The Symbol Suggestion Technique in Hypnotherapy
Copyright (c) Donald Robertson, 2008-2009
A.E. van Vogt was a popular science fiction influenced by General Semantics, who co-authored a serious textbook on clinical hypnotherapy. This excerpt serves to illustrate the technique of symbol suggestion in circulation among hypnotherapists as far back as the New Nancy School. This simple technique can be used in self-hypnosis training and resembles the use of techniques in other models of therapy, such as collapsed coping statements in CBT.
Mechanics of Auto-Suggestion
(Excerpt from Cooke & van Vogt, The Hypnotism Handbook, 1956)
In formulating suggestions for the patient to use in auto-hypnosis, the following rules apply:
1. Write it. Write the suggestion out in accordance with the laws of hetero-hypnotic therapy […]. Writing forces us to crystallize our ideas. It makes us analyse the problem that we are facing, and is an aid to clear thinking.
2. Symbolise it. Give it a key word or idea, a code word. By definition, then, the symbol represents the entire formulation, exactly as in a trans-oceanic cable code a nonsense word may represent a complex sentence or idea. Select a simple word, preferably (but not necessarily) one that carries out the implication of the entire suggestion. For example, a therapy typed out single space and occupying a page which is designed to help a patient overcome feelings of inferiority could be symbolized with the word, “Confidence.”
3. Edit it. Read the written suggestion to insure that it complies with the basic laws. Revise it. Reconstruct it. Expand it. Condense it. Recopy the revised version and destroy the first draft.
4. Read it aloud. Before hypnotizing yourself, carefully read the entire suggestion to your self aloud. When in the presence of others where reading might be impossible, the suggestion can be read silently but very carefully. Reading aloud is preferable because it compels the uttering of every word. In reading silently, we are accustomed to scanning and skipping. When a suggestion has been properly edited, every word is important.
5. Hypnotise yourself. Use the particular method that has been taught you.
6. Think the symbol. Or whisper it to yourself. […] You have given yourself the suggestion fully and forcefully as a pre-hypnotic suggestion. You have, so to speak, loaded the gun. When you think the symbol, you are merely pulling the trigger on a gun which is already loaded. An alternate method […] is to roll the paper containing the suggestion and hold it in one hand or tape it to the hand. The presence of the paper, which has been previously read, serves as a trigger.
Symbol Suggestion in The New Nancy School
Charles Baudouin explained how various methods in yoga, such as repetitively chanting the Hindu sacred syllable AUM, can be seen as means of inducing a state of relaxed concentration similar to hypnosis.
Let us return to autohypnosis, as described earlier in our own text. Since it can be induced by immobilising the attention on a mental state, why should we not choose, for this mental state (in preference to the bead-telling or to the counting), the very idea which is to be the object of the suggestion? There is, in fact, no reason to the contrary, provided that the idea fulfils the requisite conditions, provided that it holds the attention rather than that the attention holds it. We must be able to think of it mechanically; ere long in spite of ourselves, as if we were obsessed by it; in the same way as that in which we listen to the sound of water running.
A very simple means of securing this is to condense the idea which is to be the object of the suggestion, to sum it up in a brief phrase which can readily be graven on the memory, and to repeat it over and over again like a lullaby. The state of hypnosis thereupon ensues, with the effortless contention characteristic of the condition. We pass unawares into the preliminary stage of hypnosis. Relaxation occurs without our noticing it; reverie is neutralised by the presence of an idea which makes around itself a mental void. The states we have analysed above are now synthesised into a single state which shares the characters of them all; which exhibits phases recalling now one, now another; but which differs from each. This condition is one of pre-eminent autosuggestibility. If we graft it upon a condition of spontaneous outcropping, as upon the morning and evening states bordering upon sleep, we shall obtain maximum results. But it may also be usefully attained during the waking hours. This method of repeating a phrase has often been recommended by American writers. […]
Let us add that, to prevent the mind from wandering, it may be well to repeat the phrase aloud, or at least to sketch its pronunciation with lips and tongue as we utter it mentally. This motor accompaniment favours the acquirement of the habit we wish to form; gives it a certain solidity; and acts as a leash or leading string whereby, without effort, our thought is guided towards its object. (Baudouin, 1920: 151).
The technique also resembles, in some respects, the “Relaxation Response” method made famous by Herbert Benson in his research upon comparative relaxation and meditation techniques, and widely-employed in the field of stress management.
