By: Molly DeLaney, Psy.D. and Rick Voit, Ph.D.
Publisher: Brunner-Routledge, 2004
Drs. Voit and Delaney are both practitioners and trainers of hypnosis. "Hypnosis in Clinical Practice" is a concise manual that outlines the fundamental and essential steps and constructs in the application of hypnosis to the treatment process.
The book includes a brief description of the commonly occurring hypnotic phenomena that are present in symptomatic behavior and how they can be evoked during trance experiences for therapeutic purposes. These included age regression, age progression, anesthesia (and its antithesis, hyperesthesia,) amnesia (and its opposite hypernesia), dissociation (and its opposite association), and catalepsy (and its opposite flexibility/movement).
A helpful table is included displaying these hypnotic phenomena along with their normal, problematic, and dysfunctional behavioral displays. There is a discussion of depth of trance as well as breadth of trance. They highlight breadth of trance as being composed of preconscious hypnotic talent (the idiosyncratic hypnotic phenomena to which an individual enters regularly occurring trance states), self-absorption (through therapeutic, naturalistic utilization of predictable talents and subjective experience the individual enters trance as he establishes focus and absorption into his preconscious talents), self-surrender (where the individual yields to a deeper trance experience through an unconscious reconciliation between adaptive, self-protective resistance and their safely familiar hypnotic phenomena), and hypnotic synchronicity (where the client becomes absorbed in his or her unconscious process and can access and affect healthy or maladaptive manifestations of hypnotic phenomena). It is at this latter level of trance that very deep internal work becomes possible. The authors acknowledge the distinction between depth and breadth as merely semantic however, the distinction between depth and breadth alerts clinicians that clients have inherent hypnotic abilities that can be both utilized and emphasized for the induction of trance. The utilization of truisms as well as the elements of naturalistic inductions is covered. Also, elements of indirect induction and direct induction are offered.
The authors present the notion, that instead of viewing hypnosis in stages, which suggests is a linear process, hypnosis occurs in layers with each layer separate, in and of itself, while simultaneously fused with and influenced by the other layers. There was an excellent section on treatment planning. Basic steps in which both depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms, along with their hypnotic phenomena, were presented. Treatment strategies using the hypnotic phenomenon that correlates with treatment strategies for both anxiety and depression were highlighted.
Book report by: Gary Kelley, Ph.D.
