try. The unconscious mind does not have these kinds of limitations. If a person comes to your office and says, “I can´t do this and I want to”, a logical assumption to make is that the subject has already done everything he is capable of to try and make that change with the resources he can get to consciously, and failed utterly. The best way to avoid resistance is to simply get the conscious mind out of the way and go directly to the “boss”.
The simplest way to utilize trance state is to give the subject a content-free set of instructions essentially saying “learn something” or “change now”. Some call this “process instructions” because they are very specific about the process the subject is to go through to solve problems, but, on the other hand, very unspecific about the content. In other words, you don´t have to know any details about the life of the subject in order to give a set of content-free process instructions and suggestions. For example, if someone comes in with a problem, you can give process instructions to “search through the personal history at the unconscious level taking time to identify a particular resource that could be of use to you now in dealing with this difficulty”. You do not specify what the “resource” will be, only that a person will find one. You don´t specify the “problem” and you don´t even need to know what it is.
Additionally, process instructions engage and occupy the subject in a very active way during hypnosis session, because he has to fill in the content you leave out. Also, the subject´s integrity is completely respected. You never introduce inappropriate content, since you introduce no content at all. When giving process instructions in trance state, you are deliberately unspecific. You leave out content so as to give the subject a maximum opportunity to fill in the missing pieces in the way most meaningful to him.
Tags: brain, hypnosis, hypnosis induction, hypnosis session, hypnosis subjects, hypnosis technique, hypnotic state, subconscious, trance state
An excellent post on utilization, which I consider one of Milton Erickson’s secret weapons. This can be useful even outside of hypnosis and trance utilization - it is a reflection of meeting someone at their model of the world, or embracing and extending, etc. An Aikidoist might consider a “blend” to be utilization in a physical sense.
But in any scenario, we need to look at what we’re being presented with and deal with that. It’s much harder than it sounds to actually do utilization, but in another sense it’s much easier than anything else when you consider the results you can get.