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ОглавлениеFROM HYPNOTHERAPY TO PSYCHODRAMA—THE TERMS OF OUR TRADE
The conscious mind, even though it is very important, is only about 10 percent of our mind. This part of the mind helps us to think, debate ideas, reason and process short-term memory experiences, all very important tasks.
Yet, the unconscious mind contains a full 90 percent of the mind!1 It holds long-term memory, to help us “learn from our own history.” This demonstrates the saying that if we don’t learn from our history, we are likely to repeat it, making the same mistakes over and over again. So even though our conscious mind may completely understand our dysfunctional relationships or self-sabotaging patterns, it is not capable of making the necessary changes.
What we have discovered by exploring the intricacies of the unconscious mind is that from very early in our development, we draw conclusions about ourselves which are programmed into the deepest core level of beliefs about ourselves. And then we make decisions about how to behave based on those conclusions. This behavior is so deeply buried in our operating systems that the limitations of the conscious mind do not allow us to find them or change them.
An example of this would be growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family system. Having the experience of sitting at the dinner table with an explosive parent who pounds the table and emphatically yells, “You’re not leaving this table until you eat everything on your plate!” or sitting at the dining room table night after night with parents who are fighting, drunk or screaming at the children might cause children growing up in this family to draw the conclusion, “I’m a bad person.” Or “I’m not safe, even in my own family.” Then those conclusions may be followed by an unconscious decision about how to behave in order to feel safe. That decision might be, “I’ll just become invisible—if I become really small, perhaps no one will notice me and then I’ll be safe.”
Later on in life, such people may wonder why they cannot really be successful in reaching goals in their lives. They become aware, perhaps in cognitive therapy or counseling, that they keep on sabotaging themselves, hiding their own light, so to speak. Getting it all figured out in the conscious mind is certainly a good first step. But after lots of time and money spent trying to change this behavior of self-sabotage by talking about it, analyzing it and deciding to be different, most of us have learned the hard way that the self-sabotage continues!
Hypnotherapy has proven to be a most effective and efficient path to creating change within ourselves and our clients. Through hypnotherapy we learn that the way to change these old, stubborn patterns that have plagued most people for a majority of their lives is to have direct access to the unconscious mind, discover what conclusions and decisions are still operating and re-program them. This is just like the operating system of your computer. If you don’t upgrade the old system, it will no longer be functional. The old programs are just not sufficient to serve you. Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool in re-programming what no longer serves your highest good.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYPNOSIS AND HYPNOTHERAPY: AGE REGRESSION
Hypnosis is the process of getting a person relaxed and giving them suggestions that may or may not help them get their desired results. They may stop smoking or lose weight or decrease their anxiety. However, these hypnotically-suggested changes are often temporary, because while hypnosis has provided access to the unconscious mind and its “operating system,” it has not addressed the underlying motivation for continuing behaviors, no matter how self-limiting or self-injurious. The actual motivation, the primal conclusions and decisions, need to be found, resolved and released.
The most effective and efficient way to discover the unconscious conclusions and decisions still operating in one’s life is to go back to the source, back to the formative experiences which dictated forming those beliefs and choosing behaviors to deal with them. Hypnotherapy provides an ideal vehicle for that journey back to the source, because it provides us direct access to the unconscious mind where these long-term memories and deeply held beliefs are stored. We call that journey age regression because it involves much more than remembering a past experience; it creates the opportunity to re-experience a past event as if it is happening now. In age regression, an individual feels the emotions deeply, the body sensations kinesthetically and the trauma or conflict acutely. The experience draws in all the original chaos, confusion, immaturity and helplessness. There is a huge difference between the original experience and the age-regressed experience: this time the individual is not alone. The therapist is available to suggest alternative responses and to encourage empowerment. An individual in an age-regressed trauma can revise the original scene, can yell at the abusive parent, “Stop it! You have no right to treat me this way!” or can kick and scream and repel the attack of a sexual abuser. Then, in this newly created state of personal power and self-respect, the person’s old conclusions about being weak or stupid or worthless unravel. New beliefs of self-worth and belonging and personal power automatically emerge. These new beliefs, together with the immediacy of a successful rehearsal of new behaviors, establish a profound shift in the person’s whole being.
After thousands of hypnotherapy sessions and an immense body of research, we have determined that most of our lifelong patterns do begin very early in our lives—in early childhood, at birth, during our time in the womb and even at the moment of conception! All this invaluable information is stored in the vaults of our unconscious minds. Hypnotherapy is the key to unlocking this valuable wealth of information and to changing these patterns where they began. That’s how a new pattern can emerge.
For people who have never experienced hypnotherapy, it may seem unbelievable that you could return to your early childhood or birth, let alone your conception, and that it could have an effect on your life. Yet many people have had these life-changing age regressions in hypnotherapy.
An example is Abigail, an intelligent, well-educated woman who has a small private psychotherapy practice. She wants to expand her services and begin offering groups. But something has kept her from taking the steps to make this happen. She balks at speaking to church groups or service clubs in her community, feeling a gnawing sense of doom at even the thought of standing before a group of people and being the center of attention. Abigail began a hypnotherapy session with this self-sabotaging fear, and very soon found herself back in the first grade, feeling humiliated by the teacher and her fellow students as she stumbled in trying to tell about her summer vacation. The therapist tapped her forehead and took her back to an earlier time when she had the same experience of shame. Abigail was a tiny fetus, only a matter of weeks old, at the very moment that her mother discovered that she was pregnant out of wedlock. Abigail’s mother’s fear and shame was palpable for the fragile new life inside her, and Abigail felt responsible (“If only I wasn’t here, my mother wouldn’t feel so bad”). Her conclusion about herself in that crucial moment was, “I am shameful. My existence causes pain for others.”
How did this little fetus try to defend herself from the pain of that felt rejection? She decided to become as small and invisible as possible, to fly under the radar. The source trauma for Abigail was her sense of rejection at the moment of discovery, and that prototype experience was replayed many times throughout her childhood, for example, in her experience in the first grade. She had never understood the sense of doom that plagued her at even the thought of public speaking, and was powerless to overcome it no matter how many motivational talks she attended or recited to herself. But now Abigail understood viscerally the deep, existential basis for that fear—deep in her unconscious, it really was a matter of life or death! With her newfound insight and reclaimed sense of worth, she was much more able to bring her ideas forward, enroll her classes and even do some public speaking. It was now okay for her to be seen.
HYPNOTHERAPY AND JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY
These self-sabotaging, self-limiting aspects of ourselves are long-held patterns of behavior motivated by deep and unconscious beliefs and defenses. In Jungian psychology these are called shadow parts. These shadow parts are actually hidden parts of our personalities—hidden, that is, to us but certainly not to our friends, family and co-workers. Shadow parts are akin to the blind spot in a rear view mirror. Even though the car passing on our left side is nearly upon us, we cannot see it. Examples of personal blind spots or shadow parts may be having the self-concept that we are loving, kind mothers, wives and friends and then losing control and lashing out at those closest to us, then later on acting as if nothing has happened. It’s like the car we don’t see in the rear view mirror until it is suddenly in front of us and we continue on our journey as if we had seen it all the time.
Another example is believing that we are fair, kind and accepting and then listening to the voice of our inner judge who stands back and mentally criticizes or finds fault with others, nearly continuously. Perhaps outwardly we act normally, giving them compliments about how nice they look, how accomplished they are or what great friends they have come to be. The running, shadow dialogue in our heads is quite to the contrary: “What an ugly dress; he/she is an idiot and will never get anywhere. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them.” These inner dialogues indicate that our shadow parts have actually formed an alliance within us called a complex by Carl Jung, without our conscious awareness or agreement.
How does Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy interface with and enhance these Jungian concepts to make them more therapeutically available to our clients? First, with hypnotherapy we can actually slow down long enough to drop into the unconscious mind, to be able to hear the unconscious dialogues that play in our heads like a radio left on. These internal dramas, akin to soap operas, take on a life of their own, uncensored and uninterrupted. When we, the client and the therapist, enter into the dialogue through hypnotherapy, we become aware that this radio program has been playing for a long time. Through the wisdom of the unconscious mind, we can regress to the origin of this dialogue and discover the age of the child part that is hiding in the shadows, i.e., the blind spot of our rear view mirror.
Second, with hypnotherapy we can resolve the infantile, unresolved conflicts that gave birth to the immature parts of us that felt unsafe and had to hide in the shadows and recesses of our consciousness. As children, if we grew up in families where we were criticized instead of encouraged and loved only if we performed to an impossible standard, we had to develop some defenses in order to survive and not become completely hopeless.
It was a strong survival instinct that created our internal shadow parts that knew they could not be seen or we could have been punished to the point, in some families, where the abuse would have been even more devastating.
Without the tools of hypnotherapy, we are limited to using only 10 percent of our minds, which is the conscious mind. Like the blind spot in our rear view mirror, the limited, conscious mind can think, analyze and talk about the concepts of our deeply hidden shadow parts.
With Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy, we have complete access to use the full 100 percent of the mind. Having increased access to the unconscious mind allows us to drop down into our memory banks in order to expand our full awareness of when and how these young shadow parts and complexes were created. These complexes can be untangled so that the intertwining issues that were suffocating our human development can be resolved.
Through hypnotherapy, the client as well as the therapist is gifted with the ability to hear these shadows, determine what they truly need for safety and encourage them to emerge from their hiding places to be seen, loved and transformed!
THE BODY IN BODY-MIND-SPIRIT HEALING
The body is an integral aspect of our work with clients. The body, through symptoms and specific sensations, provides valuable diagnostic information about what needs to be resolved and healed in psychotherapy. By tracking changes in these somatic experiences through the course of therapeutic intervention, we can assess our effectiveness.
In a Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy model, people often discover emotions that they never knew they had or that they did not have language to express. With hypnotherapy, we can teach clients to identify their emotions and then to put an appropriate label on these feelings. It is surprising how many adults have no language to describe or express their emotions. The most effective way for them to have a surefire way of knowing that an emotion is, in fact, present is to bring their awareness down into their body and notice what is happening. Many people try to “think about” what they are feeling, which brings them into their heads and their conscious minds. The problem with this is that the feelings are not located in the head, nor are they located in the conscious mind. Emotions are rooted in the unconscious part of the mind and physically in the body. This is why hypnotherapy is so effective for mind-body work. Every emotion that we experience has a corresponding reaction in the body.
So, for example, when you begin to feel sadness, your eyes may begin to tear up and you may have a slight pressure in the center of your chest which is called the heart center. The heart center is not your physical heart, it is your emotional heart. When you experience joy, you may feel like laughing or smiling (a physical reaction) and you may feel a warm feeling in your chest, your heart center. Some people experience anger in their chests with a pounding sensation, rapid breathing and tightness, perhaps in the stomach. Fear often expresses as tightness or burning in the stomach or chest. Shame or embarrassment usually causes the person to put a hand over his or her eyes or cover his or her face.
The body never lies and is the most consistent reporter of our current emotional status at any given time. In Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy, we always ask clients to bring their awareness into their bodies to find the place where the feeling or emotion is located. Then we use the Gestalt Therapy approach taught by Dr. Fritz Perls of “giving that part of the body a voice” and letting it express to us our deeper emotions of which we are usually consciously unaware. What are your clenched fists saying? What is the pain in your neck telling you? What is the message of your indigestion? Give it a voice and let it speak.
Many people hold their emotions inside their bodies, which is what many of us were taught to do as children. When this holding in of powerful emotions has become a lifelong pattern, it can certainly lead to disease and chronic pain or illness. With the Heart-Centered type of therapy, the stressed person can learn to identify and release these powerful emotions in a healthy way so that the internalized stress does not lead to a fatal illness such as cancer or a heart attack.
Other people have not learned how to express feelings in a constructive manner and may hold them in until they explode and become abusive to those they love. Some folks express feelings in another unhealthy manner, with snide remarks, sarcastic allegations and rude behavior. They frequently use the statement, “I don’t get mad, I just get even.” This is an example of expressing emotions in a non-direct, abusive manner, and is what psychologists call passive-aggressive.
When clients are in a hypnotherapy session, they have much more direct access to their emotions located in the unconscious mind. Clients in the trance state are much more aware of their bodies and can be easily directed to notice and express in a healthy way the feelings that have been stored within the body. This release of emotions is like opening or loosening the valve of a pressure cooker. The steam can then be released slowly without exploding. This, then, is how hypnotherapy heals the mind and the body through the information revealed, expressed and released from the client’s energy field. This is also the reason why hypnotherapy can be so successfully used by psychologists, clinical social workers, licensed professional counselors and school counselors, as well as by doctors in the field of integrative medicine.
THE SPIRIT IN BODY-MIND-SPIRIT HEALING
How does spirit fit into mind-body-spirit healing? While the person is in the hypnotherapeutic trance state, perhaps toward the end of the session, he or she often experiences a warmth, a sense of forgiveness, of compassion, of a love that extends out to humanity itself. This phenomenon occurs with such frequency during the hypnotherapy experience that we have not been able to ignore it. It seems to be a natural result of someone making intimate contact with his or her heart center.
We have learned after more than forty years of experience that many people are longing for some type of spiritual connection—a real, felt, deeply personal experience of spirit. Many times we have heard ministers, rabbis and other actively religious people say, “Right now I feel closer to God than I have for many, many years.” This connection allows clients to reclaim what may have been missing in their lives since they were children: the deepest and highest parts of themselves. We use the term “soul retrieval” for this miraculous spiritual healing.
Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy is a particular approach to the use of hypnosis in psychotherapy for mind-body-spirit healing which, taken together, we call personal transformation.
We transform first physically, changing the structure and functioning of our bodies. We begin to understand the subtle energy of which we are composed, and learn to manage it for optimal health and growth. We gain conscious influence over many of the processes once believed to be autonomic, such as our sleep cycles, recovery from injury and illness, the functioning of the immune system and ultimately the process of dying.
Second, we transform emotionally, healing the wounds of unresolved trauma and growing in self-actualization (Abraham Maslow’s term) or individuation (Carl Jung’s term). This healing necessarily involves incorporating the full expression of ourselves, embracing the repressed shadow, the imperfection, the unworthiness as well as the wisdom and the transcendence.
Third, we transform spiritually, surrendering the ego to that which is greater than itself (“Thy will, not mine, be done”), finding our highest purpose in life and beginning to express it in every action. This involves reclaiming all the fragments of the Soul that have been dissociated or lost through identification with a narrow, too-limited self-concept.
Finally, we transform our social context, creating healthy community to support our highest level of functioning. We transform within the crucible of relationships, creating an identity and strengthening the resulting ego by facing our deepest fears and greatest challenges. We create and use safety and trust, encouragement and support within the heart-centered unconditional love of a healthy community.
PTSD AND COMPLEX PTSD
It has become clear in recent years that there are degrees of wounding in traumatization, some being more pervasive and complicated than others. One attempt to distinguish between them is the distinction between trauma and complex trauma, or PTSD and Complex PTSD. Complex trauma refers to trauma experienced as overwhelmingly intolerable, that occurs repeatedly and cumulatively, usually over a period of time and within specific intimate relationships which violate the human bond and sever the vital human connection.2 The victim of complex traumatization is entrapped and conditioned by the perpetrator, whom the victim relies on for safety and protection.
In families, it is exemplified by domestic violence and child abuse and in other situations by war, prisoner of war or refugee status and human trafficking. Complex trauma also refers to situations such as acute/chronic illness that requires intensive medical intervention or a single traumatic event that is calamitous.
Unresolved complex trauma results in Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Complex PTSD), which produces apparently contradictory symptoms.
When children and adults are traumatized beyond their breaking point, they retreat inwardly to call on unconscious resources. The child tried fight or flight and it didn’t work (the abuse got worse), so he had to stop responding with that behavior. But his body’s nervous system didn’t stop reacting with sympathetic activation, and this energy just built up because it was unsafe to express it. So he had to find a way to override the body’s natural fight/flight response to stress and to tolerate the growing accumulation of undischarged energy.
The mind dissociates from paying attention to what is intolerable; the body dissociates as well, through compensating activation which we call shock. This is the central distinction between trauma and complex trauma, between PTSD and complex PTSD. This is the clinical definition of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Exposure to sustained, repeated or multiple traumas, particularly in childhood, resulting in a complex symptom presentation. This includes not only post-traumatic stress symptoms, but also other symptoms reflecting disturbances predominantly in affective and interpersonal self-regulatory capacities such as difficulties with anxious arousal, anger management, dissociative symptoms and aggressive or socially avoidant behaviors.3
These other symptoms are really defenses which formed early on and were effective at surviving the ongoing trauma by allowing body and mind to dissociate. In a sense, the person is now accompanied by a powerful companion, a protective bodyguard for the traumatized and overwhelmed person to hide behind. Creating this bodyguard comes at a steep price, however: the person must turn over to the bodyguard the set of defensive behaviors, the moment-to-moment decision making about when and how to protect him or her. So the bodyguard might perceive an imminent threat, whether there is actually one or not, and throw himself in front of the one he is sworn to protect, suddenly, without warning or explanation or even rational purpose. That happens when I begin to experience loneliness and my protector ushers me into the kitchen to eat three pieces of cake; or when I experience that my boss is angry at me and my protector forces me into the nearest hiding place; or when I experience my spouse getting cozy with someone I consider to be a rival for her affection and my protector explodes in a jealous rage.
The result is a split in the individual. The bodyguard develops into a powerful neurotic pathology in the form of addictions, thought disorders, anxieties, depression and other self-sabotaging behaviors.
These behaviors are the psychological component of the protection, i.e., the adaptation to the perceived threat. Shock is the physiological component, the same dissociative and defensive pattern embedded in the autonomic nervous system. The bodyguard (who shares the body’s real estate with the conscious ego-self) has conscripted the body to its service and manages to step into control, to take the steering wheel away from the conscious ego-self through control of the nervous system. The over-eater literally “finds herself eating desserts” despite the conscious ego-self’s best intentions not to do so. The bodyguard has taken control of the part of her that carries the willpower and ability to make healthy choices by putting it to sleep (parasympathetic shock) or by distracting it with busyness (sympathetic shock).
It is important to recognize that the bodyguard is just doing its job, what it was selected for so long ago and trained to do: protecting you. It is not malevolent, bad or mean-spirited, any more than the ocean is when it rises up in a tsunami. It is just doing instinctually what comes naturally. We showed great courage and wisdom as children in seeking out and finding a powerful ally to help us deal with the trauma. Surely now as adults we can find the courage and wisdom to confront those same powerful forces (bodyguards) to renegotiate the arrangement.
The way to retrain or recondition the bodyguard is to retake control of the body’s nervous system. When the bodyguard cannot usurp the body through sleep or distractions, the conscious ego-self is returned to its rightful place at the steering wheel. And then I can choose to say to the bodyguard, “Thank you for trying to help me, but right now there is no threat. So take a break. I’ll take it from here. And that means I won’t eat cake right now; I’m going to deal with my loneliness in a different way. Maybe I’ll call a friend.”
Hypnotherapy is a preferred method of working with both the psychological component and the physiological component of C-PTSD.
PSYCHOTHERAPY, HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION
In psychotherapy, we basically follow the prescription discovered by Freud of retrieving traumatic memories, bringing unconscious material into consciousness, expressing the attached emotions and releasing the trauma. In the process, traumas are resolved and we return to the normality of social adaptation, free of symptoms. Our goal is a well-adapted life with a sense of personal power and healthy relationships. The ultimate goal is a happy life.
In healing, we expand the goal of our intervention from symptom relief to system optimization. It might be seen as the difference between reparative medicine and naturopathy. We also bring spiritual connection (the client’s and the healer’s) into the process, accessed through intuition and experienced as the grace of God. We use more powerful techniques to access deeper levels of the unconscious, bringing forgiveness and acceptance. Our goals are self-actualization, the expression of unconditional love in healthy community and service to others. The ultimate goal is a harmonious, balanced life.
In transformation, we begin by following the same therapeutic process. We might call this phase of transformation regressive, going to the source of lessened capacity and healing it. We don’t stop there, however. We continue the healing into the psycho-spiritual realm, overcoming normality and achieving (returning to) wholeness. We might call this phase of transformation progressive, evolutionary growth into self-actualization. We transcend the limitations of generally accepted ordinary reality. We release the attachments to people and things that keep us captive and limited and work toward karmic liberation, clarity of psychic vision (listening to and following the quiet, infallible inner voice) and reaching the highest expression of love in the surrender of the ego to the will of God. The ultimate goal is a life of moments so balanced and conscious that one maintains equanimity, composure and spiritual focus even at the moment of death.
People usually seek therapy for quick solutions to immediate problems. Perhaps they have an addiction or anxiety or a relationship issue which they know they need to address. Unfortunately, therapeutic treatment is symptomatic and can often result in symptom replacement.
Healing, on the other hand, requires an in-depth look at what life is about, the purpose and meaning of existence and how to more fully express oneself in this lifetime. In healing work, we recognize the interconnectedness of the whole person. We go deeper, to the level of early trauma, and resolve what was left unresolved. We know that true healing clears up the problem, symptom and cause, leaving the person healthy and prepared to fight off future infections, be they physical or emotional.
In transformational work, we see the symptom as a clue to the deeper spiritual issue with which the person is involved. The symptom can actually lead through the deeper emotional work, clearing out ego issues that block spiritual connection. For example, a person who is continually upset with his/her relationship partner is so preoccupied with these projections that it prevents him or her from looking deeper at the real source of the hurt and anger.
A hindrance to transformation is the support we may receive to not change. The process of transformation often results in estrangement from those who have been our companions in ordinary life. As we develop new insights, new interests, new life scripts and life goals, those in our companionship circle who haven’t changed in a like manner are no longer able to effectively support us. They may even try to sabotage our growth in a new direction, and support us to turn back to the old ways. This is especially common with relationships that have involved addictions or other behaviors designed to keep us numb and asleep.
However, we can create healthy community, a network of new companions, like-minded and supportive of our newly expanded perspectives. This is a community of seekers on the same path who value consciousness over unconsciousness. After spending time with people who share our souls on the deepest levels, it is difficult to go back to cocktail parties and idle chit-chat. It becomes boring to spend time with people who are not honest about their feelings and are still highly involved in feeding their hungry egos.
ACHIEVING OUR ULTIMATE POTENTIAL
Uncovering these unconscious conclusions and decisions is important not only to repair damage caused by traumas in early life, but also in resolving any obstacles to achieving our ultimate potential in life. One of the most important breakthroughs in Western psychology has been the discovery that psychological maturation can continue far beyond our arbitrary, culture-bound definitions of normality, and that techniques exist for realizing our expanded potential.4
Abraham Maslow said, “What we call normality in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don’t even notice it.”5 Normality is a form of arrested development, where the developmental process has stopped prematurely, incomplete.6 The work of developing ourselves into our full potential is personal transformation.
We have all experienced moments of transcendence, induced by religious ritual, a peak experience, hallucinogenic drug, meditation, near-death experience or other means. This experience provides a “glimpse” of the vast possibilities beyond normal everyday consciousness.
Many people now see development beyond normality as the logical culmination of human development. In the first phase of life, from childhood to middle adulthood, we are becoming individuals, learning to meet the demands of family, work and society. In the second phase, which begins, according to Carl Jung, with the “midlife crisis,” we begin to turn inward, to reconnect with the Self, the center of our beings. In the first phase we built and developed our egos and in the second phase we transcend them.7
DREAM WORK AND PSYCHODRAMA
In our practice we use dream work and psychodrama, two specialized techniques which are adaptations of hypnotherapy. Psychodrama provides an opportunity for the client, in a group therapy setting, to structure his/her internal psychic reality externally and to interact with the representation created. The person whose story is being enacted selects other group members to play the roles of characters in the psychodrama, perhaps his boss, his spouse or his parents. We might also represent his fear, his courage or the feeling of isolation by having a group member play that part. Subpersonalities or shadows can be enacted in psychodrama very effectively, providing clients with a fresh viewpoint of themselves. The identified client has entered a hypnotic trance state, similar to a dream state or to the state one is in while in hypnotherapy, which adds to the intensity of the lived experience.
Psychodrama is highly effective because it is experiential; it taps deeply into unconscious material, it is corrective and it is a group process. Psychodrama allows an internal experience to be externalized and experienced from a new perspective. For example, the impact on a client’s life of overwhelming responsibilities is immeasurably more powerful experienced in a physical way than it is merely discussed verbally and known cognitively. We might place something heavy on the client’s shoulders to let him really experience how burdensome the responsibilities have become. “Give that heavy burden a voice. What is it saying to you?” Then we have words to correlate with his experience of the heaviness on his shoulders. Also, we concretize experience visually, kinesthetically and viscerally. For example, a family sculpture (a technique popularized by Virginia Satir), with family members placed physically in relation to each other, could demonstrate visually how distant the antisocial brother is and how clinging the oversolicitous mother is.
Psychodrama helps to access the deep unconscious, engaging the body kinesthetically and activating body memories, which take us like sonar to early traumatic experiences or other deeply-held unconscious material. When an individual is in the actual physical posture or movement that accompanies a traumatic reaction, it becomes more palpably real. We might assist a client, whose tendency is to want to withdraw in the face of conflict, to express it by physically walking away from his scolding spouse. Then he is confronted in a visceral way with the isolation and loneliness that he also wants to avoid. We can help him to walk into his relationship with his wife and to withdraw from her as many times as it takes for him to realize that he needs to find a new solution, something he hasn’t tried before.
Psychodrama is corrective because in it we can re-write history. We can react differently than we did originally, saying what we couldn’t then, protecting what we couldn’t then and setting much-needed boundaries. A client can see the abused child who was him/her sympathetically, contrary to the judgments and shame which have filled his/her self-experience ever since. This correction often takes the form of re-working missed developmental stages. The corrective experience encourages the client toward re-experiencing the old, unsettled conflict, but with a new ending.
Advantages of group work include the efficiency of benefit to multiple group members of one member’s session. Often, the participants who play roles in a session or those in the non-participating audience find their issues getting triggered during someone else’s session. Also, participants benefit from the modeled social learning provided by observing other members’ coping strategies, resilience and triumphs.
Dream work is an ideal way to access the deep unconscious. In our dreams, the lowest parts of ourselves—the shadows, unacknowledged urges and unexpressed emotions—speak to us. So do the highest parts of ourselves—the denied aspirations, spiritual yearning and wise acceptance of life’s conflicts. Often, however, we need a supportive forum and a skilled facilitator to make sense of the messages our dreams are offering. In hypnotherapy or hypnotic psychodrama, we can invite those symbolic dream images to speak for themselves, just like we do with a sensation or symptom in the body: “Give it a voice and let it speak.” Then they take on a life of their own, no longer constricted to the exact script of the dream, but opened up to a dialogue with the individual whose unconscious presented him with the dream in the first place. Who better to elaborate the meaning and message of these dream figures than the one whose mind presented them? Not the therapist, and not a book on dream symbols. Probably not the everyday, conscious mind of the client either; the magic of working with dreams in this hypnotic trance state is the access it provides to the part of the mind which created and offered the dream in the first place, the client’s unconscious.
