Books about hypnotherapy

If you like the look of any of these books you can order them direct from the UK arm of Amazon Books, the Web's biggest bookstore, by clicking on the appropriate link. If you live in the USA or if you prefer to pay in dollars you can order them from amazon.com.

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Just what the title says - a comprehensive manual of Ericksonian hypnotherapy for the serious student. Readable and enlightening, this would be an excellent text book for a hypnosis course. It covers a variety of inductions, rapport-building, solution-focused approaches, language patterns, ethical considerations... everything needed for a complete hypnotherapy training.
(*****)

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Trances People Live by Stephen Wolinsky

Building on Erickson's concept of the 'everyday trance', Wolinsky shows how emotional problems and psychosomatic symptoms can be regarded as manifestations of different trance phenomena - amnesia, age regression, and so on. These are supposed to be characteristic of deep trance, but in fact happen to all of us in one form or another in everyday life.

Therapy then becomes the process of 'dehypnotising' the client from their 'problem trance'. Radical, thought-provoking, and useful. (*****)

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Wordweaving: The Science of Suggestion
A Comprehensive Guide To Creating Hypnotic Language by Trevor Silvester

Trevor Silvester was a fellow student on my NLP trainer's training in 1997, impressing then with his congruence and charisma. This book revisits the NLP 'Milton Model' of hypnotic language, first set out by Bandler and Grinder in 1975, in the light of subsequent discoveries about how the brain processes events.

Silvester's "Matrix Model", like the similar "APET" model in the "Human Givens" approach, recognises the fact that our emotional responses to events precede conscious evaluation of what happens. By the time we form an opinion about an event, it has already been filtered through our unconscious associations and possibly generated an emotional response which if powerful enough rational thought. This view of how we perceive events is more in line with current research knowledge than older models, such as the cognitive-behavioural, which attempt to address problems by challenging beliefs.

Building on developmental psychology and Wolinsky's ideas of psychological problems as trance phenomena, Silvester shows how suggestions need to utilise these trance phenomena in order to be effective, and offers a step-by-step guide as to how to do this.

He also shows how a problem may be focused at a particular level in Dilts' Neuro-Logical Levels model, and how to formulate suggestions to address each level. An interesting insight is the maxim that 20-30% of your suggestions should be focused at the Beliefs and Identity levels, to help clients build new beliefs about themselves and their situations, thus promoting generative rather than just remedial change.

This book definitely fills a gap, showing how to construct effective suggestions for many different conditions. 'Case histories' of typical client problems illustrate the process, and exercises are provided to help you build your skills step by step.

Silvester is a wise and experienced hypnotherapist who has done his research, reading widely outside the disciplines of hypnotherapy and NLP and keeping up with recent developments in psychology and brain science. His passion for his subject shines through on every page.

The book is also an easy and enjoyable read. These ideas are too powerful to be ignored and will bring about a much-needed shake-up in the curricula of many schools of hypnotherapy. Highly recommended, and should be on every hypnotherapist's shelf. (****)

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If there is one book that an aspirant hypnotherapy trainer should read, this is it. John and Julie are superb trainers, and the book is structured to produce unconscious learning of skills in the same way that their seminars on Ericksonian hypnosis do. It's also a good book for trainers in other fields who wish to understand how to reinforce learning on the unconscious level, and a great book for any hypnotherapist as it reveals the structure of various hypnotic techniques.

Another ***** book!

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Trance-Formations by Richard Bandler and John Grinder A transcript of a seminar on hypnosis the NLP way. As ever, it is full of stories, jokes and asides which all reinforce the learning points they are making. It all makes so much sense! If there was one book that a student hypnotherapist should read, this is it. Full of techniques including the immensely useful 6-step reframe in trance. NB may still be out of print. (*****)

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Hypnosis for Change by Josie Hadley and Carol Staudacher

A good introductory text with applications for stress, weight loss, smoking, pain control, study skills and so on - this book got me through my first couple of years as a hypnotherapist. (****)

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