Sunday, February 17, 2008 12:23 AM
Conversational Hypnosis sounds like something I need to practice and master. I think that will be a useful tool in my arsenal of changework. I wonder, with CH, is it necessary to get full-blown sonambulistic trance for the changes to happen, or is it a matter of getting just enough trance as the changes are being made?

I read in the book “TRANCE-formations” about a time when one of the authors used conversational reframing to help a woman overcome her alcoholism. Basically, the gist of it was that the author spoke to the lady and she had kept asking herself “Why do I drink?”, and he simply told her that that is the wrong question.

Since she was already in a receptive frame of mind, for want of changing, he told her that there is a question that is even more important, and far more useful. He asked her,
“What would you do if you didn’t drink?”

By asking her this question, he opened her mind to see a whole new world of possibilities she had not considered simply because her original question of “Why do I drink?” was a useless question.

By asking her the question he asked her, he forced her to look at the problem from a new perspective, as well as simultaneously generating new possibilities of behaviors.

Awesome stuff!