So if you alter someone's state and make available an unconscious system, it may be that the material most immediately available will be junk. In gestalt terms, it's unfinished business. In TA terms, it's material for redecision. Painful memories have been re–experienced so frequently in the history of official hypnosis that this phenomenon has been officially labeled "abreaction." My understanding is that an abreaction is simply the most natural response to suddenly uncovering a system which contains material from the past that is painful or overwhelming.
Now what if someone has an "abreaction?" Let's say he bursts into tears. Being quite alert at the sensory level, you notice this. Now what do you do?
Jack: Wouldn't you do the same thing you just talked about doing for external interruptions? I'd start by pacing what I observed happening.
Absolutely. That's exactly what I would do as well. First you pace. You say "You are having feelings of discomfort and they are very uncomfortable." You have accepted his response. He doesn't have to fight with you about the validity of his own experience. You've given him a verbal pacing statement of what his experience is. "And you are crying … and those tears are representative of pain and discomfort from your past . . — and you are very uncomfortable. … As you remember … these particular feelings and they again come into your body …I would like you to consider the following… . Each of us, in our own personal history has had many, many experiences, some of which we label as unpleasant… . Those unpleasant experiences often form the basis … for later abilities … and skills … which people who have never been challenged by such experiences … fail to develop. … How pleasant it is … to experience discomfort from the past . , . with the full realization … that you survived those experiences, and that they form a rounded set of experiences from which you can generate more adequate behavior in the present."
So after pacing I did what we call a "content reframe." What I just said changed the meaning of what was occurring. Rather than just being unpleasant experiences, the memories are now the basis for knowledge and skills.
Man: After you pace, could you put that part of him in front of him ana nave him observe what happened in the past?
Excellent. "I want you to .see yourself at that particular age and have a sense of curiosity about what specifically happened … with your eyes and ears now open to what occurred and a sense of comfort in knowing that you survived it." That would create a dissociation from the unpleasant feeling as well as a content reframe. That's the basis for the NLP technique for curing phobias, described in detail in Frogs into Princes–Man: The person that I was doing the exercise with got into something very quickly. His eyes started doing lots of rapid eye movement, his head was moving back and forth, his arm started to move, and I saw a lot of tension in his jaw. I was really confused. I didn't know whether or not this was an unpleasant experience, resistance to being hypnotized, or something else. I'd like some suggestions.
This brings up the importance of making the distinction between interpretations and sensory–grounded experience. "Increased tension in the muscles along the jaw line" and "head moving back and forth" are sensory–grounded descriptions, in contrast to the last two things that you mentioned. "Unpleasant experience" and "resistance to being hypnotized" are in the realm of hallucinations and guesses. Hallucinating is fine—in fact it is an important part of the art. However I really insist that you all make a clear distinction between when you are using sensory–grounded descriptions and when you are hallucinating.
Rather than spending your time internally trying to figure out what interpretation is appropriate, you can simply begin to verbalize sensory–grounded descriptions of what you can see and hear. You can describe muscle tension, tears, body posture, or breathing, etc. That will maintain rapport by pacing and matching their experience.
You have the choice of saying something like "And what a strong experience that was, and you were a bit surprised, were you not?" Or "And these signals which you have offered me on the outside have a powerful connection with the rich internal experience that you are presently having."
Often when a person first goes into a trance, his muscles relax, and you will notice an increase of moisture in his eyes, or a few tears. Don't hallucinate. It may mean that he is really sad, or it may mean that he is just relaxing. For you to decide which it is would be to impose your own belief and value system. Stay out of the content, and simply mention the obvious. "And as that tear trickles down your cheek, you have a growing sense of comfort and security, knowing that you are fully protected." There's no necessary connection between the tear going down the cheek and comfort. However, as long as you begin with an immediately verifiable sensory–grounded description—the tear going down —and then connect it with the response you would like to develop, you utilize what occurs to lead the person where you want him to go.
Joan: I inadvertently used a very powerful word for my partner. I asked him to think of his hands as being "disembodied," He immediately went into this thing of carrying around a very heavy disembodied arm. When that word came out of my mouth, I realized that it was wrong, but I didn't know how to correct it.
Well, first of all, reorganize your own representation. There was nothing to correct. You see, there are no mistakes in communication, Joan. There are only responses or outcomes that you get by your communication. The response that you got wasn't the one that you wanted. That doesn't make it a mistake; it just makes it the next step in getting the response that you do want.
You noticed that when you mentioned the words "disembodied arm" you got a violent response. Given the principle of incorporation, what do you do? You immediately say "And that really upsets you." That is one choice. Notice that it's not a sensory–grounded statement. I am making a guess that the name of the experience that I've just elicited would fit into the general, vague category called "upset."
If you don't trust yourself to make those guesses, then you stay completely general. "And you really have a response to that. And there are many responses that you might learn to make to that particular item." You don't even know what he was responding to, so you say "that particular item." Or "You might consider how your close friend would respond to that idea in a way which is different from the way that you just did." Again, you are incorporating.
If you want to stay very general, you say "You have a very powerful response." That will always pace appropriately. You aren't even saying if the experience is positive or negative—only that it exists. If you stay very general you will always be right.
If you guess that the person is experiencing something unpleasant, after you pace you can say "And how pleasant it is to remember the unpleasant experiences of the past and have the sense of satisfaction of having survived those things so that they need never happen again." Or "And how unpleasant certain experiences are… . Knowing that such unpleasant experiences form the foundation … for present strengths … it is quite pleasant (voice tone shift) … to remember how unpleasant … some of our previous experiences have been,"