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Presenter: Camillo Loriedo, PhD, MD

The use of hypnosis with families appears to be an easy and natural pro-cess because family provides the most common context for early hypnotic experiences. Therapists working with families learned by their experience how one can be deeply influenced by the family spontaneous inductions. On the other side, the role played by the identified patient in facilitating trance in the family system is certainly very relevant.

The study of the family natural tendency to induce trance is one of best ways to learn how to utilize hypnosis with families. Specific direct and indirect techniques are required to activate family resources and to induce a deep and meaningful change of the most rigid family patterns. In this framework hypnosis will be presented no more as an individual/linear event but rather, within a system perspective, as a circular and evolving process.

Indications on how to recognize the peculiar family hypnotic patterns and how to use them in order to bring in the therapeutic change will be given to the participants. The demonstration of a family hypnotic session gives a clear idea of the powerful and subtle resistances a family may develop in the course of the hypnotic treatment as well as of the many different solutions a therapist may adopt to overcome these resistances. Indirect as well as direct forms of hypnosis to be used in the family interview will be presented and special attention will be dedicated to the crite-ria to follow in order to combine properly direct and indirect in the different phases of the therapeutic process.