Hypnotherapy and Metaphor
For regular readers of my blog, you will recall that over the weekend I wrote about how I enjoy teaching the therapeutic approaches of Milton H Erickson, MD. It occurs to me that the reason I enjoy teaching his work so much is down to his use of metaphor in therapy.
To me, the most skillful communicators, be they therapists or not, are usually masters of story telling. Now of course, this is logical. Stories are the basic way that we learn and how we hand down our history and indeed how we identify ourselves in this world.
Many great leaders have whisked us away to the possibilities of new and better things and a new and better life, by telling us stories as to how things could and should be. Metaphor is at the core of our belief systems whatever the faith. Stories connect us with one another.
For me professionally, I always try to integrate some metaphor into my work no matter the client or the issue. It, from a hypnotic perspective allows for information to enter the unconscious mind without the critical factor getting in the way. It is also a way to help people see concepts that, perhaps are too big, if one were to just bluntly say them. I urge people who seek therapy to look for practitioners who utilise metaphor as part of their therapeutic approach.
