Format: Audio MP3 file download

Presenter: Maggie Phillips, PhD

Pre-Conference Session - It Takes More Than Two to Tango: Building Secure Attachment Through Hypnotic And Ego State Relationships

Interactive elements of the hypnotic relationship have been studied from a variety of orientations. Wolberg (1964) pointed out that the ?hypnotic relationship may act as a bridge that leads the patient from isolation to a contact with another human being without the intense suffering that characterizes habitual interpersonal relationships? (p. 358).

Michael J. Diamond (1984) viewed the hypnotist?s skill as a function of five factors: 1) attainment of matured object relating and comfort with deeper levels of relationship; 2) empathic capacity; 3) personal and therapeutic trance skill; 4) integration of healthy receptive, passive, and active capacities; and 5) the ability to deal effectively with one?s own internal and counter-transferential reactions to the patient.

Gilligan (1986) and other Ericksonian hypnotherapists have emphasized the importance of the therapist?s ability to cooperate with the client?s motivations, problems, and conflicts rather than expecting the client to cooperate with the therapist.

Finally, Jack Watkins wrote about the importance of the therapeutic self and of emotional resonance with the patient from a hypnoanalytic perspective. Jack and his wife Helen created Ego-State Therapy as a model for how to relate with self states in the inner family of self. Ego-State Therapy provides a framework to teach the client how to build healthy relationships with inner states to resolve symptoms and inner conflicts while also helping to actualize effective interactive relationships with others.

This workshop explores hypnotic strategies that can be used to help create secure attachment within the therapeutic relationship as well as internally through ego state relationships. Approaches include: The use of cues and suggestions related to safety and connection directed through the attachment circuits of the ventral vagal system; methods to work with the center core self to facilitate empowerment, self-cohesion and conflict free experience; and hypnosomatic approaches to connect with preverbal, nonverbal, and somatic aspects of self for developmental repair.

Workshop activities include lecture, clinical discussion, case examples, live demonstrations, group practice and brief dyad practice. As time permits, clinical case consultation is also featured.

At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Identify 3 types of ventral vagal strategies to create safety in the hypnotherapeutic relationship;
Define basic principles and practices of hypnotic and nonhypnotic ego-state therapy;
Explain two kinds of conflict free approaches to strengthen the whole self; and
Identify two approaches to connect and work with preverbal and somatic ego states.