How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 250

Termination: If you don't want your subject to know what you are doing, you simply distract their
attention, usually by some appropriate remark, and casually terminate. Sometimes they remark, "What
did you say? I got absentminded there for a moment and wasn't paying attention to anything." This is
slightly distressing to the subjects and indicative of the fact that their attention was so focused and
fixated on the peculiar hand stimuli that they were momentarily entranced so they did not hear what
was said.
Utilisation:
Any utilisation leads to increasing trance depth. All utilisation should proceed as a continuation of
extension of the initial procedure. Much can be done nonverbally; for example, if any subjects are just
looking blankly at me, I may slowly shift my gaze downward, causing them to look at their hand,
which I touch and say "look at this spot.". This intensifies the trance state. Then, whether the subjects
are looking at you or at their hand or just staring blankly, you can use your left hand to touch their
elevated right hand from above or the side - so long as you merely give the suggestion of downward
movement. Occasionally a downward nudge or push is required. If a strong push or nudge is required,
check for anaesthesia.
Richard Bandler was a keen proponent of the handshake induction, and developed his own variant,
which is commonly taught in NLP workshops.
Any habitual pattern which is interrupted unexpectedly will cause sudden and light trance. The
handshake is a particularly good pattern to interrupt because the formality of a handshake is a widely
understood set of social rules. Since everyone knows that it would be impolite to comment on the
quality of a handshake, regardless of how strange it may be, the subject is obliged to embark on an
inner search (known as a transderivational search, a universal and compelling type of trance) to
identify the meaning or purpose of the subverted pattern.
Resistance
Erickson recognised that many people were intimidated by hypnosis and the therapeutic process, and
took care to respect the special resistances of the individual patient. In the therapeutic process he said
that "you always give the patient every opportunity to resist". Here are some more relevant quotes
pertaining to resistance:
Whatever the behaviour offered by the subjects, it should be accepted and utilized to develop further
responsive behaviour. Any attempt to "correct" or alter the subjects' behaviour, or to force them to do
things they are not interested in, militates against trance induction and certainly deep trance experience.
If the patient can be led to accept one suggestion, they will more readily accept others. With resistant
patients, it becomes necessary to find a suggestion that they can accept. Resistance is always important,
and should always be respected, so if the resistance itself is encouraged, the patient is made to feel
more comfortable, because they know that they are allowed to respond however they wish.
Many times, the apparently active resistance encountered in subjects is no more than an unconscious
measure of testing the hypnotist's willingness to meet them halfway instead of trying to force them to
act entirely in accord with his ideas.
Although the idea of working with resistance is essentially a hypnotic one, it goes beyond hypnosis and
trance. In a typical example, a girl that bit her nails was told that she was cheating herself of really
enjoying the nail biting. He encouraged her to let some of her nails grow a little longer before biting
them, so that she really could derive the fullest pleasure from the activity. She decided to grow all of
her nails long enough that she might really enjoy biting them, and then, after some days, she realised
that she didn't want to bite them anyway.
Ericksonian therapy
Erickson is most famous as a hypnotherapist, but his extensive research into and experience with
hypnosis led him to develop an effective therapeutic technique. Many of these techniques are not

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