Okay, one more topic from the Hypnosis Technique Exchange . . . this time dogma is back but in the supposition that Elman-style hypnoanalysis should be everyone’s default technique in part because so many wellknown hypnotists teach that style (including myself) . . .
And the fact that the top hypnotherapists today use it like Jerry Kein, Gil Boyne, Cal Banyan, Charles T, ect….and one of the greatest hypnotists to walk our planet…Dave Elman….
While I agree that Dave Elman was certainly one of the greats of the 20th Century, I would not ignore other schools (although i am one of the folks who default to Elman in most cases as I have developed and employ my own neoElman approach to things, albeit with a "everything AND the kitchen sink" process approach).
Since we’re going to drop names . . . notice that the universal hypnosis method or approach to hypnoanalysis taught by Gerald F. Kein (I am also an omnigrad myself and have great respect for Jerry and his work – as any search of the archives would show, heck Jerry can tell you that) is a variant of what Gil Boyne calls Transformational Therapy which is still not pure Elman (Elman was not familiar with the Gestalt methods). Boyne and contemporaries tacked on Gestalt techniques. While the bulk of Cal Banyan’s 5-PATH is pretty much Kein’s Universal Therapy Model (those who have taken his advanced program should be familiar with that), it is not identical. I am not sure who is meant here by Charles T. (perhaps Charles Tebbetts, the Parts Therapy guy? That would be hypnoanalysis with a stronger focus on Parts Therapy rather than upon Regression, albeit he did use Regression – see some excellent work from Roy Hunter in that school). Stephen Parkhill is in that camp but takes it further than many of his predecessors. Mark Cunningham can also be placed in there as a neo-Elman hypnotist albeit he has taken things much further afield with more innovation than some of the others. Even Kein’s work is certainly not merely hypnoanalysis (one of his most powerful methods that has become very popular of late is his Ultra-Height process, reminiscent of the Walter Sichort Ultra-Depth process).
As folks know, I tend to default to Elman-based hypnoanalysis (certainly, to neoElman induction philosophies) but I think it’s pretty clear that there can be more and that while we can say it is very effective, it is not the only modality. Regression therepy is certainly one that has to be done correctly to be done well and while I am a great advocate – see past argument threads in the message archives – I also acknowledge there are some pretty BAD regression- therapists out there who do not use clean language (I’ve plenty of video examples of some right awful sessions by some "big name" hypnotists of this and other so-called bias – Elmanian through Ericksonian through Kappasian through Spiegelian and on and on).
Dave Elman was certainly one of the greatest hypnotists of the Twentieth Century but even he was NOT focused only on regression therapy. He encouraged his students to learn as much as they could and to experiment with new techniques and to expand things.
While Elman’s a pretty kool guy when it comes to hypnosis, we are remiss if we ignore Milton Erickson (who hated Elman) or Herbert Spiegel who was a buddy of Erickson’s but disagreed with many of his conclusions and developed his own approach which is still very influential. Some would put the work of John Kappas in that range.
Read anyone and everyone. Learn everything available to you. Test it, give it a go, discard what does not work for you, use what does and adapt what can be adapted . . . while pushing the limits and creating new processes and new variations.
Hypnoanalysis with regression is kool. It works. It can and is very very powerful, when done correctly (and I notice a whole lot of folks who criticize it do so with what appears to be an incomplete understanding of the full process, sniping at the trunk while not seeing the elephant).
In my opinion.
All the best,
Brian
Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [phillips@nccu.edu.tw]Certified Hypnotherapist
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.BrianDavidPhillips.com
