Myth and Metaphor In Hypnotherapy

Symbolic Communication with the Unconscious 

Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them; broadly: figurative language...— Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 

“Here’s an interesting fact to add to what we already know: not only do we think in story and images, but as cognitive linguist George Lakoff points out, although we may not always know it, we also think in metaphor. Metaphor is how the mind ‘couches the abstract concepts in concrete terms’ (Stephen Pinker, How the Mind Works). Believe it or not, we utter about six metaphors a minute. Prices soared. My heart sank. Time ran out. Metaphor is so ubiquitous we rarely notice it’s there… To quote Aristotle’s perfect definition: a ‘metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else.’” _ —Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence (Lisa Cron, 2012, Ten Speed Press) 

All of our communications are filtered through both the conscious and unconscious parts of our mind. Throughout recorded history, different civilizations and cultures have developed stories and myths - about the creation of the world, the introduction of “good” and “evil”; about terrible natural disasters, and how people survived them (Noah’s Ark, etc.); about men and women who turned into bears or buffalo, talking animals; magical powers, and lost treasures… 

Joseph Campbell wrote at great length about the “Hero’s Journey”; and his biographer, Dr. Stephen Larsen, has written of the mythic Imagination. One review of “The Mythic Imagination: The Quest for Meaning Through Personal Mythology” (pub. 1996) states “ …all of us, at one time or another, are engaged in creating personal mythologies that reflect the larger myths of the culture and our own deepest desires and aspirations.” 

Every client that comes to us is involved in his or her own “Hero’s Journey”. If it can be introduced to their conscious and unconscious as such, it allows us to “chunk it up” and create a far more global framework. Our clients can then begin to conceptualize it differently, perhaps at an interpersonal level where they can define the archetypal villains and obstacles, as well as allies and resources that are available in their quest (for improved health, better relationships, overcoming personal traumas, etc.) 

Psychiatrist and master hypnotherapist Dr. Milton Erickson employed metaphor extensively in his hypnotic language patterns and in assigning his clients “tasks”. For instance, some people who came to see Erickson were told to clim a nearby mountain - a fairly rigorous hike - and when they got to the top, to see something special, something of significance. Everyone, of course, saw something different. Erickson was well known for this type of “ordeal therapy”. 

Central to our work as hypnotherapists is the idea of capturing our clients’ imaginations. Kurt Vonnegut said “We become what/who we pretend to be.” In working with the classic stories and myths from around the world, we can learn how to customize these to reach our clients’ imaginations. If we were all possessed of Svengali-like powers, all we would need to do would be to tell our clients to behave or think or feel differently. However, we soon find out it’s not like that. The client must make the decisions to change and do the changework - however, we can facilitate that by presenting it in a fascinating and appealing fashion. 

Human beings think and speak in symbols. Learning to construct and integrate metaphors in formal and informal directives and inductions is easy, since we use metaphors naturally in most of our communications. Metaphor allows the hypnotist to instruct the client indirectly in a way that avoids arousing the clients resistance. Stories and metaphors bypass conscious resistance. It leaves the client ultimately to be the judge of what the story means, how it is interpreted, and what kind of response will be forthcoming. 

It seems that often, the deepest truths elude our ability to capture them in a literal, direct, word-way. Just as someone in frustration at this might say, "Here, let me draw you a picture", so we can use metaphor to draw mental pictures... to engage our clients in using symbolic interpretation abilities of the right brain. The bottom line is, all our experience in perceptual reality has a metaphor, either explicit or implicit, alongside its literal meaning. 

“As I sit and listen to each client’s elaboration of worries about career, money, relationships, sex, family, or whatever, I have trained my awareness to listen for the other stories - the stories behind or beneath the story presented. By letting my intuitive imagination cast a wider net, I have learned that behind every personal complaint - compulsive eating, fear of flying, impotence, money worries, depression, and so on - there lurk older, fuller stories with events often far more devastating and cataclysmic than the surface fears my clients find themselves enumerating.” —Other Lives, Other Selves - A Jungian Psychotherapist Discovers Past Lives, Roger J. Woolger, Ph.D., Bantam New Age Books, 1987