J0RGEN RASMUSSEN

PROVOCATIVE
HYPNOSIS

Self-published by Jt1rgen Rasmussen

www.provocativehypnosis.com
 Provocative Hypnosis is first published in Norway, 2008.

Copyright 2008 by J0rgen Rasmussen

ISBN 978-82-997808-0-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission
from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations
in a review.

For information about this book or how to obtain special

discounts for bulk purchases, please contact:

J0rgen Rasmussen

Email: joergen@provocativehypnosis.com
Web: www.provocativehypnosis.com

Cover design and illustrations by Cybill Conklin

Printed in Norway
 FOREWORD

You reader are in for a treat - this is the stuff of genius. Take a young
man, unencumbered with theory, with excellent sensory acuity and
great flexibility and give him a set of patterns - some mix of the classic
and New Code NLP patterning - and set him loose. Oh yeah, it helps
enormously that he is fearless - that is, the issue offailure is not part of
the baggage he brings to the game, and that he has a healthy disrespect
for conventional treatments.
His cases will provoke, inspire, confound, irritate and astonish you
- he will say in plain, simple English (some of) what it is that he pays
attention to, how he processes it, how he decides to act and what to do
when it doesn't work.
When the field of professional changework first came to my
attention some decades ago, I was astonished to discover that there was
prevalent among the practitioners of this work, an injunction -
Virginia Satir articulated this precisely - here it is in the form of a:
pseudo-syllogism (this phrase may be redundant):
If you know (consciously) what you are doing in the
process of change, then you are manipulating
Manipulation is bad
Therefore you may NOT know what you are doing
(consciously) in the process of change
It is difficult for me to imagine an injunction that would retard
progress in any field of human endeavor more effectively than this one.
One of the explicit intentions of The Structure of Magic generated
by Bandler and myself was to create a vocabulary that would serve as a
descriptive base for an intelligent discussion of the patterning available
to practitioners of changework among actual practicing change agents.
I don't think that that has happened yet although the willingness to
discuss cases in relatively non-theoretical terms has begun.
We have (thankfully) moved beyond the injunction so precisely
articulated by 5atir.
In addition to a fascination with "impossibles", Jergen and I share a
fierce rejection of a certain type of professionalism - the kind of
professionalism that insists on standard treatments, that places a
priority (or any attention at all) on some insistence of intellectual
coherency - all independent of and to the detriment of the requirements
of the clients we work with. We especially, rail against the type of
professionalism that locks agents of change into tightly constrained
boxes of conventional interventions like understanding, empathy,
support for the client - all of these are choices but choices from a very
large set. Yes, of course, there are clients that require precisely these
transactions but they typically need one hell of lot more and what they
need is not contained in the conventional descriptions typically
available. So, when reading this book, note carefully where Jergen steps
over your own personal boundaries and consider a bit of self-
application of the very patterns being demonstrated.
So, here it is, in all its glorious lack of tidiness - a series of
adventures to entertain and outrage you. Most importantly, Jergen
allows you, the reader, the privilege of accompanying him on these
adventures through the earthy, concrete and honest ongoing
monologue that composes this work.
Attend with care and then get out there and find out for yourself!
John Grinder
Bonny Doon, California, January, 2008
 TABLE OF CONTENT

PRAiSE ............................................................................... 11
INTRODUCTION ................................................................. 15
CREATING THE CONTEXT AND FRAMES FOR CHANGE ... 21
TURNING BALLS INTO CATS IS THE KEY TO CHANGE
-THE MYTH OF CAUSE AND EFFECT .................................... 27
THE POWER OF JOYFUL SADiSM ........................................ 30

THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS .................................... 41

ABOUT CHEMICAL IMBALANCE ........................................... 45
GETTING "REAL" WITH A BIG KNIFE .................................... 48
LET'S GET ETHICAL! .......................................................... 56
I LOVE WELFARE ............................................................... 63
PLAYING THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE ...................................... 66
A CHARMING "SUICIDAL" ................................................... 69
How TO SCREW UP IN THE NAME OF GOOD INTENTIONS .... 71
FAILING TO SUCCEED ........................................................ 74
GOD BLESS BLASPHEMy ................................................... 76

USING MODELING TO CREATE CHANGE ...................... 79

USEFUL NUANCES ............................................................ 87
CAN You SPELL RELATIONSHiPS? .................................... 93
THE DOG INSIDE ............................................................... 95
COMMITMENT IS EVERyTHING ............................................ 97
QUICK SUMMARy ............................................................ 102

WORKING WITH THE LIVING DEAD .............................. 105

CASE ONE - FRANK THE MULTI PHOBIC ........................... 106
CASE Two - MARTIN THE HAND SHAKER ......................... 112
CASE THREE - CAROLINE THE ANOREXiC ......................... 114
CAROLINE'S SESSION ONE .............................................. 116
CAROLINE'S SESSION Two .............................................. 121

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 CAROLINE'S SESSION THREE .......................................... 124
CAROLINE'S SESSION FOUR ............................................ 127
THE IDENTITY THREAT ..................................................... 133

MR. "I CAN'T PISS IN PUBLIC" ...................................... 141

THE PROFESSOR'S SESSION ONE ................................... 141
THE PROFESSOR'S SESSION Two ................................... 144
THE PROFESSOR'S SESSION THREE ................................ 145
WISDOM OF HINDSIGHT ................................................... 151

HARALD THE ASTHMATIC ............................................. 155

HARALD'S SESSION ONE ................................................. 155
HARALD'S SESSION Two ................................................. 157
HARALD'S SESSION THREE .............................................. 162

A CASE OF SEVERE TINNITUS ..................................... 163

WHEN NOTHING WORKS ............................................... 173
THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T CLOSE HER EyES .................. 173

GETTING DEEP HYPNOSIS WITH ANALYTICALS ....... 191

WHAT'S THE VALUE OF DEEP HYPNOSIS? ........................ 191
THE IMPORTANCE OF A SUPERB PRE-TALK ...................... 196
How TO Do A GOOD PRE-TALK ....................................... 199
A LOOK AT HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA ................................. 205
CONSCiOUS/UNCONSCIOUS DISASSOCIATION .................. 207
AN INDIRECT TEST FOR HYPNOTIC READINESS ................ 209
ESTABLISHING THE HYPNOTIC CONTRACT.. ...................... 211
My FAVORITE SPEED INDUCTION ..................................... 212
How TO Do THE HAND DROP INDUCTION ......................... 217
REAL LIFE REGRESSiONS ................................................ 225
PITY CRY VS. A SYMPTOMATIC TRANCE ........................... 227
How TO RECOGNIZE A SPONTANEOUS SYMPTOMATIC
TRANCE .......................................................................... 230
How TO CREATE INSTANT HYPNOSIS .............................. 231

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WHAT IF THEY DON'T GO INTO HYPNOSIS? .............. 235
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION ............................................. 242
THE SURPRISE HANDSHAKE INDUCTION ........................... 243
How ABOUT CONTROL FREAKS? .................................... 244
WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO REPRESS FEELINGS .............. 245
WHEN THE CLIENT IS TOTALLY EMOTIONALLY
REPRESSED .................................................................... 246

SOME PURE NEW CODE CASES .................................. 251

A CASE OF HEAVY GRIEF ................................................ 251
SOME LOVING SEX FOR You ........................................... 252
A SEVERE SNAKE PHOBIA ............................................... 253
A GROUP OF FIGHTERS ................................................... 254
GRINDERS NEW CODE CHANGE FORMAT ......................... 255
TIPS FROM AN INSIDER .................................................... 259

Jf2JRGEN'S FAVORITE FORMAT .................................... 263

WHAT IF THE EMOTIONS DON'T RELEASE? ...................... 269
ANGER ........................................................................... 270
FEAR .............................................................................. 271
SADNESS ........................................................................ 271
GUILT ............................................................................. 272
TESTING ......................................................................... 272
FUTURE PACING ............................................................. 272

THE HIGHLY HYPNOTIZABLE CLIENT ......................... 273

A DEPRESSED GUY NAMED TIM ...................................... 276
TAKING THINGS LITERALLy .............................................. 278
SUSY THE INSOMNIAC ..................................................... 279
A COOL WEIGHT Loss SOLUTION .................................... 280
USING HYPNOTIC CAPACITY TO CONNECT WITH
EXPERIENCE ................................................................... 281
MAKE SURE THE CLIENT INTERNALIZES AND OWNS THE
CHANGE ......................................................................... 285

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 COMBINING HYPNOSIS AND ORDEAL THERAPY TO KEEP
IT REAL .......................................................................... 285
SUGGESTIBILITY AND COMPULSIVE COMPLIANCE ............. 291
EASY COME EASY Go ..................................................... 292
THE CLIENT NEEDS TO OWN THE CHANGE ....................... 295
RESPECT THE UNCONSCIOUS NEED FOR AMNESiA ........... 296
A CRITICAL MODIFICATION WHEN WORKING WITH THE
HIGHLY HyPNOTIZABLE ................................................... 298

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS ............................................. 301

DEDICATION .................................................................... 307

10
 PRAISE

"You reader are in for a treat - this is the stuff of genius. Take a young
man, unencumbered with theory, with excellent sensory acuity and
great flexibility and give him a set of patterns - some mix of the classic
and New Code NLP patterning - and set him loose. Oh yeah, it helps
enormously that he is fearless - that is, the issue offailure is not part of
the baggage he brings to the game, and that he has a healthy disrespect
for conventional treatments. His cases will provoke, inspire, confound,
irritate and astonish you - he will say in plain, simple English (some
oj) what it is that he pays attention to, how he processes it, how he
decides to act and what to do when it doesn't work."
John Grinder
NLP Co-founder

"JfJrgen has written one of the most brilliant, useable, clear-headed

books on NLP-both the methodology and the applications - that I have
read in my two decades of studying the subject. This guy doesn't just
show you the techniques-he explains the way of thinking that leaves
the trail of techniques. Highest possible recommendation. II
Ross Jeffries
Creator of Speed Seduction@

"There's a fair number of opinions in this book I flat-out disagree with.

But I'm a full-time working hypnotist seeing real clients every day - I
earn my fee only if they get exactly the outcome they've come for. I
need tools that work. The techniques JfJrgen describes in Provocative
Hypnosis work. There's more solid, useful information packed into this
book than I've found in any other hypnosis / NLP book I've read or
class I've taken (and I've trained with the biggest names in the field).

11
So even if I think he's over the top sometimes, I recommend this book.
For the expert working with live paying clients I recommend it for
tools. They work. For the newbie, the aspiring and the curious, I
recommend it because it's provocative, funny and an overall great
read."
Brian Mahoney
Director, Boston Hypnosis

"Jergen's book arrived this weekend and I have been unable to put it
down. I thought I had no behavioral boundaries under the banner of
'what's most effective for the client' but this guy makes my methods
look tame. More importantly; not since Frogs into Princes have I seen
a book that captures the spirit offlexibility required to be a real change
artist - and it's mainly implicit in Frogs into Princes. Jergen makes it
explicit and in-your-face. If you are one of my Practitioners or Master
Practitioners - read it! It will echo my attitude to change work (there
are no relevant considerations other that the ultimate welfare of your
client and rapport is not 'being nice'). For so-called NLP Practitioners
that 'run the script' (with inadequate calibration and inadequate
flexibility to go 'off road') this should be a wakeup call to you. You will
probably find it shocking in places, if you do I would urge you to pay
attention to your inflexible boundary that Jergen has crossed. "
Darryll Scott
NLP Trainer and Performance Coach

"I have met with Jergen several years ago in Norway whilst working
with John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St Clair. I delivered a day
introduction to the delegates who were attending a Coaching with
Excellence course. Jergen has a strong presence and stoney faced
humor. He is a true maverick and honorable in his work with clients.
His book is in my opinion is outside the boundaries set in this field (the
field of hypnosis NLP books) which is a brave step. Some of the text I
am sure made me blush (and I am a Yorkshire man) and I congratulate

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 Jorgen for having the balls to write such a book. His knowledge is
advanced and of the highest level in this field plus he has the best
qualifications ... results. This is a great read and has the formats of
how you should approach impossible clients. II
John Thompson
NLP Trainer and Business Consultant

II Your book is certainly bold and blunt. While some people might find
some of the blunt language offensive and some of the techniques
controversial, your book is certainly thought-provoking. II
Roy Hunter
Hypnotherapist & Author

II If you are anything like me you will find Provocative Hypnosis

absolutely un-put-downable. Dealing with impossible clients, it is a

masterful and compulsive read from beginning to end. Paradoxically,
at a superficial level, Jorgen! s interventions seem of times
simultaneously elegant yet crass. True compassion, however, is not
about joining your client! s narrative of pain, wallowing together in
content misery and somehow trying to make it all a bit more
comfortable. True compassion is the ability to maintain clear
boundaries and process in the midst of confusing and all-consuming
incongruence whilst pursuing with absolutely single-minded
determination your client! s best interests. Jorgen clearly demonstrates
this in spades. You must read this book... II
Dr Lewis Walker
Family Physician, NLP Author and Trainer

13
 INTRODUCTION

I sincerely hope that this book will turn out to be the most blunt,
pragmatic and straightforward book you have ever read on
getting results in creating radical change. I don't care if you
have an NLP, hypnosis, coaching background or no official
background in changework at all: The principles are the same.
Honestly, if you are a psychologist or psychiatrist, and you
are results-oriented, then you will love this book. Otherwise, I
am sure that you will hate it and for good reasons. It's certainly
a book that I wish someone else had written a long time ago. Of
course, this is the lazy "part" of me that often bitched and
complained about me having to fall flat on my face so often to
figure this stuff out.
I wonder if you have had a similar experience to the one I am
about to describe. I did my first official training with a company
that offered NLP Practitioner, Master Practitioner and Trainer's
Training in one summer, and let me tell you, the instructors all
looked like geniuses. All the demos worked, everything went
real smooth. I couldn't wait to get out there and save the world
as soon as the training was over. Naive as I was, I thought that
the demo subjects were randomly selected from the audience. It
certainly appeared that way at the time. Well, I was wrong, just
like in stage hypnosis, there was nothing random at all about the
selection process.
When I started seeing clients, I ended up getting the type of
clients that seminar trainers tend to avoid like the plague. It took
me some time to realize that virtually all the demo subjects had
certain things in common:

15
1. A well developed ability to visualize in consciousness
2. Easy access to feelings
3. Well-developed synesthesia patterns, especially see-feel
circuits. By the way, all visualization and imagery
exercises are flawed unless the pictures and sounds
activate the corresponding micro muscle movements
and kinesthetics in the body. The trick to making the
swish, phobia cure, compulsion blowout, collapse
anchors and so on work is synesthesia. Oh, by the way,
if you don't know the techniques mentioned in the
above paragraph, know that you don't need to know
NLP to massively benefit from this book - so hang in
there.
4. The ability to go into hypnosis, or if you prefer, a state of
focused attention
Anyone can look like a genius when they learn to spot these
people and select them as demo subjects at seminars. Actually, a
big part of Trainer's Training is about how to spot these people
and select them as subjects. I have spoken to many NLP people
about this. It seems to me that this is the way it works most of
the time in most training organizations. If you doubt this, check out
most of the books written in the field. I remember recommending a
few NLP books to a friend of mine a few years ago. His
response: "Cool stuff, but I am surprised that everyone sees so clear
pictures. Is this really common?" Dear Reader, do you see a
problem here?
If not, I have a client for you: a fifty-five-year-old male who
has been working as an accountant for the last thirty years, has
no access to his feelings at all, can't visualize, has a lot of
internal dialogue, is obsessed with control, doesn't go into
hypnosis and blames events outside of himself for his troubles.

16
Let's pretend he experiences blushing and sweating in social
situations.
Have you noticed that these people are seldom used as demo
subjects? This isn't too strange since they lack exactly the skills
needed for most of the classic NLP patterns to work.
Stephen Parkhill, author of" Answer Cancer", a book I highly
recommend, says that his cancer patients basically fall into two
profiles: the cold left-brainer who represses feelings, and the
hysterical emoter who is at the other end of the spectrum. These
hysterical emoters are often (but certainly not always) highly
hypnotizable, and these highly hypnotizable clients present
some unique and often difficult challenges for the agent of
change.
I realize that categorizing clients and labeling them" cold left-
brainersjthe living dead" or "the hysterical emoter" is a VERY
crude and simplistic way of looking at human beings. However,
it works for me and my clients. When all is said and done, that's
all that really matters.
It's not that I categorize all my clients into these crude
categories. Most of my clients don't fit into these categories at
all, but the difficult ones have a tendency to fall into one of those
categories. This book is about those royal pain-in-the-ass clients
and how to deal with them when nothing works and everything
seems to be going to hell.
I am reminded of Winston Churchill's rather cute statement:
If you are going through hell ... keep going. But where the hell
do you go? There is no clear-cut answer, but this book will
provide you with numerous examples of people who kept going
and ended up somewhere useful. Most of these clients weren't
supposed to keep going. At least not according to their
psychiatrists and psychologists who had decided that they were
"chronic", too "sick" to be helped or just didn't want to change.
The reality in most of these cases was that these professionals

17
just didn't know what to do, and instead of stopping there, they
believed that the clients couldn't change and attempted to
hypnotize the clients into believing that as well.
Before you get started on this book I want you to know that
there are many contradictions and paradoxes in the book. The
book even argues with itself from time to time. Yeah, I know,
thinking hurts! It certainly is more comfortable (at least in the
short term) to be told what to do in a linear fashion.
You will also discover that even when I have two different
clients with the "same" presenting symptom I will often do
interventions that are totally different. Sometimes I will do the
opposite of what I did the last time. I base what I do on the
unique individual in front of me, not diagnosis, statistics or
personality profiles. I have never heard of a client coming for
any of those things so I leave them alone.
A couple of people who went over the manuscript for this
book suggested that I change my "tone" a bit, so that you, the
reader, wouldn't be lead to believe that I have contempt for
some of my clients. The only problem is that I did feel contempt,
disgust, and wanted to beat the snot out of some of these clients
as if they were a red-headed stepchild.
Yes, I admit it! Sometimes I have felt these "bad" emotions
when working with clients. At times I projected my own
unresolved stuff onto them, and at other times I think that my
so-called negative emotions were highly justified and very
useful in helping them change. If I pretended to be a machine
with no emotion, then I wouldn't be doing justice to what
happened in these sessions. Guess what, all that crap
psychologists have told you about the client liking the therapist
being the most important part of getting results ... sorry, but
"No"! While being liked certainly doesn't hurt, it's not all that
it's cracked up to be. Bottom line, does the client respond to
you?

18
This book is about getting results where most don't and focuses
on working with the type of clients that aren't selected as clients
in most courses but whom you will certainly have to deal with
in the real world.
The book is full of case studies from my practice, and it also
contains modifications on techniques and specific suggestions
regarding how to work with unresponsive subjects and highly
hypnotizable subjects.
Finally, a quick warning to you. It's very easy for less so-
phisticated readers to label me JUDGMENTAL and then to use
that label as evidence that I lack empathy to prove that the
techniques used are too controversial and the book too extreme
to have any practical use for them. Some readers will also
conclude that some of the clients in the book would have been
better helped with a "compassionate and touchy feely
approach". To avoid falling into this trap, just keep in mind the
overall context: Clients who have NOT succeeded in traditional
therapy and who generally have had their share of grandma-style
compassion. These clients voluntarily entered into a therapeutic
relationship with me where I would be compensated based
upon a "no cure/no pay policy." They were not looking for a
new friend: rather they were there to get results.
If you do changework with "impossible" clients then you will
from time to time be presented with the following dilemma: be
polite, touchy feely and politically correct with the consequences
being a client who feels" understood" but who doesn't change.
The other choice will be to create some sort of discomfort and
provoke some strong emotions to help the client actually get the
changes they are looking for.
A lot of therapists have "BEING COMFORTABLE" as their
highest value and will therefore choose a touchy feely approach
whether it's appropriate or not. For me "GETTING RESULTS"
has the highest value and is a big part of why I have gotten the

19
results I have. Please keep this in mind, as well as the overall
context, as you enjoy the book and find yourself using what
you've learned in the real world.
One last thing, all the cases presented in this book are real.
However, names, places and some details have been changed to
protect the privacy of the not always so innocent.
Enough introduction, let's get to work!

20
 CHAPTER 1
Creating the context and
frames for change

A few years ago a young man dragged himself into my office,

claiming that he was really scared of heights. He worked as a
phone technician and spent a lot of time climbing up telephone
poles to fix problems. Needless to say, he would have to correct
this or change careers. I started off by challenging him, telling
him that a lot of people come into my office claiming to be
phobic, when in fact they were just looking for attention and
sympathy. I told him that I had a hunch that he was one of those
people.
He pushed back and protested that he really was afraid of
heights, and this went back and forth until I demanded: "Well
then, show me that you're phobic!" After this type of "harassment"
most people will go into a phobic state to SHOW ME that they
are indeed phobic. He, on the other hand, just stared at me.
My next strategy was to start asking him questions about a
past memory where he was intensely phobic. This is a classic
Ericksonian technique to help the client get in touch with the
symptom. I started asking him questions such as: "Where were
you? What was the temperature like? Were you alone or with
someone? What sounds do you hear and where in your body do you
FEEL THE FEAR?" Notice how I bridged from past oriented
questions into a present orientation - i.e. where does the fear
start. The whole idea here was to get him into the phobic state,
but again, no response.

21
I decided to be a bit more direct, and ask him to go close his
eyes, go back to that time and step into his body, see what he
saw, hear what he heard and feel what he felt and so on. I then
had him make images bigger and brighter, but still no response.
I always do my best to get my clients to get in touch with the
problem state when they come to my office for two reasons:
1. Clients need to get in touch with the symptom to change it.
2. If the client can access their problem when they come into
the office, whether it's a phobia or allergy or whatever, and
you do some intervention, you test for the symptom again
and if the client can't access it, then you have a good
indicator of change and one hell of a convincer for the
clients' conscious mind. However, if the client can't access
the problem state when they come in and you do some
intervention, and afterwards they still can't access it, then
you got nothing at all. Having said that, I must mention
that I have seen exceptions to this "rule." However, the
smart money is on doing what you can to get the client in
touch with whatever they want to release.
By the way, I am curious, what would you do in a situation like
this? I sat back in my chair and asked him the following
questions: "What is it that creates the fear? Is it the heights, or is it
how you think about the heights?" He shot back: "Of course it's the
heights!" I told him the following: "Let's say we have two different
people who both climb a telephone pole, person A is scared as hell and
person B is centered and focused. It's the exact same situation, how can
it be the height?" He replied: "If it weren't for the height I wouldn't
be afraid. "
Now, this distinction is so very important. You see, if it's the
height that creates the fear, he doesn't have many options,
except to stay away or be scared. However, if it's how he

22
interprets the situation, and it always is, then the height can stay
the same, but he can feel different if he changes "HOW" he
thinks of heights.
Now, there are several telephone poles outside my office and
I had told him to bring his climbing shoes. I told him to get his
climbing shoes on and go out and start climbing. As he walked
towards the pole I saw that he entered the phobic state. I asked
him: "On a scale from one to ten, how scared are you?" He told me
that he was approaching six (this was before he started
climbing). As he climbed the pole his fear increased and when
he reached the top he told me that he was at a nine.
I then told him that he could come back down, and I noticed
an immediate state shift, shortly after I noticed this I asked him:
"Where on the scale are you now?" He was halfway down at this
point and his answer was: "I am almost at zero because I know that
I am on my way down."
This was exactly the leverage I needed, so I said to him:
"Listen man, you were at six on the scale WHILE YOU WERE
STANDING ON THE GROUND and you were almost at zero while
you were on the middle of the pole cause you thought that you were
I

soon on the ground - HOW THE HELL CAN IT BE THE HEIGHT?"

The state shift that followed and the explosion of color in his
face as he integrated this showed me that we had created the
proper context for change.
Let me introduce you to another client I worked with a
couple of years ago. Martin was 18 years old and his presenting
problem was obsessive compulsive disorder combined with
stuttering. His psychiatrist had told him that these issues were
diseases, that he couldn't help himself, that he was sick and that
he needed to use drugs. This was all for his own good, of course.
I mean, who needs enemies when we have enlightened
professionals like this to help us. As far as I could see, there was

23
nothing "wrong" with him at alL He just lacked social skills
(especially around women) and good personal boundaries.
I quickly discovered that he was highly hypnotizable (more
on these clients and the challenges they present later), and as
soon as I confronted him with tough issues he escaped into a
deep state of hypnosis. I helped him elicit states of confidence
and relaxation and had him speak without stuttering in the
trance state. We then practiced firing off these anchors as he
entered different problem contexts in his imagination.
Sounds great, huh? Well, when I spoke to him on the phone a
few days later he had a total amnesia for the session we had
done together, and he reported that there was no change. As I
said previously, the highly hypnotizable clients present some
unique challenges. One of these challenges is that the hypnotic
states they enter in the office is so severely altered from the state
they are in when they do their problem. So, you have to be
careful to create a bridge that allows the changes to transfer
from the office to the real world.
Another challenge they present is that they will often use
their ability to go into deeply altered states and escape when
confronted with things that are uncomfortable. Paradoxically,
these clients often need to be dehypnotized, they need to learn
to stay out of trance and deal with real life.
The next time he came in I met him outside of the office and
"spontaneously" invited him to join me for a walk. Unknown to
him, I had recruited an attractive and lovely young woman to
come walking towards us. This was arranged in such a way that
he could see her walking towards us from a distance. I suddenly
turned towards him and said: "See that woman? Walk over and
give her a compliment and get to know her."
I should tell you that I have the following deal with my
clients: they have to be willing to do whatever I tell them as long

24
as it isn't physically dangerous, unethical or fattening (you have
to add fattening to get the women onboard).
He went into his symptomatic trance and staggered towards
her as if he had just received his final call for his final
destination. Then he mumbled something to her, looked down
and slumped his body.
I stopped the girl and asked her how he could have done that
in a way that would have created intrigue or fascination on her
part. She happened to be in a playful mood and agreed to start
coaching him in the "how's" of approaching woman, which we
practiced over the next 30 minutes. Sometimes she would laugh
as he approached, and other times she would flatly reject him
depending on the elegance of his approach. After a while she
started coaching him as he approached other women who were
walking by as well.
Very often, I deal with clients by taking them out into the real
world and do my best to create the experiences they need to
learn the skills they are lacking. Feel free to do this, and also feel
free to hire and use actors who can play roles appropriate to the
learning context that you have created. If you meet clients you
want to work with, but who doesn't have money to pay for the
sessions, accept them anyway with the agreement that they will
volunteer to be an actor when you need them.
The three of us then went to a local cafeteria, and I had him
model me as I interacted with people. I also taught him some
specific skills. We spent an hour there and after 20 minutes I
asked him: "HAVE YOU NOTICED YET?" I didn't get any
meaningful response, so we continued what we were doing and
after another 20 minutes I asked him the same question again.
Wide eyed and puzzled, he exclaimed: "I haven't stuttered or done
any obsessive thoughts since we arrived here."
Another young man, Erik, at the tender age of sixteen entered
my office and presented me with a horrible sight. I had never

25
seen a more anxious teenager in my entire life, and I make my
living by working with anxious people. This guy had been in
too much "therapy" for too long, and was on an interesting
cocktail of antidepressants and other pills that were supposed to
reduce his anxiety and cure his nonexistent mental illness.
Incredibly, the fact that this kid had no social life, a very
superficial relationship with his family and spent all his free
time in front of the computer didn't really interest the mental
health professionals who worked with him at all. They were
mostly into making sure that he took his pills and talked about
his childhood. How this was supposed to create a learning
context where he could learn the skills he needed to relate to
people in the real world is beyond anything I can comprehend.
He was a nervous wreck all the time around people. It was
relatively easy to notice that every time I looked at him his
anxiety would increase, and when I looked away it would
decrease a bit. It was also easy to notice that as soon as I made
direct eye contact his right hand moved up towards his face and
his left foot would start shaking. The next time his hand started
moving, he was told to grab his hair hard for three seconds as he
repeated the mantra, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
If you get insulted by my use of swearing - too fucking bad.
Swearing and vulgar language is used all the time in my office
to create more genuine responses in people. If you do
changework, you need to be willing to be very flexible to break
limiting patterns of behavior and stuck states.
I feel that that too many coaches and therapists are way too
clinical and sterile in their behavior and language, and this is
often a big mistake. Why? Because we don't want intellectual
understanding and conceptual conversations, instead we look
for responses, feelings and shifts in state.
The mantra "SHUT THE FUCK UP" while grabbing his hair
hard for three seconds served as a pattern interruption. He was

26
also told to voluntarily increase the shaking of his left leg. These
two maneuvers shifted his state quite a bit and interrupted his
limiting pattern.
First, he went into a state of confusion. Then after a while he
went into a state of laughter, which was absolutely where I
wanted him. As Richard Bandler is fond of saying: "As soon as
you can laugh at a problem you can change itt"
After doing these pattern interrupts for a while, I asked him
how he felt. After he told me that he felt pretty good, I asked
him: "How can that be?" When he told me that he felt so silly
doing the things I asked him to do (grabbing his hair and
shaking his leg). I asked him if it was correct to say that he was
choosing to feel better. He didn't quite get it, so I asked him if he
wasn't in fact CHOOSING to do the goofy things I had asked
him to do. He said "Yes!" and confirmed that when he chooses
to do the pattern interrupts he felt better and then he got it: he
was in a way choosing to feel better.

Turning Balls into Cats is the Key to Change

- The Myth of Cause and Effect

Once, at a seminar with my mentor and friend John Grinder, he

told his audience that their job was to turn balls into cats. The
audience was asked the following question: "What's the difference
between kicking a ball and kicking a cat?" Of course, the ball is a
mechanical thing and in the mechanical world you can use
Cause and Effect use of thinking with great success. An engineer
could measure and predict where the ball would end up after
you kicked it if he knows all the variables that need to be
measured. However, in the case of kicking a cat - forget it. You
might as well throw the engineer out the window since all the
rules that govern the physical world no longer apply.

27
The idea of Cause and Effect in living systems is a myth and an
illusion, and a very dangerous one I might add. Quite simply,
the cat has choices, and the cat might attack first, run away or
take the kick: who knows what the hell the cat will do?
Cause and Effect implies that because of event X the response
needs to be Y. However, since we have choices, the idea of
Cause and Effect is not really a useful one.
The three clients previously mentioned all believed in the myth
of Cause and Effect and acted as if they were a ball being kicked
by the external world. My job is to find out in what contexts
clients act as if they are a victim of Cause and Effect, and then
create an experience that introduces choice into that context.
Simply put, my job is to tum balls into cats. Most people act as if
they are a ball, and all clients act as if they are a ball in the
contexts where they are stuck. Many of us are part time balls
and part time cats, while relatively few of us live life happily as
cats.
Before you start messing with anyone else, ask yourself: "In
which context am I acting as if I am a ball?" Then as you identify
those contexts (we all have some) apply your NLP skills to give
yourself more choice.
All three clients previously mentioned were given an
EXPERIENCE where they discovered a direct relationship
between what they were thinking and doing and how they felt.
It's not enough to intellectually "understand" this: your clients
need a "FELT" experience where they discover this. Once
people have this felt experience, it's a lot easier to create choice
and also to use various NLP techniques.
The show me "how do you do this" frame is a wonderful
way of doing this with most people. I highly recommend
Bandler's books Using your Brain and Magic in Action for brilliant
examples of how to apply this.

28
However, some of these "unresponsive" and very dissociated
clients are hard to get with that approach, so you need other
ways of creating that experience. The guy who was scaring
himself climbing up telephone poles was initially totally
unresponsive to the "how do you do this" approach, since I
wasn't able to get him into the phobic state in the office.
For the "how do you do this" approach to have any use, you
need to get the person into the "STATE." If you do that you will
get the so-called strategies anyway. John Grinder has told me
several times that he regrets the notion of strategies and lead
representation system. His perspective is that all rep systems are
happening simultaneously. So, you're not eliciting a "strategy",
you're getting the person into the state so that you can change it.
To get my client into the state I took him out into the real
world. He had the "FELT EXPERIENCE" that he generated fear
while standing on the ground. However, he experienced his fear
going away when he was half way down the pole since he knew
that he was going down. When I said: "You were feeling fear at 5
while standing on the ground when THINKING about climbing, while
the fear almost disappeared halfway up because you thought that you
were going down - HOW THE HELL CAN IT BE THE HEIGHT?"
After having this felt experience he corrected his fear easily.
Martin was also totally unwilling to see any relationship
between what he was doing and how he felt. He also used his
capacity for trance to escape real life and had many "reasons" for
his behavior. They all had to do with blaming people around
him for his problems.
When I took Erik out to meet an attractive young woman and
she went to a cafeteria with him, he stopped doing his stuttering
and his obsessive thoughts after a while.
When I then asked him from time to time: "Have you noticed
yet?" He admitted that he didn't stutter or think compulsively.
Notice that I didn't tell him this. He discovered this himself and

29
thereby had a felt experience that showed him that what he did
affected his state, and that his state determined whether he
stuttered or not. Upon returning to my office the anxious
teenager claimed marked improvement. When asked how that
was possible he said: "I realized that I was choosing my symptoms,
and then I realized that I could choose to do other things." That was
his discovery and his words.
Remember, whenever you see a client, look for the contexts
where they act as if they are a ball. You will easily get there by
asking them questions that require them to get specific.
However, when you ask questions, you're not asking them to
get verbal answers. What you're looking for is a "NONVERBAL
RESPONSE." Once you have gotten their unconscious attention,
evidenced by a strong nonverbal response, your task is to create
an experience where they create choice.
Let me give you another wonderful client experience.

The Power of Joyful Sadism

A woman (Mary) in her forties sits down in the chair telling me

that she is depressed, frustrated and exhausted. Since I had
worked with her in the past for other issues I also knew that she
was highly hypnotizable.
Mary: I am so frustrated and depressed, I feel as if everything is
going straight to hell.
My experience is that people often depress to repress their anger
and frustration. If people weren't able to depress to restrain
anger, violence in society would explode (I am talking those
who blame others for their misery). I am not saying that
restraining angering and frustration is the only function
depression has, but 1 think that it's often the case.

30
Since the client mentioned that she was frustrated, depressed
and tired, it was safe to assume that she used depressing to
restrain frustration. Frustration is a sign that what you're doing
to satisfy a want or a need is not working. When people get very
frustrated they often depress to avoid further frustration and
pain. Is this "true"? I don't know how accurate it is, but the
frame works very well.
Jergen: EVERYTHING IS GOING TO HELL? (Said in a
questioning tone)
Mary: Well, not everything.
Jergen: There is some context in your life where what you have
been doing hasn't worked for some time, therefore you got
frustrated. After a while you got so frustrated that you decided
that nothing you did seemed to work, then why bother? You
depress to protect yourselffrom further frustration?
Mary: You're absolutely right!
Notice my vague use of language, and how I paced her. I got
strong nonverbal signals during what I said so I knew that I was
on the right track. Again, I don't ask questions to get verbal
reports as much as I ask them to elicit states and get nonverbal
responses.
Jergen: Mary, congratulations in creating a solid state of
depression! You have been doing a very good job for some time
depressing. I want you to continue depressing until we have
found better ways for you to get what the depression currently
gets you.
This way of pacing created wonderful rapport with her
unconscious and gave me some strong nonverbal signals to
calibrate.
Jergen: Ok Mary, so which context of your life is this related
to?

31
 Mary: The fifth-grade kids I teach are driving me nuts!
Jergen: Which kids specifically?
Mary: Stian has ADHD and suddenly in the middle of class he
just takes off. I have tried everything, but I don't know what to
do. Knut is obsessive about checking if the door is locked during
class, and he will get up and check the door again and again.
Jergen: That's it? These kids are what you are depressing
yourself for (said in mock disbelief). So, when Stian leaves class
you drive yourselfnuts, huh?
Notice how I get her to specify the context. It turns out that
everything isn't going to Hell, it's just two kids she is having no
idea how to handle. Also, instead of buying into the idea that
the kids are driving her nuts, I ask her to confirm that she is
driving herself nuts.
A psychologist by the name of Nathaniel Branden has
suggested that having high self-esteem (your reputation with
yourself) isn't only about being confident and happy. It's as
much about HOW FREELY A PERSON CAN EXPERIENCE
AND FEEL ALL ASPECTS OF HIMSELF WITHOUT
PROJECTING UNCOMFORTABLE ASPECTS ON TO OTHERS.
Indeed, we all have a tendency to project those aspects of
ourselves we most dislike onto others. It's easier to do that than
to deal with it ourselves. Therefore, a good sign of mental health
is the person's willingness to own his or her own experience. If
someone goes from "They are driving me nuts" to "I am driving
myself nuts" then we are halfway home. Having said that, some
people are very talented at selling misery both with their
language and nonverbal behavior to anyone who will listen.
Some people are just worth staying away from.
So, if you can find the contexts where people act like a ball
and desperately project their experience onto others and help
create a felt experience of them owning it, that's when people

32
come back and report stunning generative changes, instead of:
"Yeah, the anger is gone" or whatever. Only when they accept that
they changed themselves you are done. Mary didn't know that I
used to be every teacher's worst nightmare, a past that comes in
handy in dealing with stuff like this.
Jsrgen: OOOHH, it's time for revenge Mary, Christmas is
coming up, let's get these suckers good. That will be the best
Christmas gift ... wouldn't it?
Mary: The word revenge woke me up, even though it shouldn't,
but what do you suggest?
Jsrgen: If you and I were dancing and I suddenly changed my
rhythm, what would you have to do to keep dancing?
Mary: I would have to change my rhythm.
Jsrgen: It's time for the lead dancer to change her rhythm. I
wonder when Stian knows that it's time to leave the room?
I helped her into a hypnotic trance with the suggestion that she
would review all the times Stian had left the room in detaiL She
accessed several memories and was asked: "When do you know
that Stian is about to leave the room? What's the very first thing he
does that lets you know that he is about to leave?"
After a while she said that every time before he left he would
start looking around the room, smile as his eyes met her and
then stand up and walk towards the door.
Often, he would be slumped over at his desk and after first
starting to look around he would slowly bend his arms, make
eye contact, smile and then get up.
I told her: "Mary, I want you to watch Stian very closely with
your peripheral vision. As soon as you see him start looking around I
want you to tell him to leave immediately. "
Mary: What?
Jsrgen: That's right! As soon as you see the first signs of him
preparing to leave, I want you to tell him to do it.

33
You should have seen the state shift that followed, you know,
the state people go into when they suddenly get it.
Mary: Yes, that's absolutely brilliant, I'll do it. But what ifhe
refuses to leave?
J.argen: If he refuses to leave, tell him the following: THE
ONLY THING I AM INTERESTED IN IS THAT YOU
DON'T LEARN ONE BIT MORE THAN YOU'RE
COMFORTABLE WITH.
(In case you didn't recognize it, this is a classic double bind that
Milton Erickson used to use.)
Now, let's take care of our dear friend Knut. Mary, I want
you to call Knut's mother and have her bring him to school extra
early. When he arrives take him on a tour of the school and have
him check the doors. Give him plenty of reasons why it's so
necessary to do it (so he can reject them in his own mind). After
class do it again. Get him to check the doors for at least fifteen
minutes after class. Don't attempt to stop him during class.
Instead, pull him out of gymnastic class (his favorite) and take
him on a tour to check doors. You let up when he lets up.
Mary left my office in a very enthusiastic state with plenty of
choices. I knew that the kids would have to change their rhythm
since the lead dancer had drastically altered her rhythm. No
follow-up has been necessary. She realized that she was part of
the pattern and if she changes, they will. This intervention made
it easy for her to step out of her depressed state. She now had
transformed herself into a cat with new choices.
One of the many problems with antidepressants is that the
person reenters the same contexts were their frustration levels
were high, and they enter with the same set of behaviors that
didn't work in the past. This is how many people relapse into
depression: by going right back into frustration and when the
pain level gets too high depression follows.

34
For long-term results with those who depress you need to help
them change their state and create a learning context where they
learn new behaviors to meet their wants or needs. I think that
our job as agents of change is to create learning experiences in
the contexts where people act as if Cause and Effect is real. Let's
take a look at what happens when people believe in Cause and
Effect and use that kind of thinking to deal with the challenges
life presents.
When these people have problems they immediately start
asking "WHY?" WHY - because there has got to be a reason, and
that reason is almost always outside of them. It's always other
people who "make them feel bad" and events of the past that
cause them pain and so on. You can hear it in sentences like:
"They took away my self-esteem, she scares me" and so on. Other
people blame their brain chemistry or their genes for anything
in life that doesn't quite go as planned.
This is the basis of the victim culture, where it never occurs to
most people that they are in fact choosing most of the misery
that they are complaining about. It also makes sense to become
an approval addict with no backbone, since it's the events of life
and other people that "Cause" how they feel and what they do.
Instead of singing their own unique song in life, they try to get
approval, fit in, not make mistakes, etc. When they have climbed
the career ladder high enough to feel significant, others will
think that they are finally" good enough." When that happens
then maybe they can start to love themselves. The fear of not
being enough, of not being good enough, never goes away. How
could it when it's other people and events that determines ones
emotional state? Most of the clients I see do one of the following
two patterns:

35
1. The client will say: "I feel bad! I feel bad BECAUSE of
someone or something out there. I will continue to feel
bad until that someone or something changes."
The more optimistic ones will try to change other people so that
they themselves can feel better.
2. The client will use altruism as a manipulative control
strategy. They will "sacrifice" so much and put other
people first. Later they will attempt to get a benefit from
their investment. When other people don't comply they
get bitter and depressed.
Both these patterns are manifestations of a lack of self-
responsibility and a belief in Cause and Effect.
Some of the most fulfilling clients for me to get results with
have been people who have experienced rape and incest. When
you work with clients like this you really get an appreciation of
how big a lie Cause and Effect is. Think about it, a woman
comes to my office five years after a rape with nightmares,
flashbacks and problems with intimacy. The rape is over and the
only thing that exists is internal representations of the rape with
many anchors. When she smells the same aftershave that the
rapist used or hears the same accent or sees someone who
reminds her of the rapist, she freaks out. Time and time again,
after helping these clients disassociate from the pictures and
sounds in their head and re-anchor all the old anchors, I have
experienced a totally transformed individual in front of me.
There are many ways of accomplishing this. The classic phobia
cure, time line patterns, Grinder's New Code Change format
and Dilt's Re-Imprinting are some of the many choices available.
Richard Bandler is fond of saying that the only thing more
horrible than a rape is for the person to re-experience it and take
it seriously.

36
Since the tsunami that struck Thailand in 2004, many people are
still stuck in grief and struggling with flashbacks. Some have
even retired from life and are popping pills full time. What
many don't realize is that some people live a more fulfilling life
after the tsunami. After almost dying they realized how
precious life is and made new choices about what to do and
what to focus on.
As Steve Parkhill wrote in Answer Cancer:
The media prefers to write about anything that can induce states
of fear and emptiness. After all: fear sells! It's well known that
people consume more when they feel afraid and empty inside.
People who feel whole and fulfilled don 't really need to consume
that much. When people feel emptiness and then try to fulfill
their needs by consuming products, they still feel just as empty.
Consumerism tells them that the solution lies in buying even
more and the race is on.
Another disastrous consequence of this type of thinking is the
belief that since others can control how I feel, that means that I
can control how others feel and what they do. Charming isn't it?
That way, if my relationship to my girlfriend isn't quite working
out, the solution lies in controlling the other person and
changing the other person. What happens when two people
apply these beliefs as a foundation for how they relate to each
other? If you have ever experienced or seen a relationship go
from passionate to ice cold, it's likely that the use of this external
control psychology was a contributing factor.
As I reflect back on the decade I have spent in the trenches, in
most cases someone comes in and complains about some
symptom that they often believe is a mental illness. They have
usually been told by a psychologist or psychiatrist that the
symptoms and feelings they have mean that they are ill or
damaged in some way. They then start telling me (until I tell

37
them to "SHUT UP!") that they are suffering because of what
their parents, significant other, boss or whoever else they can
blame are doing. Then they get the idea that the key to feeling
better is for other people to change.
As soon as they understand "WHY" (which often means; who
I can blame), the clients who don't really want to change are
satisfied. They now have the "reasons" that they need to justify
living their life as a professional victim.
For the clients who really do want to change, the illusion of
Cause and Effect and the myth of control are just as damaging.
They convince themselves that the most important thing is to
control and change the people significant to them, and that once
these people change, then they can feel good.
The people in their life start distancing themselves (few
people enjoy others trying to change them). When this happens,
instead of changing what they are doing, they keep trying to
control, which creates even more distance. When they get
frustrated enough, they often start depressing or they develop
some anxiety or phobias, obsessive thoughts, hallucinated
voices or something that really gets them attention. They then
use these symptoms as a means of attempting to control people
around them. Paradoxically, this is when their partner or child
sometimes develops their own symptoms as a way of trying to
avoid the other person's use of external contro1.
I once worked with a couple that had taken this to an extreme
level: they had virtually no direct communication. They both
used symptoms to communicate in an attempt to control each
other and as a way of setting personal boundaries. Since they
used symptoms that were "involuntary", they weren't held
responsible for what they were doing. After all they couldn't
help it. I laugh as I think back. They were fascinating to observe
in action. She was using anxiety to keep distance, avoid sex and
avoid emotion in the relationship. Every time he looked into her

38
eyes she would turn up the anxiety. He on the other hand
would develop these weird pains in his body. It was absolutely
fascinating to see them interact. Once, when he threatened to
leave, she turned all her symptoms off until he returned to the
relationship. When he was back and she felt secure again, she
turned all her symptoms on again. He eventually left the
relationship.
Some of you might think of the story of Mary and conclude
that I am contradicting myself here. That external control was
the solution to her problems, but NO. The main thing was to
help Mary change her own state and develop choices. Her
students changed their behavior since she so dramatically
changed hers.
Folks, if you are looking to create some stunning generative
change, get good at generating learning experiences for people
in the contexts of their lives where they are most stuck in the
myth of Cause and Effect and the illusion of having "control."
Also, make sure you give yourself the same gift.
When your clients free themselves from these beliefs to the
point where they no longer live life as approval addicts,
wonderful stuff happens. They will also realize that they can't
make others happy and that they aren't the "Cause" of other
people's misery. When they realize this they will no longer let
themselves be manipulated by other people's symptoms that
easily.

39
 CHAPTER 2
THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS

A few years ago I worked with a guy diagnosed with the

mental illness" of clinical depression. After entering my office
/I

he started telling me that he wanted me to help him cure his

mental illness. Our conversation was as follows:
J0rgen: Which so-called specific mental illness do you have?
Finn: I suffer from clinical depression.
J0rgen: You claim that you are mentally ill. Well, how do you
know that you are sick?
Finn: My doctor has diagnosed me with depression.
J0rgen: So what? Depression is not a mental illness.
Finn started telling me how he felt, that he was sad, had little
energy and felt a general sense of hopelessness and despair.
J0rgen: I believe you when you say that you feel sad, and that
you have little energy. I don't doubt that you are depressing
My question is simply: How do these feelings and behaviors that you
are describing mean that you are mentally ill? What evidence does
your doctor have that these states and behaviors mean that there is
something wrong with your brain. He never did present any evidence
did he, because he doesn't have any.
Finn: My doctor said: "Depression is a mental illness, in the
same way that cancer and diabetes are physical illnesses.
Depression is usually caused by genetic factors and that it's a
chemical imbalance in the brain. "

41
 J0rgen: Isn't it just a bit fascinating that a doctor would never
diagnose cancer or diabetes in the same way that he diagnosed
depression?
A doctor diagnoses cancer or diabetes only if he finds pathology
on a biochemical, radiological or laboratory test. You don't
diagnose these illnesses unless you can confirm pathology using
a valid test. No doctor would diagnose these illnesses after
having a conversation with a patient where he asks him a few
questions.
J0rgen: So, Finn, what biochemical, radiological or other
laboratory test did your doctor use to diagnose mental illness?
Finn: None, we just talked.
J0rgen: If your doctor told you that you had cancer after a
conversation, wouldn't you insist on some test to confirm this?
Finn: You got a point, I sure would. I never thought about it
like that before.
William Glasser, founder of Reality Therapy and author of the
excellent book WARNING uses a wonderful analogy to describe
this phenomenon.
Just for fun, lets separate mental and physical health (the
mind body split that medicine promotes often has disastrous
consequences, but what the heck) and see how these two fields
are run by very different premises. Understand that when I use
the words physical and mental I am referring to one integrated
system. Specifically, the mind body split exists only in language,
not in experience. We have created this fiction with our
language, and after a while it seems as if we have forgotten that
this so called split doesn't really exist.
In Warning, Glasser correctly points out that when someone
goes to his physician with "physical" complaints, the doctor will
usually run tests to see if they can find something wrong. If they
find some type of pathology using a valid test, then and only

42
then will they diagnose the appropriate illness, whether it's
cancer, a herniated disk or diabetes.
Now, if they don't find any evidence of pathology, most
physicians won't invent a disease, but instead (at least in the
ideal world) create a program consisting of diet, exercise and
sometimes stress management to help the person move towards
better health.
Quite simply, relatively few people are in excellent physical
health and at the same time, relatively few are physically ill.
Most people aren't in great shape, but they don't have a disease
either. Naturally, when people are more or less out of shape
they have a tendency to develop aches and pains here and there.
The point being that you don't diagnose and treat physical
illness unless pathology is found.
Let's turn our attention over to the field of "mental health", a
field where, ironically, most practitioners have never studied
mental health at all. The same logic applies here. Some people
are very mentally healthy, and relatively few suffer from mental
illness as evidenced by brain pathology. Examples are
Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease and multiple
sclerosis. These diseases are primarily treated by neurologists,
not psychiatrists.
Let's say someone enters a psychiatrists or ordinary
physician's office with symptoms such as depression, panic
attacks, obsessive thoughts or hallucinated voices. The "experts"
will ask the patient a bunch of questions, observe the patient's
behavior in the office and then, incredibly, claim that these
symptoms mean that
the patient is suffering from a mental illness, despite not having
a shred of evidence to support this claim.
Schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bulimia and ADHD and
so on are not mental illnesses because none of these symptoms
are associated with brain pathology. There is no evidence that

43
people with the symptoms listed in the DSM are mentally ill,
but this doesn't stop psychiatrists from abusing people with
electroshock therapy, drugging people with brain drugs to cope
with life, and diagnosing people as mentally ill when they are
not. Of course, it's all for your own good, or is it?
The real reason why states such as depression and anxiety
are diagnosed as mental illnesses by psychiatrists is, because if
they didn't all those years of medical study and medication
(those poor pharmaceutical companies who coincidentally fund
almost all research on these "mental illnesses") would no longer
be very relevant and then they would no longer be seen as the
authorities and experts.
How competent are most physicians in dealing with the
emotional challenges of their patients, and how does the
medical training they undergo prepare them for these
challenges? Undoubtedly, some of them are very competent, but
that's despite their medical training, not because of it.
Biological psychiatry has together with the drug companies
bombarded our society with a massive media campaign
designed to convince the masses that their emotional challenges
in life mean that they are mentally ill, and that these illnesses are
caused by bad genes and chemical imbalances in the brain.
The truth is that decades of intense research have failed to
establish biological "causes" for any psychiatric condition listed
in the DSM. There is no such thing as a "cause" anyway. If you
don't believe me, consider the simple fact that no psychiatric
condition can be confirmed by a biochemical, radiological or
other laboratory test.
For those of you who work with clients: "Have any of your
clients with psychiatric diagnoses had that diagnoses based on findings
from a biochemical test? Or were they instead diagnosed based on a
psychiatrist asking questions and then hallucinating mental illness?"
It's also relevant to point out that not a single gene responsible

44
for mental illness has been found: "How could it be so when there
is no way to even confirm that the person has a so called illness to
begin with? Even if there were proof that a gene or a combination
of genes were correlated with some symptom or illness, that
does not justify labeling it as genetic, or reducing everything in a
person's life, consciousness and relationships down to a
combination of genes. If you are interested in the relationship
between mind and genetics, I recommend that you take a look at
a couple of the books that Ernest Rossi has written on the
subject. One of the really interesting things to come out of the
human genome project is that many genes can be turned on and
off by states like novelty, fascination and change in nutrition
and exercise. Consciousness can turn gene expression on and
off, so don't accept it when clients attempt to reduce all their
suffering down to the genetic lottery.
If you, as an agent of change, accept the idea of mental illness
as a frame when doing changework, you are doing yourself and
your clients an incredible disservice. By working inside the
frame you end up reinforcing the frame and all the assumptions
and premises behind it.

About Chemical Imbalance

Your brain chemistry is constantly changing depending on how

you think, move your body, eat, and what you do. Naturally,
when someone depresses, their brain chemistry will be very
different than when they are absorbed in great sex.
For these claims of chemical imbalances as the "Cause" (yep,
gotta spread the Cause and Effect myth as well) then your brain
chemistry would have to be totally independent of what you are
doing. Since they don't have any biochemical tests that can
confirm their theories, they will as evidence for their theory scan

45
 someone's brain activity to show that different parts of the brain
are more or less active when you are depressed or hallucinating
voices. Then they tell their patients that the brain activity they
just scanned presents the patients ever-changing brain
chemistry. No sense stopping here might as well conclude that
this brain chemistry is the" cause".
Sure, there are correlations between a person's subjective
experience and brain chemistry, but that doesn't mean that
you can reduce the person's interior experience down to some
neurotransmitters. Let's stop talking about Causes and instead
talk about Correlation.

C'MON, THESE PSYCHOTICS AND MANIC DEPRESSIVES

GOT TO HA VE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM!
If you have this belief, go study hypnosis and play extensively
with inducing altered states with yourself and others. Then after
a while, you might begin to reconsider as you realize that every
symptom in the DSMV can be elicited in deep hypnosis using
language. There might be something seriously wrong with these
people. I am not claiming that I know how people actually
work. I am just pointing out that there is really no evidence to
suggest that these people are sick and, more importantly, that
the illness frame is NOT a useful frame if you are interested in
creating change.
Go watch a stage hypnosis show where you will see people
experience positive hallucinations, such as seeing the audience
naked, when everyone else would agree that the audience has
clothes on. You will also see the participants negatively
hallucinate people or objects to the point where they will claim
to not see or hear things that everyone else can see and hear.
In addition to stage shows, look up Stanley Milgram's
research on obedience.

46
Look into Nazi Germany and the slayings in Rwanda and ask
yourself if these people were all mentally ill. Could you reduce
what happened here down to some neurotransmitters? Did all
these people suddenly develop a chemical imbalance" at the
II

same time? Would these conflicts have been solved without

bloodshed if only we had excess psychiatrists and medication
available?
Let's turn our attention back to stage hypnosis shows. You
might be tempted to dismiss this as: "GH, these people are simply
role playing." Try holding that belief when the participants
believe that an onion is an apple while eating the onion with the
enjoyment they usually reserve for eating something delicious.
How about when they smell ammonia from a bottle, but believe
and physiologically react as if they smell a perfume? It can be
quite amusing to watch.
If this induces a state of intrigue, start reading research
documenting how James Esdaile used hypnosis as the sole
anesthesia while performing surgery and natural childbirth
without pain. In modern days some people have even had open-
heart surgery with hypnosis as the only anesthesia.
In fact, hypnosis research in recent years using brain imaging
technology (positron emission tomography) have shown that in
deep hypnosis, color areas in the right
and left hemispheres were activated when asked to positively
hallucinate color. When participants experienced hallucinations
as real, blood flow in the color-processing region of the brain
was affected consistently with the hypnotically suggested
hallucination (Kosslyn et al. 2000). When participants who were
not hypnotized were asked to mentally imagine the same things
that the hypnotized group hallucinated, the effects were very
different.

47
Getting "Rea/" with a Big Knife
HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA AND SYMPTOMATIC PHENO-
MENA ARE THE EXACT SAME PHENOMENA, ONLY THE
CONTEXT DIFFERS.
A few years ago, a close friend of mine was involved in a car
accident. After spending almost two months in a coma, she
eventually found herself in a rehabilitation center. Her voice
was gone, she couldn't walk and her short-term memory was
severely diminished.
After a while she suddenly became totally convinced that she
was dead, and that everyone around her was just a product of
her own imagination. When friends and family attempted to
correct her by saying: "Dead people can't imagine things!" it had
no effect on her.
She confidently whispered back: You don't know that, you're
not dead!
She was obviously severely disassociated and denied feeling
anything, denied feeling hungry or being thirsty and so on. This
went on for a while, and I became quite worried that the doctors
would slap on her a psychiatric diagnosis and start drugging
her. I knew that I would have to enter her reality somehow and
from there turn a symptomatic trance into a therapeutic trance.
Maybe you're beginning to realize that the severe
dissociation my friend experienced in many ways is the same
disassociation that people who experience pain-free childbirth
and open heart surgery using hypnosis as the sole anesthesia
have.
I have helped numerous people use their disassociation skills
to deal with "chronic" pain after accidents and during illness.
Often, I have helped my clients disassociate from their bodies by
"leaving" their body to go watch television in their living room,
while their pained body was left in bed. When in deep trance,

48
both/ and logic dominates in such a way that a patient can be in
bed while at the same time watch TV in the living room, thereby
not being in the body feeling the pain.
My friend was experiencing the same phenomena of
dissociation. In a way she was doing the same as my pain clients
had been doing. My pain clients had learned to disassociate
from their painful bodies to escape pain, while my friend was
using an even greater disassociation to escape life. The
phenomena of disassociation are the same, only the context
differs. It's the context where a phenomena or skill is used that
determines its usefulness.
Deep Trance Identification is another really interesting
phenomenon to explore. This is a state where someone assumes
the identity of someone else. John Grinder, in a modeling
seminar in 2003, told the story of how he and Richard Bandler
guided Stephen Gilligan through a deep trance identification
with Milton Erickson. Gilligan "became" Erickson to the point
that Gregory Bateson, a close friend of Erickson, ran out of the
room after Gilligan had said something that Gilligan couldn't
have known. According to Grinder, these exercises in Deep
Trance Identification dramatically improved Gilligan's skills.
For an athlete who wants to learn new skills, being able to do
this is an enormous benefit.
In stage shows, the exact same phenomena are used when a
woman becomes Jennifer Lopez or a guy assumes the identity of
Elvis Presley. The same phenomena, in a mental hospital are
dramatically displayed when someone becomes Jesus Christ.
In a psychiatry office a patient hallucinates a voice, which
tells him that he ought to kill himself. The psychiatrist tells
himself that the patient is hallucinating voices (ironically
enough) and then hallucinates that the other person has a brain
disease. Then VOILA! a voice turns up telling the psychiatrist
what drugs to use.

49
To reiterate, it's not the phenomena themselves, but when and
where they are used. Disassociation is wonderful when working
with trauma, phobias and pain control. However, in working
with grief, dissociation from the good times often keeps the
person stuck for years. Here association is often the key to help
people overcome grief. Steve and Connirae Andreas have
written some excellent stuff on how getting people to associate
with pleasurable times can heal grief.
A couple of years ago I worked with a young woman who
tormented herself with anxiety to make her life a living hell. She
would sit at home and ask herself the question: "WHAT IF
SOMEONE BREAKS INTO MY APARTMENT AND RAPES
ME?" Ten minutes later she would be sweating, her pulse racing
while her whole body was trembling. No one had ever broken
into her apartment or raped her. My next client was an athlete,
and the interesting part is that he would use the exact same
mental process to motivate himself. No, he didn't imagine being
raped or running away from a rapist, but maybe it could have
been useful? I read about a guy who was hypnotized to believe
that a shark was after him. It worked really well until he
reached the end of the pool and desperately lifted his body out
of the water and started crawling on all four legs. Of course in
the athlete's case, the content was different, but they would both
create images of what might happen in the future, step into the
movie and feel what they would have felt if they actually had
the experience.
The phenomena "ideodynamisciscm", the experience of
something taking place without effort such as involuntary finger
signals or an arm rising with honest unconscious movement, is
very common in therapeutic trances. If we switch the context to
an Olympic event, the flow state or being in the zone is just
another manifestation of the same thing. The athletes flow and

50
just find themselves doing the right thing at the right time
seemingly without effort.
If you forget all about content, just consider process while
you take a look at the bulimic that does binge eating. She will
experience time distortion just like the athlete in a flow state
does. She has the experience of her behavior being involuntary
just like the athletes who find they are doing the right thing at
the same time.
Naturally, the anorexic will positively hallucinate when she
sees herself in the mirror, seeing a disgusting fat woman while
her friends and family will see something that resembles the
look of a holocaust survivor. Simultaneously she will negatively
hallucinate her ribs sticking out.
In the summer of 2004 I spoke with Benny "The Jet"
Urquidez, legendary World Kickboxing Champion. We spoke
about meditation and mental preparation. He told me that when
he entered the ring, he couldn't hear the audience, didn't see
anyone except his opponent, and could hear and feel his
opponents pulse.
Just for kicks, when you see clients, observe the states, thought
processes and behaviors of those diagnosed with obsessive-
compulsive disorder. Then observe people who have a huge
crush on someone, and notice if you can find any significant
difference. Excluding the obvious fact that those who are in love
are often happy while those with official obsessive-compulsive
disorder are often miserable. But, come to think of it, those with
a huge crush on someone who isn't interested are often just as
miserable in the exact same miserable way.
I have often thought about the following paradox: Let's say I
go to church with a bunch of people hallucinating "God", and
while we do that we talk to Him and pray. This is considered
normal behavior by most of the people I know. However, if I
during a business meeting were to look up and say: "OK Lord,"

51
and proceed to tell the people present that "God just told me not
to sign the contract, so I can unfortunately not do it. I am sorry, but I
have to go now." Check that one out. Most people will think that
you are insane and that you need some medication - fast!
What's the difference between the two? The amusing part being
that I can speak to God and when I do it's normal, but when he
speaks to me then I am insane. He is supposed to be the
sovereign one, not me.
Now, the first thing I did to help my extremely disassociated
friend was to enter her reality.
J0rgen: I sincerely need to apologize to you. I hope you can
forgive me for not having believed that you're dead. Know that I
accept that you are dead. It was just so tough dealing with grief
I did this to gain rapport and to be able to enter her world. This
part was easy. She was so fed up with nobody believing her,
and she was totally relieved when I told her that she was right
and had been right all along. When I saw that she had accepted
me I changed the subject. We had a pleasant conversation about
anything and everything.
The next day I went in and started another conversation.
J0rgen: Listen, I have some friends who work in the media, and
they are very intrigued with you and your situation. They want
to make a TV documentary about you. They think it's so
fascinating that you as a dead person are enrolled in a health
program to improve your health!
Friend: I don't really think that I have anything of interest to
contribute to that.
Jergen: Think about all the people who are scared of dying. If
someone could tell these people that they can have friends, see
movies and work out, then maybe a lot of these people could
become a lot more free and lose their fear?

52
 Friend: Ok, I will do it, but only if this is done in a very serious
way. I don't want to be ridiculed in any way!
I did this to test her belief. I was curious to see what would
happen if I entered her reality totally and then, in a very
congruent way, presented an idea like this. She didn't even
flinch. My suggestion didn't create any strong nonverbal
response. I just didn't really activate anything.
The next day I visited her again with a very dramatic
proposal. I told her that I had always wanted to kill someone
just to know what it feels like, but that I obviously couldn't do
that because of moral and ethical reasons.
Jergen: Since you are already dead, can I kill you?
I said this in a way that showed her that I meant it, and now I
saw that she responded somewhat nonverbally. I had gotten the
attention of her unconscious.
Friend: Well, if it really means so much to you, I am willing to
do that.
Writing about this (and probably reading about it as well) is
such a strange experience. There are so many elements of what
happened here that can't be described sufficiently on paper - my
state, her state, the context, my intent and congruency and of
course her severe disassociation. The interplay between all these
factors and the rapport we had is do hard, try impossible, to
describe in any meaningful way.
We negotiated a date for the killing and how it would be
done. She insisted that I kill her with a knife, but that it
wouldn't be a cheap knife. It had to be an expensive knife. We
were all set!
I went to visit an old friend of mine who is a knife collector
and had some really impressive stuff. We decided on this huge

53
knife that looked like it was taken from the movie Cobra with
Sylvester Stallone.
I remember clearly walking through the corridors of the
rehabilitation center with this huge knife inside my leather
jacket and the adrenaline surging through my body. As I
entered her room I locked the door (thank God!) Dramatically
and with great intensity I grabbed her hair while I put the blade
to her throat. Then I followed this up verbally with: "YOUR
TIME IS UP, THIS IS IT!!!!!"
She went into a state of fear, as strong as I have ever seen,
and suddenly she woke up and realized that this was real.
Undoubtedly, my many years of experience as a professional
self-defense instructor have enabled me to develop skills in role
playing.
Friend: NO, NO, stop, don't do it, I don't want to die!
Jorgen: You can't be afraid of dying if you are already dead.
I stopped, pretending to be very disappointed that she had
changed her mind and just looked at her for a while. It didn't
take long before fear turned into confusion.
Jorgen: I have a friend who was in a car accident a couple of
years ago. He told me that he used to be convinced that he was
dead initially. Would you like to talk to him?
Friend: Oh please, I am so confused. I want to talk with him.
I called Ronny Hansen (one of my best friends) who had
actually been in a car accident and asked him if he would help
out. He said "Yes!" without hesitating. He had never thought he
was dead, but all the other things I had told my confused friend
were indeed true.
I instructed him in pacing her (not whispering, but talking very
softly) and we made up a story that was quite similar to hers.
He then called her, paced her, told his story including the "being

54
dead" part, and said that he had started doubting after feeling
fear - then entering a state of confusion. He then very elegantly
led her out of the entire thing. The change was almost
instantaneous.
Six months later, Ronny and I told her what we had done.
She loved it! We have had a lot of fun with this incident ever
since. Whenever we told the story to someone else, we usually
got some combination of horror, shock, laughter and sometimes
indignation. Paradoxically, the more training people had in the
health field the less humorous and intriguing they found what
we did.
You might say that what Ronny and I did was to help her
turn a symptomatic trance into a therapeutic trance. Another
valid explanation is that we dehypnotized her. Quite simply, we
created a strong counterexample to her belief, and gave her the
experience in a way that allowed her to respond to it. The
elements were rapport, calibrating her nonverbals and creating a
strong counter experience to her belief. Certainly, a strong state
of fear was appropriate. When she entered confusion we
utilized it by having Ronny call her. By metaphor she applied
the learning's to herself in such a way that she set herself free.
Although symptomatic trances and therapeutic trances share
the same phenomena, they are different also. If you take the
time to study some "official psychotics" and compare their
behavior with hypnotized clients, you will find that both
experience dissociations, symbolic and metaphorical
expressions, amnesias, time distortion, hallucinations,
identifications, involuntary behavior (things just happening on
their own) and regression.
However, the client or athlete experiences these phenomena
in ways to enrich their world. There is no attempt at controlling
or disowning experience. Psychotics, on the other hand,
experience a rigid and painful inner world where twisted

55
unconscious processes have taken over. Instead of integrating
and learning they disown, try to control and project their pain
outside of themselves. Since both of these trances are run by
normal unconscious processes that are amplified, the critical
issue is: How we can turn the symptomatic trance into an
empowering one?

Let's Get Ethical!

A few months ago I saw a client who experienced intense
anxiety when criticized or rejected. When we spoke on the
phone prior to the work we did, I probed for specificity using
"which specifically" for nouns and "how specifically" to
challenge verbs.
Heidi: I have a problem that I desperately need help with, can
you help me?
Jergen: Which problem, specifically?
Heidi: I just feel terrible when someone rejects me or criticizes
me.
Jergen: Rejects you, how specifically?
This went on for some time, and she described the specific
bodily sensations she felt. As she described the sensations I
noticed that her voice became more shallow and constricted. I
started playing with rejecting her ideas on the phone and
noticed that whenever I raised my voice, her voice and
breathing would become restricted. It quickly became clear that
it wasn't so much what I said, but loud masculine voices that
were the trigger for her symptomatic trances.
She started describing an experience where she had made a
mistake, and her boss had raised his voice and criticized her. In
contexts like this she had the least amount of choice. This gave

56
me all the information I needed to create the proper context for
learning. We made an appointment for the following week. I
gave her instructions to stop at a gas station not far from my
office. She was further instructed to call me so that I could guide
her in reaching my office.
I deliberately gave her very poor instructions so that she
made wrong turns here and there resulting in her being fifteen
minutes late. When she entered my office, I raised my voice and
said: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, CAN'T YOU
MAKE SENSE OUT OF THE SIMPLEST OF INSTRUCTIONS?"
She immediately started shaking and her voice chocked while
she very strongly entered her symptomatic trance.
If you think that I didn't have rapport with her at this point,
think again. Rapport doesn't mean liking or feeling comfortable,
although these feelings are often present when people have
really good rapport. Rapport is about capturing the attention of
the other persons unconscious. Evidenced by the state she went
into, I clearly had her unconscious attention and she was indeed
very responsive towards me. I don't think she liked me much,
but we definitely had rapport.
Many NLP practitioners limit themselves by defining rapport
as a state where someone likes you, trusts you and feels
comfortable. I have had clients who liked and trusted me, but
that I have had no rapport with. I have also had clients who
hated my guts (and still do) who I had excellent rapport with
and "miraculous" results. Many psychologists and researchers
claim that the most important factor in therapy is that the client
likes the therapist. The implication being that a warm and
emphatic atmosphere where the therapist functions as some sort
of midwife is essential. Well, I strongly disagree with this. It just
doesn't match my experience. What you need is the ability to get
the client to RESPOND, and you need superb calibration skills.
Since I at this point had gotten Heidi to respond by going into

57
her symptomatic trance I could observe how she looked and
sounded in this state.
If you really get that NLP is about shamelessly manipulating
process as opposed to content, you realize that it doesn't matter
what you do as long as you have the ability to calibrate and get
the client to respond. After getting a strong response and
calibrating it, you do some sort of intervention. If you get what
you're looking for, then great, if not, you reach into your bag of
tricks and pull out something else. After the intervention you
fire off the old anchors. If the old limiting response is gone and
replaced it with something better: CaNCRATULATIONS!
I think that you should make changework this simple.
Understand that for some people in some contexts a soft, kind
midwife is exactly what they need. If the client responds to that,
you are justified in doing it. However, if soft listening is the only
tool you have in your toolbox and the client doesn't respond,
you have two choices:
1. You can call the client resistant. The implication being
that the therapy works perfectly, but that damn client
gets in the way.
2. You can radically alter your own behavior. Be
provocative, vulgar, use shock, distraction, confusion,
boredom or whatever you can think of to get a response.
You can also just alter your own internal response so
that you go into a very different state. By doing this the
client will often automatically change his behavior.
While we are on the subject of ethics, I think ethics is simple.
Understand that your job is to get results and if you can get
results, then do it. If you don't get results, then don't charge
money.
Let's go back to our friend Heidi.

58
 Jergen: That's right, close your eyes and focus on that feeling. I
am going to count from ten to one, and as I reach one you will be
back at the first event this feeling is connected to '" Ten, focus
on that feeling, nine, going back in time, eight seven six five,
getting younger, four, in touch with the feeling, three two, back
to the very first event and ONE - YOU'RE THERE ...
Here I am using the symptom as an affect bridge back in time.
Since she went into her symptomatic trance as a result of my
little stunt, there was no need for a formal hypnotic induction.
While we are on the topic of hypnotic inductions, many
hypnotherapists would have attempted to calm her down and
then proceed with some sort of progressive relaxation induction.
Milton Erickson wrote that what the client is doing should be
utilized to fixate attention and create a therapeutic trance.
I prefer to activate the symptom, utilizing the symptom to
fixate attention, and then use the symptom to regress back to the
memories the symptoms are connected to, so that we can re-
anchor and change the perceptions that are responsible for the
symptom.
Jergen: First impression, are you inside or outside?
Heidi: Inside.
Jergen: Are you alone or with people?
Heidi: The teacher is yelling at me!
Jergen: How old are you?
Heidi: Eight.
I start with simple questions like: "Are you inside or outside?" It is
easier for them to gradually build up the memory /
reconstruction this way than if you try to have them put the
entire thing together at once.
Jergen: Continue to focus on that feeling. As you do, I am
going to count once again from five down to one and when I

59
 reach one, you will be back at the very first event this is
connected to. Five, focus on that feeling, four three, two back to
the very first event and ONE - YOUR THERE!
Jorgen: Are you inside or outside?
Heidi: Outside.
Jorgen: Alone or with people?
Heidi: With people.
Jorgen: Who are you with?
Heidi: Daddy and my sister.
I don't really care about the content at all. The only reason I ask
these questions is to get a representation where visual, auditory
and kinesthetic elements are in awareness. This will give us
maximum leverage in creating new synesthesias and new
choices.
Jorgen: Continue to focus on that feeling. As I reach the count
of one you will be back at the very first event. The same count
followed with the same line of questioning.
Jorgen, Inside or outside?
Heidi: I am back at the same place.
When doing these reconstructed regressions my goal is to
reconstruct the first memory the feeling is related to. When the
client ends up at the same event twice, I choose to take that as
evidence that the client is back to the first event.
Jorgen: Float up above the event. Higher and higher up in the
in the air so that you are above the event, looking down on it ...
My question is: what is it that you need to learn from this event,
the learnings which when you learn them will allow you to let
go of the fear .. ? When you have learned what it is that you need
to learn, I want your unconscious to preserve the learnings in a
special place that you reserve for all such learning's.

60
If you have studied time-line patterning you will recognize the
hypnotic language used in the above paragraph. My work is
heavily influenced by Time Line TherapyTM (TLT), and TLT has
been a very powerful part of my toolbox. In a later chapter I will
show you how to take time line work to a new level with some
important modifications.
Jorgen: Now, float a bit higher and a bit further back so that
you are at least fifteen minutes before the event. Nod when you
are there.
Heidi: Nods.
Jorgen: Stay there, mentally turn around looking towards the
event and NOW ... where is the FEAR ... is it GONE NOW.?
Heidi: Yes!
Her verbal utterances are supported by her nonverbal.
Jorgen: The position you are in right now is called release
position. I want you to float down into the event and try to find
that old FEAR or maybe you can find that it's GONE NOW .. ?
Again, this wonderful double bind IS from Time Line
TherapyTM. The word "try" implies failure. So when someone is
instructed to try something, they will usually come back later
and say that they tried. Obviously, when someone says that they
tried to be nice or show up on time, you know that they weren't.
Heidi: It's gone.
Jorgen: Float up above the event and start floating towards
now ... only as quickly as you LET GO of all the FEAR on all
subsequent events all the way back to NOW... I want you to
assume release position before each event ... LET GO OF THE
FEAR and PRESERVE THE LEARNINGS on all events all the
way back to NOW...
Heidi: I am back to now.

61
 Jergen: Let's test ... I want you to select five events from your
past ... float all the way down into each one and try really try to
find that old feeling offear or find that its totally gone now.
After about a minute, Heidi reports that the fear is gone.
Jergen: Float out into the future ... to an event which in the
past would have triggered the old fear... and notice how you
FEEL DIFFERENTLY as you float down into the event doing
things in a way that works for you ... in light of your new
choices.
Heidi: I am doing well! I don't like it when people scream at
me, but it doesn't trigger any panic anymore.
Heidi is instructed to float back to the present. As soon as she
opens her eyes I start acting like an obnoxious jerk again. This
time, however, her nonverbals are very different. She actually
started to assert herself verbally. Since I knew how she used to
look and sound when criticized, I was confident that we had
made a change.
Jergen: You know, Heidi, I have done this stuff for years, and
let me tell you, you are one of the fucking slowest. Not quite the
sharpest knife in the drawer, are you? WHAT THE HELL IS
WRONG WITH YOU?
This is the same sentence that I used when she had entered my
office one hour earlier. I was in the same state doing the same
stuff as I did then, firing off all the old anchors.
Heidi: You are a very rude man. How do you justify treating
people who ask you for help in this way?
Jergen: You just asserted yourself, Heidi. You did it in a way
that was appropriate. Would you have been able to do that before
you entered my office?

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Notice that my criticism was way over the top. I had accused her
of being stupid and slow when the truth was that she had
solved her own problem in an hour. Clearly, she was now in a
state where she had access to her critical thinking skills, the very
skills that allowed her to pick my criticism apart. While she
certainly asserted herself, as she should when people are as
unreasonable as I was, her nonverbals showed without a doubt
that she had gotten the change she had been looking for.
Heidi: No I wouldn't.
Jergen: That's how I justify it.
Follow-up revealed that the intervention had been successful.
The same follow-up also revealed that she still didn't like me
much. It might interest you to know that she had been to several
other therapists that she liked a lot, but who were unable to get
results with her.
This case, along with many others (several illustrated in this
book) proves to me that the most important factor in terms of
outcome is NOT whether the clients like you. Let's look at a
couple of other cases that disprove the popular notions of clients
having to feel comfortable and like you for you to help them get
what they are after.

I Love Welfare

A few years ago I worked as a consultant for a government-run

institution, which helped the unemployed get back to work. I
was hired to work with the tough cases, groups of people who
hadn't worked for many years, and many who had no intention
of doing so. For most of the individuals the welfare deals they
had were too good to give up. The really interesting part was
that most of them were healthy and had no legitimate reason as

63
to why they should be on welfare except taking advantage of the
system year after year. My job was to be some sort of motivator
helping people overcome fears and blocks preventing them
from going to job interviews and so on.
At noon one day I was scheduled to meet a new group. I met
with the woman who taught them computer skills, but she left
the building in a less than enthusiastic state. I decided to spy on
the group a bit to figure out what was going on.
Little did I know that I was about to enter a tournament
where contestants battled to wear the ultimate crown: the right
to title oneself the ultimate victim of the seminar room. They
were all sitting around a big table eating lunch while sharing
war and horror stories about the terror of actually leaving one's
house having to work for a living. Men were swearing and
women were crying. Some people had phobias and panic
attacks, others were depressed, a guy had lower back pains,
another woman had migraine headaches and so on.
A pattern interrupt was in order. Working with this group
while in this state of self-pity would be inefficient and a royal
pain in the ass. After working myself into a state of severe self-
pity, I dragged my body over to the table - stared at the group
and asked: "ls this the place where those frauds want terminally ill
people to work instead of enjoying their last months as best they can?"
With their attention captured I told them that I had AIDS,
that I was very sick and didn't have long to live. What the hell
was anyone thinking dragging me in here for? My little scam
had worked! Their pattern was broken, and I had won the
championship hands down. After all, nobody there could
compete with AIDS.
A woman started hugging me, and I decided to take
advantage of the hug for a while. A few seconds later I told
them that I was just kidding, that I was the seminar leader and
that class had begun. Some started laughing hysterically, some

64
stared at me in shock and disbelief, and the rest went into rage
indignant of my little stunt. "How dare you?" and "You Bastard!"
were sentences thrown at me. None of them were ones that
complimented my creativity.
Jergen: You are a bunch of pussies and losers! I am not going to
bother to be politically correct. They paid me to work with you
LOSERS! So, I will, although I certainly don't expect much
from a group that's so FUCKED UP!
I said this congruently but also with a certain sarcasm in my
voice. As a matter of fact the room was now divided. Half of
them were laughing themselves silly and the rest were VERY
angry.
Quite predictably, the group mismatched me big time and
became quite productive. While a few of them understood what
I was doing and found it more or less outrageous, a few of them
mobilized all that they had just to prove that prick J0rgen dead
wrong.
Both humor and anger are a lot more productive than self-
pity. The reason I got such excellent rapport with the group was
because I had verbalized what they were already thinking about
themselves anyway. Most of them viewed themselves as
"Losers." If I had told them that they were wonderful, I would
have had no credibility since it wouldn't match their experience.
Consider what often happens in therapy. The patient starts
telling the therapist that they are no good. The therapist tries to
convince them that they really are wonderful. The more the
therapist does that, the more the patient gets self-destructive. If
a client is self-destructive I usually agree with them. Then I
greatly exaggerate how hopeless they are until the client either
starts laughing or gets angry. When people start laughing they
can change, and when they get pissed off they start asserting
themselves. Since one of us is going to play devil's advocate, I

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prefer to be the one. Often, just reversing this pattern starts the
ball roIling when nothing else has previously worked.

Playing the Devil's Advocate

Lise was one of the participants in the previously mentioned

group, but despite having a good education she felt that she was
worthless. She was also a polarity responder. When she told
others how worthless she was, they would try to cheer her up.
The more they tried to cheer her up, the more she found reasons
that she really was worthless.
Unfortunately, this is often the case. Friends and family often
help people amplify and maintain their problems by "helping"
them in this way. Their intentions are positive, but the
consequences are often horrible. She requested my help and I
made her work a bit before I accepted to work with her, telling
her that I wasn't sure that she was worthy of my time and
efforts.
Lise: I feel worthless and it's just so hopeless.
She went on explaining how stupid and incompetent she was
for several minutes, offering all sorts of reasons for her inactivity
and feelings of depression.
Jorgen: Lise, I agree that you are worthless so let's just be
honest. I don't like you much either, why should I? All you do is
bitch and complain all day. There is no hope in that.
Lise: But, but, I really can't help it!
Jorgen: Of course you can't. Maybe you're just too stupid to be
held accountable for your actions.
Lise: I am not that bad!

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Notice the reversal of the pattern. As I played the devil's
advocate, Lise suddenly started asserting herself.
Jergen: Oh, you're a lot worse than that! You claim that you are
worthless. You're a lot worse than worthless! You're actually a
destructive element who's just bitching and complaining all day
long, and on top of it all, just too stupid to realize that you are
making yourself miserable. One quick bullet and it's all over.
Just kill yourself! You're already dead anyway, you might as
well make it official. Why bother living a life with no passion,
curiosity where you're neither growing nor contributing?
Lise: I AM NOT GOING TO SHOOT MYSELF!
Jergen: Of course not. You're just a worthless coward. Pulling
that trigger would take some guts. I guess sleeping pills is more
up your alley.
As I say this I am laughing so hard that I can hardly speak.
Frank Farrelly was right. Joyful sadism can be quite useful at
times.
Quite predictably, as I amplify my part of the pattern by
exaggerating it to ridiculous levels, Lise starts asserting herself
big time. As I continue to laugh hysterically Lise starts naming
all her positive qualities and all her successes in life, and as she
does, she moves into a pretty resourceful state.
There was a big mirror on the wall in the room and that
prompted an idea.
Jergen: Too bad you lack guts and honesty.
I physically grabbed her, placed her in front of the mirror and
challenged her.
Jergen: If you had guts you would look yourself in the mirror
and say the exact same things.

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As she starts listing her positive qualities while reentering her
resourceful state I anchored it by touching her shoulder.
Jsrgen: Close your eyes, and as that feeling gets stronger and
stronger with each and every breath ... if that feeling had a
color, which color would it be.
Lise: Red. The color is red.
Jsrgen: Notice how easily that feeling gets even stronger as that
red-colored feeling rotates in your body ... stronger and stronger
until you can hear the sound of that feeling spinning around in
your body. The more you focus in on that feeling, while it gets
brighter, notice that the brighter the color, the stronger the
feeling and the stronger the feeling the brighter the color.
Having clients see the color of the feeling and creating an
amplifying loop where you suggest that the brighter the feeling
the stronger the feeling, and the stronger the feeling, the
brighter the color creates a loop that allows easy amplification.
Milton Erickson called this "apposition of opposites." This
phenomenon allows you to take something you can easily do
and lend it to something else. This way, if it's easy for the client
to see the color they can lend that to increase the feeling and
vice versa.
Lise amplified her state and was sent on an imaginary trip
into her future, using the resourceful state as a filter to
experience her projected future through. After about ten
minutes of this I told her to go out there and go for it, or throw
herself in the river. The latter choice was clearly being rejected
as evidenced by her nonverbal signals.
When she walked out the door I started getting worried that I
had gone way overboard. The people who had hired me had
already received complaints from psychiatrists because of my
stunts. Imagine my relief when I saw her two weeks later. She
was going to start working again and gave me a big hug,

68
thanking me for having helped her to wake up. She flat out told
me that what I did for her was the best thing anyone had done
for her in ten years.
All this and all I had done was essentially to interrupt her
limiting pattern, so that she could reverse it, thereby creating
more choice in her life.

A Charming IIS uicida/"

Another client from the same group naturally comes to mind.

Rune was depressing and talking a lot about life not being
worth living. He never directly stated that he wanted to commit
suicide, nor do I believe that he was suicidal. He just spoke
vaguely about life being a bitch, so that people would assume
that he was suicidal. He used it to connect with people and to
feel significant.
Very often, having a major problem is used to feel significant
and to connect with other people. It's often a powerful way of
getting attention and support without directly asking for it. I
decided to help him connect with people and feel significant in
other ways, since his way of doing it started to push people
away from him while it was also bad for the spirit of the group.
Although the content differed, Rune used exactly the same
pattern as Lise. I decided to do something similar. One morning
I pulled Rune aside and told him that I supported his idea that
life was a bitch, and that I was willing to help him organize his
suicide.
He had never verbally stated that he wanted to kill himself,
just spoken about it vaguely so that people would get concerned
and conclude that he was contemplating suicide. I did this to
show him that his foolishness didn't scare me and also to steal
his frame, persuading him to alter his behavior.

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Rune was totally stunned by my maneuver but pretended to not
be and played along. We then had a meeting where we
discussed all the practical issues surrounding his suicide. I
involved myself in his planning in a very detailed way.
Although he verbally played along, his nonverbals clearly
showed that he was mismatching me and he started acting
differently as we planned along.
At the next meeting I suggested that he had to write a letter
to his daughter justifying why he had to kill himself. When he
claimed that he wasn't very good at expressing himself, I
"sincerely" offered to write one for him. I had recently read
Frank Farrelly's outstanding book Provocative Therapy. This book
really opened my eyes when it came to interrupting patterns. It
certainly made my work with these people a lot more enjoyable
and productive.
Of course, I wrote a terrible and perverse letter about a man
that didn't have the guts to tackle the challenges of life. When I
gave him the letter he got really angry, but as I started laughing,
he gave in and started laughing hysterically as well. His
behavior dramatically improved after this little stunt. So did his
social skills as he learned to relate to other people in more useful
ways.
Whenever I get a new client I do my best to find out which
therapists they have already seen, and also to figure out which
responses they get from the people around them when they do
their symptoms. People who perform various symptoms usually
get very predictable responses from the people around them.
Therefore, they often use symptoms to control others or get a
feeling of security in an otherwise turbulent life. No matter what
else is going on, they know that if they turn their symptoms on
they will get very predictable responses from their environment.
My challenge is often to help them get feelings of stability or
security in more empowering ways, and also to help them

70
connect with others and feel significant in more useful ways. In
order to accomplish this I need to offer very different responses
to their symptomatic behavior than they are used to. If I react to
their symptoms in exactly the same predictable way as everyone
else, I ENSURE THAT I AM OF ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE TO
THEM, because I am not bringing anything new to the table. I
am also reinforcing their stuck limiting patterns by offering the
same responses. By deliberately interrupting their patterns and
offering different responses than they are used to, they will have
to update what they are doing. When they do, they expand their
choices to the point at which they no longer need their
symptoms.
All this is dependent on you having rapport and the ability to
calibrate the responses you are getting. If you have those skills
and the ability to put yourself in the right state, you have the
skills to get brilliant results.
John Grinder has really helped me get this by repeatedly
emphasizing that all the patterns are lies. He likes to say that the
patterns are there for you to learn to focus your attention, so that
you have something to focus on while you learn to get
responses and develop calibration skills.

How to Screw Up in the Name of Good Intentions

Sometimes the state that you're in makes it almost impossible
for clients to display certain responses in front of you. I
remember a young woman who entered my office many years
ago complaining of being severely depressed and having low
self-esteem. She told an interesting story of going to therapy
because she felt frustrated with her life. At the time she started
therapy she wasn't depressed, just frustrated because her life
had turned out very differently than she had planned. Her

71
psychiatrist decided that she was depressed. When she argued
that she wasn't, he told her that many young people were
depressed without knowing it, and that she was one of them. "I
am the psychiatrist and you are depressed" was one of his favorite
sentences.
Within a few weeks of this nonsense he had convinced her,
and she complied by developing a state of depression. The next
step of course was to start talking about her depression to find
out why or find reasons to be depressed. As any hypnotist will
tell you, whatever you focus on you amplify. If you think they
stopped there, think again. To "help" her further, he made sure
she entered a group with other anxious and depressed people,
so that they could learn each others' ways of doing depression.
I don't know about you, but for me the idea that a depressed
person should go hang out with other depressed people is just a
very bad idea! Since everyone there is depressed, no one in the
group has a workable solution. I think it's better to hang around
with happy people, or people who were depressed and are now
happy most of the time. Having clients model those is a better
idea.
I asked her how she knew that it was time to do depression
and how she did it. She said that she would wake up, look up at
the ceiling, and realize that there was nowhere to go, nothing to
do. This brings us back to our brilliant psychiatrist who had
suggested that she quit studying and working, so that she could
focus on her depression full time.
The solution here was obvious: she needed to get back into
the game of life (perhaps with some new skills) and as far away
from psychiatry as possible. I started ridiculing her psychiatrist
and her way of thinking, once again exaggerating her problem
to ridiculous levels. I also told her flat out to throwaway her
antidepressants, go out and get a job and to get out of
psychiatry. Before I told her this, I had started laughing

72
hysterically when she told me how she did her depression. She
got furious, ran out of my office, while claiming that she would
never return. I was sure that I had blown it, and that I hadn't
been able to help her at all.
Two years down the road a young lady calls me thanking me
for changing her life. Not recognizing her voice or her name I
was quite puzzled. I had to admit that I had no idea what she
was talking about. When she told me what had happened in my
office, and that she had ran out, I became even more confused.
Despite being furious when leaving my office, when she had
calmed down, she found that what I had said made total sense
and she had lost all belief in her psychiatrist. Linda said that my
sarcastic laughter made the difference. That a professional like I
could be laughing his heart out when she told about her
problems had made her furious. However, after a while she
started thinking that: "If this therapist laughs at my problems,
maybe they aren't so serious after all. "
I had thereby given her a strong counterexample to her belief
that she had serious problems, a problem she had because she
had taken a professional seriously in the first place. It didn't
take long before she started working again, and then she didn't
have time to be depressed.
John Grinder emphasizes physiology and state in his inter-
ventions. The more time I have spent with John the better my
results have gotten. I have made manipulation of physiology
and state a big part of my work: not only the client's state, but
my own state as well. Putting myself in a very-focused state
while establishing rapport has allowed clients to model me
without knowing they were doing so. My best advice for
developing this skill is the daily practice of meditation.
Meditation helps you develop your ability to focus and to be
present.

73
Failing to Succeed
A few days ago at a seminar with John Grinder and his partner
Carmen Bostic St. Clair, I told the audience that I had tested
Johns New Code Patterns by applying them to "everything."
Even using them in contexts where my thinking was that they
wouldn't work. Examples would be using the Alphabet Game
for insomnia and grief (more on these new code games later). I
told the audience the story of Marie, a woman in her mid thirties
who had recently developed panic attacks and multiple phobias.
These included taking a bus, entering a shopping mall and a
number of other strange phobias. We spoke for a few minutes
before she told me that in the month before she developed her
first panic attack, she had gotten fired from her job, her fiancee
had left her and there had been a death in the family.
It's very common for people to develop some sort of
symptom when life becomes too overwhelming. They use the
symptom to distract themselves from something they are not
willing to face up to. This is exactly what Marie did. Her life was
a mess. To get a break from it and avoid having to deal with it,
she unconsciously created all these phobias so that she had a
constant distraction from the things that really scared her.
I decided to do a new code pattern called "Stalking" to help
her. Stalking is a pattern designed for dealing with states people
enter into to quickly or to slowly to notice that they are slipping
into a state before they are into them. Examples of this could be
rage and phobic responses in the case of quick states.
Depression or fatigue are examples of states people often work
themselves into so slowly that often they don't notice until they
are fully in it.
First I had Marie step into the physiology of anxiety at a
specific location on the floor. She didn't step into a context. In
Stalking it's preferable to just use the state itself. Then we

74
created a spatial anchor for a resourceful physiology at another
specific place on the floor. Then she stepped out of the resource
physiology .
The next step for Marie was to very slowly start moving
towards the spatially anchored state of anxiety with the
instruction that as soon as she feels the first sign of the anxiety
state, stop, shake off and quickly jump into the place where her
resource state is spatially anchored. This was repeated four
times. The beauty of this pattern is that the client can now make
a choice as to whether they want to enter the unwanted state or
not. You're not taking away the choice to enter this state: you're
just introducing choice in a context where the client previously
felt as if they didn't have any.
I then drove Marie to a shopping mall. She entered it without
problems and had a wonderful week. I had chosen Stalking
because I thought that it would be the least likely pattern to
work in this context. The reason I thought that Stalking was
unlikely to work long term was because it didn't deal with the
secondary gains that her anxiety and phobias provided. With
the anxiety gone, she would have to deal with her painful life
again. I was right, after about a week her symptoms returned.
When she came in for the next session we did Six Step
Reframing. During the process her unconscious mind agreed to
slowly let go of the anxiety over the next few weeks as she
experimented with new choices. She was also given many tasks
in the real world designed to learn to respect her emotions as
signals that she could use instead of something that she was
supposed to get rid of and control with her conscious mind. It
took us something between four and six weeks to complete the
work, which was very successful.
A few of the seminar participants had a hard time with my
experimentation. They couldn't understand how I could select
the least likely pattern to succeed (least likely in my mind) and

75
do that first. How could I experiment like this? I explained to
them that there were good reasons to do just that. Using
patterns in contexts were you think that they are unlikely to
work is a wonderful way to test patterns. This, of course, is
dependent on you doing the patterns congruently, acting as if
you totally believe it's going to work when you do it. Very often,
I have surprised myself by making" unlikely" patterns work.

God Bless Blasphemy

Recently I had another client who had experienced some bad
times and had developed all these strange phobias. I decided to
get a really strong commitment from her by saying the
following: "There is a very simple solution to your problem, and you
will be glad to hear that it's not unethical. Nor is it dangerous.
However, it will be uncomfortable and demanding, and you might be
tempted to give up before you succeed. Now, before I tell you what it is,
I need your absolute commitment and promise that you will do it."
After about a minute Rita said "Yes." I then had her shake my
hand while she promised to do whatever I told her to do.
J0rgen: Rita, what is the very first signal or sensation that you
feel in your body that lets you know ... that you're starting to
FEEL THE FEAR ...
Rita: It starts here in my tummy.
As she says this she goes into her fear state. Rita was quite a
rigid and proper woman and a bit religious, so I decided to use
her fear.
J0rgen: Every time you start feeling that first sensation in your
stomach, you are to repeat the mantra "SHUT THE FUCK UP"
again and again until the fear disappears.

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I sent her out of the office, and when she came back the week
after, all her old anxieties were gone. She was doing great.
Rita: I am doing great! I have beaten all those anxieties with my
mantra, but could I have a new one because I don't like it.
J8rgen: No, it's a special mantra designed for your situation.
When I heard from her later, she was still doing great. I think
that it worked because she was more scared of the sentence
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and the feelings it evoked in her than
she was in the real life contexts were she used to scare herself.
She somehow worked everything out herself and found new
ways to deal with life without any specific instructions from me.
Marie was in a life situation where she would have to adapt
to the overwhelming changes in her life. Her old identity was
threatened, and she didn't know how to deal with her present
situation. As previously mentioned, it was clear that she was
using her symptoms as distraction from facing up to her present
life situation.
Clearly she needed to deal with her grief, and also to be able
to adapt she would need to be flexible, try new things, fall on
her face, get back up again and so on. Learning to use her
anxious feelings as a signal system as well as exploring the
thinking patterns that created the anxiety were skills that when
developed would allow her to expand into a new life. Marie
developed these skills directly by engaging in the real world
tasks that I gave her and by doing work in the office. Much of
the work was also being done at an indirect level.
Once the seminar group understood this, most of them
seemed to be able to better relate to what I did.
Since Marie and I had excellent rapport, she transferred the
skills she developed in relationship to me into the real world. I
experimented with different approaches, fell on my face, did
something else, and had a sense of humor about it since I was in

77
a good state as I did this. Since the rapport was so strong, she
matched my physiology and by doing that she went into the
same type of states and developed the skills she needed to move
on. No surprise here as I did the things she would have to do in
relationship to her.
If you can go into good states where you fail, laugh and
adapt, then do something else while maintaining rapport and
staying in a good state, then the client will develop these skills
as a result of modeling.

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 CHAPTER 3
USING MODELING TO
CREATE CHANGE

Please understand that I am talking about NLP modeling. The

type of modeling where you learn unconsciously in a "know-
nothing state." In this know-nothing state, you model using
micro muscle movements until you are able to perform the skill
or activity that you set out to learn. The expert does not offer
any verbal descriptions, theories or explanations, and the
modeler does not attempt to consciously understand or analyze
what is going on.
Before I met John, my NLP instructors had taught me that
modeling was about matching and mirroring physiology,
eliciting strategies and also the beliefs and values the expert or
genius has.
NLP modeling has absolutely nothing to do with eliciting
strategies or finding someone's beliefs. John Grinder has in his
seminars shared with his participants how he and Richard
Bandler modeled the geniuses they modeled. When they
modeled Milton Erickson, the project lasted for about ten
months. They would spend time imitating Erickson's
physiology by micro muscle movements without trying to
understand or analyze what he was doing.
After a few days of this they would get out in the real world
and attempt to evoke the same responses that Erickson evoked.
Then they would model Erickson with micro muscle
movements in a "know-nothing state" again. This went on for
about ten months. According to Grinder, they were then able to

79
evoke and utilize the same responses in clients as Erickson was,
even though they had no idea what they were doing. Only after
reaching the desired level of competency did they verbally code
what they were able to do.
This is very different than the analytic modeling that most
NLP instructors market. You know ... the one where you try to
elicit beliefs and strategies. In short, you attempt to understand
and talk about something you're not able to do. As Grinder
often has stated, if during modeling you have theories and
expectations, then your modeling and coding will be partly that.
Most often when doing this, the modeling will be a lot about
you and your theories and very little about the person you claim
to be modeling. Consider how kids learn to walk, speak a
language and how they learn to relate to the people around
them. They learn to walk and speak languages in a know-
nothing state with no theory whatsoever.
Previously I suggested that if someone couldn't afford your
coaching or therapy, you can work with them under the premise
that they will later function as an actor. These actors can
"spontaneously" show up during ordeals, tasks and learning
experiences that you have set up for your clients in the real
world.
Another alternative is modeling. If someone can't afford to
work with you but you want to help them anyway, suggest that
after the successful completion of the therapy that they will be
available as a model for people who have the problem that they
have successfully overcome.
These alternatives are much better than just working with
these people for free. Since people equate price with value, you
have already shot yourself in the foot if you've agreed to work
with someone for free. Clients need to invest something to get
maximum benefit. If they can't pay they need to invest or pay in
some other way. Using these clients as actors and as models is

80
fun, challenging and beneficial for everyone that's involved.
Everyone learns something and everyone grows and contributes.
Having said all this, it's been my experience that some people
are able to value something given to them for free. I just think
that those people are few and that it takes a level of reflection
and maturity that most people don't yet possess. Also, the more
hurried, less mature, and uninformed the person is in a
particular context, the more likely the person is to use shortcuts
when making decisions. Shortcuts like equating price with value
and competence with formal training. These shortcuts often
work, and often they don't.
Let's look at three different ways to use modeling in a change
context.

Model 1 - Indirect Modeling

The first approach is the one that I have already written about in
the story of Marie. If you have very strong rapport, you can
work indirectly using the relationship between the two of you to
develop states and skills for the client. Since I went into great
states where I experimented, learned from so called failures, and
then did something else, Marie automatically developed these
skills through her therapeutic relationship with me. I have used
this approach many times with clients.
To succeed at this indirect approach where the client is
modeling you without knowing that they are, you need to figure
out what skills the client needs, which if she had them would
allow her to solve her presenting problem. Once you have
figured this out and have a very strong rapport, you simply start
displaying these states and skills while working with your
client.
If you have the clients unconscious attention, the client will
mirror your physiology and by so doing experience physio-
logically the sequence of states that you go through. This

81
sequence should contain the states the person needs to have the
choice they are seeking. For this to work there has to be a close
relationship between the skills you use to work with the client
and the skills the client will need to use to succeed out there.
You will also need to do it again and again. The work I did with
Marie took about six weeks. Also, unless the rapport between
the two of you is very strong, you might as well forget this one.
If this sounds far-fetched to you, then Coogle "mirror neurons"
for some fascinating reading and scientific support for the
claims presented here.
When you use this approach, don't rely only on the indirect
modeling. Make sure that you also give the client tasks in the
real world that will develop the skills that they need. Of course,
this applies to everything you do. The stuff you do in the office
in altered states needs to be complemented by real world
assignments. I really like this approach since all your formal
patterns can fail. It doesn't matter that they are not successful,
since they develop the skills they need through the relationship.

Model 2 - Direct modeling

Very often, your clients will be stuck in certain contexts, and the
reason "WHY?" is because they just don't know "HOW?" Quite
simply, there is no trauma or secondary gain or anything else.
The client has never developed certain skills that they need to
function well in a certain context. For these clients, the least
likely place where anything significant will happen will be in
your office. As I mentioned in the introduction to this book,
some clients lack the skills necessary for NLP techniques to
work. Some of these clients will not go into hypnosis, can't
access feeling at all and so on.
In addition to involving them in activities and tasks where
they will develop these skills (the chapter on working with
unresponsive clients has some goodies for you), having them

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find people who have the skills they need, and then having
them model these people is a wonderful approach. I have used
this approach with people who need to develop certain social
skills, presentation and public speaking skills as well as to
develop skills in sports.
There are three steps required to do direct modeling.
However, before you send them out into the world, it's
necessary to train them in entering a "know-nothing state" as
well as teach them how to mirror someone's physiology.
Step 1. Find a real world model and get access to the model
performing in the actual context.
Reading about what the model thinks that he is doing or
interviewing the model is not what we are after. You need to be
able to watch and model the expert, while the expert is
performing in the actual context. Having said this, I have
learned a lot from reading books and listening to lectures. So, I
am not in any way suggesting that NLP modeling is the only
way to get good at something.
Let's say you wanted to model a top tennis player. What the
tennis player does and when he does it is dependent upon what
the other player is doing. Therefore, you cannot study just the
tennis player hitting shots and claim to be modeling him.
As John Grinder would say: "You need the other side of the
tennis court."
Step 2. The modeler starts out in a "know-nothing state" and
learns without any theory, expectations, attempts at
understanding or analyzing what the hell is going on. By being
fully present and modeling using micro muscle movements the
modeler learns unconsciously and gains a set of skills that is
untransformed by conscious filters.

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Step 3. This is a continuation of Step 2. The modeler continues
modeling and using the patterning until he can perform as well
as the model, or as well as he wants to. When he has reached the
level of competency that he set out to reach, he starts the process
of subtracting behaviors to see if he can still perform without the
behavior he subtracted. When you model someone, in addition
to picking up the states and behaviors required to perform a
certain skill, you will also pick up some junk along the way. By
junk I am referring to things the model does that isn't relevant
to perform the skilL Sometimes these junk behaviors even
interfere with performance.
In 1996 I modeled a martial arts genius by the name of Tony
Blauer. Even though I wasn't familiar with NLP modeling at the
time, when I think back, I realize that I did some sort of deep
trance identification. Tony opened up a whole new world for
me, and my skill level exploded. I also felt a lot stronger having
modeled his behavior. However, I ended up with a Canadian
accent (for a little while) and a few other fascinating behaviors.
These behaviors had no use and getting rid of them did not
affect my skill level in any way.
For your own personal development in terms of learning a
skill, or for the client who needs to learn how to do something of
relevance, these steps are sufficient. There is no need to attempt
to codify the patterns.
Sometimes you can do very well even though you don't have
access to the model in real life. I have done a lot of modeling of
martial arts by watching videotapes of someone perform. By
modeling using micro muscle movements in a "know-nothing
state", I have often surprised myself by going to the gym and
just finding myself doing some new move during sparring.
Again, this is how you learned to walk, speak you native
language and most of the other things that you learned at a

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young age. So, you are familiar with what is called "NLP
modeling." At the same time you might have to do some
relearning since most educational systems and schools heavily
emphasize left brained analytical learning.

Model 3 - Reenactment Modeling

This type of modeling is about modeling something someone
has done in the past.
Let's say that you are working with a depressed client and
you want to assist them in personal growth. One choice would
be to find someone that has done deep depression but no longer
is doing depression. Then have the depressed client do a
modeling project.
This also applies in getting over grief, anxiety, losing weight
or getting over some disease. I must admit that I have never
used modeling to help someone get over a disease, so I can't
confirm or disconfirm that it works based on my personal
experience. John Grinder claims some success using this format
even with serious illness, so give it a shot. If this sounds
farfetched to you and unlikely to work, then do yourself and the
world a favor and congruently test it out. Challenge your own
beliefs. I have surprised myself with being able to pull off things
that seemed ridiculous to me and VERY unlikely to work. Some
of these things still seem crazy to me and I can't explain it, but I
know that I did it. Have fun with this!
To prepare your client you need to drill them in
rapport! modeling skills and teach them the verbal package. The
verbal package is about challenging nouns with "WHICH
SPECIFICALLY?" As an example, if someone says: "There are
certain aspects of my life I wish to improve", you would ask: "Which
things, specifically?"

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For verbs the challenge is: "How specifically?" So, if someone
were to say: "I need to take care of myself better!" you could ask:
"How specifically?"
Your clients also need to frame what they are about to do to
themselves and the person or persons they are about to model.
The more people you can have them model, the better. Now,
assuming rapport with the model, the client aims to stimulate
the model to relive the events, to re-experience what they did to
heal themselves. The client says something to the effect of: "Let's
go back and you will re-experience what happened back there and
describe in detail what happened. I will only interrupt to ask for more
detail. Everything is important, what happened, what you did, how
you felt, what you said to others, what others told you, and how you
felt when you heard what they said."
As the model begins to describe in detail these things, they
will re-experience what they went through that led to the cure
or remission or whatever. As the model re-experiences, your
client is modeling with micro muscle movements. Your client is
also listening. When he hears nouns and verbs that are of
interest, he will repeatedly ask the two questions:
1. Which noun, specifically?
2. Verb, how specifically?
By asking these questions the client will help the model connect
the words to concrete experience, making it easier for the model
to relive and re-experience. Using the verbal package also keeps
the client from hallucinating and projecting excessively.
Again, the goal here is to get the client to capture the
sequence of states that the model goes through in giving the
interview: an unconscious to unconscious transfer at the level of
state.

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Useful Nuances

About a year ago I received a call from a woman who requested

that I work with her father. Her father had cancer in the brain
and as a result had virtually no short term memory at all. She
told me that it was impossible to carryon a conversation with
him. He wasn't even able to read a comic book. If he were taken
on a trip he would have absolutely no recall after the trip.
Woman: Is there anything that could be done?
Logically: No. After all, how does one work with a client who
has no short term memory to the point where he can't receive
instructions in a way that allows him to follow them at all and
can't carry a conversation?
Since I had absolutely no idea how to work with this guy, I
became very enthusiastic. My philosophy has always been to
work as far outside of any so-called "scope of practice" from
day one. Therefore, I clearly couldn't pass up the chance to work
with this guy.
While meditating a few days later I realized that since his
conscious mind was of absolutely no use, I would have to work
directly with his unconscious. A deep trance that included me,
where I could get strong nonverbal involuntary signals from his
unconscious, seemed to be our only shot.
A few days later when he showed up at my office, it quickly
became clear that he had no idea where he was. He was
dependent upon his wife for everything. Just in case you didn't
catch it, I had already made my first major mistake. His
daughter had ordered the session since he was unable to do so
himself, and I hadn't done anything to ensure that his wife and I
were aligned. Big mistake!
When he entered my office, I went to shake his hand and as
predicted, he started lifting his hand. As he did, I interrupted

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the handshake and went straight into the handshake induction.
It went something like this:
Jargen: LOOK AT YOUR HAND ... and notice how you eyes
change focus ... as that hand starts moving towards your face ...
with honest unconscious movements NOW ... You don't know
exactly how long it will take before you ONLY SEE THAT
HAND MENTALLY ... as that hand continues towards your
face ... reaching that face only as quickly as you go into a state
where we can communicate on an unconscious level,
independently of your conscious mind ...
Keep in mind that there was no pre-talk or interview. I had
never spoken to him. I met him at the door with a handshake
induction, and he responded by going into a very deep state of
hypnosis.
You might be wondering why I bothered to induce hypnosis
since his conscious mind was already out of the way. Well, I
wanted an altered state where his responses were clear and
amplified, so that I could communicate with his unconscious
while getting clear and strong nonverbal involuntary signals.
Also, it doesn't matter how deep a trance someone is in if the
trance doesn't include you.
By doing this maneuver, I helped him create a state of
hypnosis while including myself in his trance. From there I
helped him set up involuntary finger signals; nothing unusual
here. When asked which of his fingers will lift with honest
unconscious movements for YES ... his right index finger lifted,
and when his unconscious was asked which of his fingers
wanted to lift for NO ... his left index finger lifted. With
involuntary signals set up I clearly stated that I wanted to speak
with the unconscious, the part of him responsible for creating
and healing cancer.

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His YES finger lifted with honest unconscious movement after a
few seconds. Not only did we have involuntary finger signals
for YES and NO, but these signals were supported by other
nonverbal involuntary signals as well. The other signals were
congruent with the finger signals. That's a good sign.
Next he was asked whether the unconscious would confirm
that there was a positive intention behind the creation of the
cancer. Notice that he wasn't asked if there was a positive
intention, but instead asked if the unconscious would confirm
that there was a positive intention behind the cancer.
Dear reader, I have an assignment for you. Go read
Whispering in the Wind by John Grinder and Carmen Bostic St.
Clair very carefully. Really examine the epistemology section
and all the implications of what is written. Are there things such
as positive intentions at the unconscious level, or are positive
intentions a conscious mind linguistic construct? Are we
discovering a positive intention when doing Six-Step Reframing
or are we creating it?
Anyway, his unconscious confirmed the positive intention
behind the cancer. We then proceeded with the following
questionsj instructions:
Generate a set of alternatives as good as or better than the cancer
in achieving the positive intention or intentions. Also, since the
prime directive of the unconscious is to preserve the body, make
sure that the new alternatives are both better than the cancer in
satisfying the positive intent, but also return you towards
health.
Jergen: Do you understand the instructions?
Jergen: Give me a "YES" signal when you have completed the
task.
Jergen: Are you willing to use the new choices instead of the
cancer?

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 Jingen: Do you know how to cure the cancer?
JBrgen: Are you willing to take responsibility for curing the
cancer?
JBrgen: Are you willing to start the healing process right now?
The answer to all these questions was "YES." I really prefer to
get a NO response at some time, so that I know that it isn't all
compliance. Therefore, I asked a question that I thought would
unlikely elicit a "YES" response.
JBrgen: Will you complete the healing in two days?
This time the "NO" finger lifted.
JBrgen: Will you complete the healing in seven days?
This time the "YES" finger lifted.
JBrgen: Will you confirm that you will heal the cancer in seven
days, having started the healing already?
Again, the "YES" finger lifted. Interestingly, after bringing him
out of hypnosis, he opened his eyes and asked: "Where am I and
who are you?" He really had no idea who I was or what had just
happened.
When he was at the hospital a week later, the physicians
discovered that there was a dramatic reduction of the tumor.
The really interesting part is that every test they had done in the
past had shown an increase in the tumor. This time, however,
the tumor had dramatically reduced, and he had had no medical
treatment for it whatsoever. Coincidentally, these dramatic
changes had occurred right after he saw me. Even the most hard
core cynic would have to acknowledge that there was probably
some relationship between what we had done and the reduction
of the tumor.
His wife called me with the good news. I had gotten her to
promise that she would call after the tests, but she didn't sound

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too enthusiastic. She told me that the doctors were stunned and
told her that they had no explanation to offer her as to why this
had happened. She then told them about the NLP work we had
done, but the doctors got angry and wouldn't have any talk
about such nonsense. Sad but true.
I suggested to the wife that she bring her husband back to me
to do another session. She agreed, but I felt like I had to talk her
into it. She wanted him to remember again so she agreed to one
more session. When he arrived at my office for his second
session I did the hand shake interrupt again. After setting up the
signal system with his unconscious, I asked him whether he had
cured the cancer.
His "NO" finger lifted. His signals told me that the healing
process had stopped and that there was some objection to him
healing the cancer. His unconscious was not willing to tell me
what the objection was. This of course is an interesting
counterexample to the idea that we are creating the positive
intentions. The unconscious signals that there is a positive
intention but is unwilling to reveal it. Hmm, who created that
one?
His signals quickly got very unclear. I was losing rapport and
he seemed very exhausted. I asked him if he wanted to quit for
the day. This question got a very strong "YES" response. We
ended the session. I proceeded to tell his wife what had
happened suggesting that we redo it another day, and that we
couldn't work on the memory stuff until he had healed the
cancer. Unfortunately, I never heard anything from her. His
cancer started growing again and now he is dead.
I had to call his daughter to get the news on his condition.
She had told me before I started working with him that she had
been waiting for him to get seriously ill for some time. There
were serious conflicts inthe family that he wasn't able to solve

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and that the level of stress in his life was very high. She felt that
it was only a matter of time before he would get seriously ill.
My work with people who have developed serious illnesses
have left me with an impression that there is often some sort of
self-mutilation program running inside on an unconscious level.
While people consciously can be fighting for their life, there is
little hope unless this calling for self mutilation is properly dealt
with.
Cancer often seems to be an unconscious form of suicide, a
socially acceptable way of escaping the burden of life.
Earlier I wrote about the dangers in using the medical model
and the idea of mental illness when working with people's
symptoms. Consider the mind body split. This split only exists
in language, not experience. Medical science is still promoting
this split with often disastrous consequences for those who
choose to believe in it. One of these consequences is that when
someone develops a so-called" physical illness", they will ignore
focusing on thoughts, feelings and relationships, both as part of
the problem and part of the solution. Another consequence of
this type of thinking is to isolate the individual and his
symptoms from the context where they occur. Most of my
clients with illnesses are quite surprised when I start asking
them about their relationships, feelings and what sense of
purpose or meaning they have created for their lives. At the
same time, if something is labeled "physiological", people won't
usually look into nutrition, toxins and other environmental
factors. As an example, sometimes there can be a correlation
between led-poisoning and auditory hallucinations.
Having said all this, I do recognize that purely biological
approaches have had enormous benefits for a lot of people.
Certainly, there are a lot of people who have healed all sorts of
diseases by exclusively using traditional medicine. However, it's
a partial approach that will create partial results. I am not

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advocating that NLP and hypnosis are all that is needed with all
clients all the time.

Can You Spell Relationships?

Consider all the research that has been done on hypnosis and
hypnotic phenomena. Much of the research has revolved
around how many who can be hypnotized versus how many
can't. Some experts (some skilled and some not) deliver a
hypnotic induction, usually a progressive relaxation type
induction with instructions to relax and imagine various things.
Then subjects are given tests and challenges ranging from
simple ones like eye catalepsy to advanced ones such as
negative hallucinations on cue. Based upon how they
behaviorally respond to these suggestions, they are labeled
somewhere between insusceptible to hypnosis and highly
responsive.
A standardized induction procedure is normally used.
Sometimes it's even delivered by an audio cassette. The
implication being that the hypnotist doesn't matter at all and
that the relationship between the subject and the hypnotist
doesn't matter much. After all, how can a pre-recorded
induction delivered by audiotape adapt to the behaviors of the
subject? It is further assumed that if a subject doesn't respond
well to the standardized induction it means that he isn't
susceptible. In other words, you either have it or you don't.
While there might be some accuracy to this assumption, it is a
very partial "truth." It's amusing to consider that when
studying a hypnotic interaction between the hypnotist and the
subject only the subject's behavior and responses are studied.
Not only is the behavior of the hypnotist not considered
important, but so are all the relationship factors.

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Now let's assume that you placed one hundred people in a
room and someone started telling jokes. Let's say that 20 percent
are laughing themselves silly, 60 percent are having a good
time, and the remaining 20 percent are either laughing a little or
not really responding at all. Would you after watching this
accept the idea that 20 percent of the people in the room had a
great sense of humor, 60 percent have a medium sense of humor
and that 20 percent had little or no sense of humor at all?
Clearly, the same jokes told in a different way, by another
person in another setting could dramatically change the
responses. The state of the participants, their expectations, the
relationship towards the person telling the joke and a lot of
other factors will playa part.
I think it's very dangerous to study capabilities, intelligence
and illnesses as ONLY isolated phenomena inside the person. A
much better approach is to study these phenomena as a result of
relationships. As an example, have you noticed that you are
more creative or energized around some people compared to
others? Let's consider the rock band that has a very inspiring
period where they produce a lot of great work. It's likely that
this creativity is generated by how the different members of the
band respond and relate to each other in a constant feedback
loop. It might take very little for the band to "lose" their
creativity if this feedback loop is somehow broken.
How about the people who claim that alcohol make them
more outgoing and funny? It's common for people to loosen up
and share war stories and laugh after drinking together, but
how many people when drinking alone do you find laughing
and having a ball all by themselves? Actually, come to think of
it, my friend Bartek (the Polish Stallion) does this. But then
again, he makes most of the clients described here seem
remarkably "sane." Think about shyness for a few seconds. A

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behavior like shyness only occurs in relationship to other
people. After all, how many people are shy by themselves?

The Dog Inside

Not long ago, I almost screwed up a session by not managing

upwards. I worked with an eight-year-old boy who was allergic
to pollen and a couple of other things. I knew that his mother
had dragged him to all these different therapists for his allergies,
and the kid hated therapy and therapists. He also hated talking
about his allergies.
His mother used to sit in on his therapy sessions he had done
with other therapists (acupuncture and homeopathy). Therefore,
I decided to throw the mother out in front of the kid, thinking
that this would create instant rapport. Boy did it work!
I had arranged this beforehand with the mother. Well, not quite:
I had just told her that she couldn't be present while I did the
work with him.
I told the kid that I didn't care about his allergies. Instead we
talked about two things that he loved: soccer and dogs. He lit up
like a Christmas tree. When he entered these strong states by
talking about soccer, I anchored the states, the sneaky bastard
that I am. I had a lengthy talk with him about different types of
dogs and how a dog knows which people to accept and which
people to behave aggressively towards.
We also had a chat about how sometimes a good dog can
sometimes make a mistake and think that someone is
dangerous, when they really aren't. He started talking about
how a dog he knew had learned to accept someone new, even
though the dog had initially been skeptical and overreacted a
bit. The way we talked about this stuff was isomorphic to an
allergy cure.

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It was easy to suggest that he had a dog inside that knew what
was healthy for him and what wasn't. I told him that I wanted
to talk to the dog inside and that the dog inside could answer
me lifting one finger for "YES" and another finger for "NO." I
wanted the dog inside to lift the fingers, not him. The dog inside
and I had a little chat and the dog inside decided that it was OK
for him to have fun enjoying being outdoors, and by doing that
he could quit going to therapy. The dog inside was very
enthusiastic about that.
Imagine the look on the mothers face when she enters my
office and her kid tells her that he has learned to talk to the dog
inside. She quickly informs him that there is no such thing, until
I yell out: "He is eight, which means that he is old enough to know
about the dog inside." I grabbed the mother and escorted both of
us away from the kid. I told her that the "dog inside" was a
metaphor for the boy's immune system.
A week later the mother calls me. She was pissed off that I
had told her son that he could quit therapy. I had no right to do
so. When I asked her why he should go to therapy for a problem
that he no longer has, she became very silent. It was quite
intriguing that she was so pissed about that and showed so little
enthusiasm for the fact that her son was free of his old allergies.
I think I was able to negotiate a deal with her so that she
would support her son being allergy free. We will just have to
wait and see how this holds up. I told her straight that it would
be difficult for him to remain allergy free if she communicated
to him that his job was to have allergies and go to therapy. She
agreed to let him stop therapy. I think that if she hadn't, there
would have been little hope for a long-term cure.
Actually, you will have to do more than manage upwards.
You will have to manage around or future pace as some people
calls it. I prefer to do this by "going fishing" meaning that I will
ask them questions about how they think people who are

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significant to them will respond when they no longer have their
problem. As always, it's not so much what they verbally report,
but it's more their nonverbal responses that will show you if
you have struck gold or not. So, whenever your questions seem
to activate something or you see an incongruence, that's when
you start playing around.

Commitment is Everything

NLP trainer Tad James once told me that when the client's
resistance is stronger than their commitment, there is no change.
The more I have worked with clients, the more accurate I have
found this statement to be. One of the key points is getting
outstanding results is your ability to get total commitment from
your clients. If I sense a lack of commitment, I will usually give
them a task or severe ordeal to build up compliance and
commitment. Very often it will be this lack of commitment that's
preventing them from making the changes that they want to
make. Therefore, by giving tasks and ordeals you will
sometimes find that these maneuvers will be enough to create
the proper context for change.
Quite recently I had a client who had struggled with panic
attacks for most of her adult life. She had been a part of one of
these phobia groups, you know, the ones where they learn to
live with their anxieties. The implication is that you will never
get over you problems, you have to live with them and become
a group member for life. As long as she was part of this group,
her anxieties were there to stay.
I really dislike the way these groups tend to reinforce
problems. Although the intentions may be good, the
consequences are not. What they are doing is creating addicts by
helping people base their identity and social network around

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the exact problem that they claim that they want to solve. Have
you ever wondered why there are no groups for people who
have caught a cold or broken a leg?
If you get a client that is part of one of these groups, demand
that they quit the group for you to accept them as a client! If
they are not willing to quit the group, then don't accept them.
Your success rate will go up as a result of this, I promise.
The same principle applies to people who are on welfare and
lucrative social security deals because of their problem. Again,
this is another way of creating an addict. I discovered this when
I worked with the long-term unemployed. The numbers clearly
showed that if people were out of work for more than twelve
months, the chances of them getting back in the mix are very
slim indeed. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you don't accept
clients who are on a lucrative social security deal for their
problem. Think about it, these people are professional victims.
Their job is to do their symptom, that's how they make a living!
The only problem is that they quickly start getting addicted to
the problem and the lifestyle, not to mention all the rewards and
secondary gains.
Now, my client (Catherine) had overcome most of her
anxieties, but still held onto a good portion of it. She was most
afraid of developing a severe panic attack during a longer flight.
Since she was no longer part of the group, didn't get paid to do
her symptoms and knew how to overcome anxieties, my first
thought was that she is not quite committed yet and is still using
this as a crutch somehow. She quickly told me that she still
carried anti-anxiety medication in her purse just in case. This
gave me the leverage needed to secure the level of commitment
needed. I told her bluntly that I required her full commitment. I
was going to ask her to show me that commitment and that it
would be very uncomfortable, but help her blowout her
problem.

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 Jorgen: I want you to take your medication and throw it into
the trash can over there ... That's what you need to do for me to
work with you.
Client: But, wait a minute.
Jorgen: Yes, I will wait a couple of minutes for you to make a
decision. You will either continue "trying" and walk out that
door or show me that you're ready to play full out. Don't talk,
don't move - until you have decided. There is something else as
well. If you choose to throw those pills in the trash, I also need
you to promise me that you won't go to the doctor and get new
ones.
It took somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes for her to
make up her mind. When she finally threw her meds in the
trash and shook my hand, a panic attack started building up in
her body. This is exactly what I was looking for and her
response confirmed my theory that she was using her anxiety as
a crutch. By committing to paying full out and deciding to give
up her crutch, her panic attack showed up quite predictably.
Earlier I described a technique that I learned from Richard
Bandler:
1. Have them notice where in the body the fear starts.
2. Have them notice which direction it moves in and how
the feeling rotates to get back to where it started.
3. Tell the person to imagine pushing it outside the body,
turn it upside down, put it back in so that the fear
rotates in the opposite direction.
4. Keep rotating the feeling in the new direction until the
feelings turns into a calm feeling or a feeling of curiosity.
By giving her this experience she suddenly had a reference for
being able to turn her fear on and off on cue. This felt experience

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of being able to turn symptoms on and off is what I am looking
for the clients to experience inside my office. Catherine had
already told me that she was ok with a one-hour flight, but
feared that she would experience a panic attack during a longer
4-5 hour flight, which she had scheduled a couple of weeks
down the road. Since she was OK with doing a one hour flight
and now knew how to turn her fear on and off on cue, I gave her
the following assignment.
J0rgen: Catherine, are you OK flying for one hour?
Catherine: Yes, I can do that. No problem.
J0rgen: Well, here is what I want you to do. I want you to FL Y
ONE HOUR ... FOUR TIMES ... I want you to bring a stop-
watch and after exactly fifty five minutes I want you to create
the fear. Then as soon as you start feeling that uncomfortable
feeling in your tummy, I want you to do the rotating the feeling
backwards technique that you just did. After exactly one hour,
reset your stop-watch and do the exact same procedure after fifty
five minutes. Also, you're prohibited from reading anything or
attempting to distract yourself in any way.
To give credit where credit is due I must mention that I got this
idea from my former martial arts mentor Tony Blauer. He once
trained a kickboxer who was nervous about going four rounds
for a Canadian title fight. Tony asked him if he could do two
rounds. The student confirmed that he could do that. Tony then
told him to do two rounds twice, and the student did exactly
that and won the title. I found that to be a brilliant solution and
when this particular client mentioned her problem, Tony's
solution came to mind.
My intent in not allowing her to read or have any distractions
was for her to be totally present in her own body, making a total
commitment to dealing with anything that might emerge. The
task of voluntarily creating the fear and then doing a technique

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that made it go away put her in the driver's seat. My reasoning
was also that since she was doing the fear every hour there
would be no energy left for a major one.
There is another key point here regarding her not reading or
distracting herself in any way during the flight. By having her
commit to this she was communicating to herself that she was
willing to deal with whatever came up, and that it's OK to feel
what you feel and stay present to it.
Many therapists who work with people who are afraid of
flying recommend that they read and use other distractions. The
implication being that the emotions they might experience are
dangerous and must be avoided. Big mistake in my opinion! My
experience shows me that raw emotion only lasts for a short
time unless one chooses to fight the emotion or identify with it.
By being willing to feel it and to stay totally present will ensure
that the emotion doesn't turn into a symptom, but rather can
remain a signal.
Hear it again: the only difference between a signal and a
symptom is the duration.
The signal shows up, you stay present, feel it, welcome it, and
use it as a signal or messenger of some sorts. This is useful.
A symptom on the other hand doesn't go away. It doesn't
because the recipient of the signal is either fighting it and doing
what they can to repress it, or fixating on it to the point where
they get absorbed into the drama. The people who do the first
strategy are often the cold left-brainer's who think feeling and
showing emotion is a "sin". They want to control everything
and often have rational man as their highest ideal.
Then you have the hysterical emoter. They identify with their
emotions. As an example, they don't have a signal that they
label fear. THEY ARE AFRAID and often play the "What if ... "
game with ferociousness. "What if I faint? What if it's a heart
attack? OH MY GOD, my pulse just went up!" They never realize

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that there is a relationship between the thought "What if it is a
heart attack?" and their increased pulse rate. These people don't
use their signals in a constructive way either, but rather use the
symptoms to connect with themselves in a self-pitying way.
Catherine would do a combination of the two. She would
repress her anxiety as long as she could. When she could no
longer control it, she would freak out and identify with the
feeling. The task she was given was designed to give her a direct
experience of successfully staying present to her bodily signals.
By learning to relate to her feelings instead of trying to control
them or identify with them, she would automatically create the
skill she was missing. The rotating feelings technique
interrupted her pattern and gave her a choice. Instead of
avoiding the feeling, she would now welcome it, feel it and pay
attention to it in a very detailed way. This has a tendency to pick
it apart. That gave her a concrete skill she could use to diminish
it.
Finally, the instruction to fly one hour "four times" utilized
her model of the world and enabled her to accept the learning
experience. I am very happy to report that last time I heard from
Catherine was through an SMS text message she sent me from
Greece saying that she had experienced a wonderful flight.

Quick Summary

For those of you who are disappointed that there aren't more
step-by-step detailed instructions, ala do this, then that in a
linear fashion, need to start realizing that neither life nor
therapy sessions work that way. Client work is often chaotic and
you can take all linear Cause and Effect theories along with your
personality profiles and throw them out of the window. When
you do changework you basically enter a biofeedback loop

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where everything you do influences what the client does. At the
same time everything the client does will affect what you do.
Too many agents of change focus way too much on technique
and procedures in my opinion.
It's like listening to fans after a boxing match ranting and
raving about the left hook that dropped the other guy. Well, first
of all it wasn't the left hook that dropped anyone, but one
person using the hook to drop someone else using the right tool
at the right time. Few talk about how the guy who won came
back from a severe beating earlier in the fight, the tenacity,
passion, guts, preparation and so on.
What I am communicating here (hopefully) are the skills and
attitudes needed to do great changework. The most important
thing will be your own state. You need to be able to go into a
state where you have access to your own skills and your client's
responses. You also need to be great at eliciting states in your
client. Can you easily and congruently elicit a wild variety of
states in your clients and utilize those states to help them get
what they are there for?
You need outstanding rapport skills here defined as the
ability to capture the attention of the unconscious of the client.
Are you willing to go first? Obviously you need to have rapport
with your own unconscious. Last but not least, you got to be
able to calibrate the responses your clients give you and utilize
them. Remember that all the patterns are lies. They are useful so
that you have something to focus your attention on while you
develop the skills you need. My overall strategy, if I had one,
could be summarized this way:
1. I go into an altered state of much focused attention or a
flow state if you will.

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2. I do something to provoke a response. If I get a strong
response I continue what I am doing, and if not, I reach
into my bag of tricks and do something else.
My task is to utilize the responses I get to help the clients
generate the learning experience that they need. Sometimes this
learning experience is done hypnotically and sometimes it's
done out in the real world.
If you're starting to make a linear list in your head ... STOP IT
RIGHT NOW! These aren't computers: these are human beings
that we are working with. You need to do all these things pretty
much at the same time. Sometimes you will future pace at the
beginning, sometimes you will do a good pre-talk before doing
hypnosis, and other times you will meet that no memory client
with a brain tumor with a handshake induction at the door.
Bottom line, you don't have a clue before you meet the
client's unconscious. If you think that you have a clue, then get a
clue that it's time to watch out.
As Milton Erickson wrote: psychotherapy for person one is
not psychotherapy for person two. What you do need to be
based on the unique individual in front of you and the
responses that they are giving you. Not statistics (I have never
had a client who needed those), theories or personality profiles.
Isn't this a gross contradiction coming from a guy who uses the
categories presented in this book? Or is it? I will let you decide.

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 CHAPfER4
WORKING WITH THE LIVING DEAD

There is only one thing that scares me when doing changework.

It's not strong language, rage or a client that has gotten worse.
It's the client who just doesn't respond (this is of course a way of
responding too). As a matter of fact, if I had to choose between a
client being severely worse after a session or a client that reports
that there has been no change, I would choose the client who got
severely worse from their symptom or illness every time. Well,
not every time, because I wouldn't get to learn how to awaken
the living dead.
If this surprises you in any way, then consider the fact that if
someone increases their symptom after a session, they have
responded. I can use that response to help them create change.
Some time ago I deliberately had a guy with tinnitus turn the
volume and the distress up. We even moved the sound from one
ear to the other. He did this easily, since I had doubted that he
really had tinnitus. My doubt made him intent on proving how
much he suffered. When I challenged him, he gladly turned the
sound up to prove me wrong. After playing around with
increasing sound, he realized that he could actually turn it up
and down pretty much on cue. If he can tum it up, he can
certainly tum it down. However, he had tried to tum it down
for many years, so requesting that directly would have failed.
This chapter is about awakening the living dead. Those cold
left-brainers who just don't seem to respond. I'm lying here,
they do respond, it just doesn't seem that way. It's ironic that so
many NLP trainers are so into the law of requisite variety: the

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element with the most choice in a system will control the
system.
First of all, control is an illusion in any system. Secondly, any
experienced agent of change will tell you that it's not the client
with a lot of choice that's the most challenging. It's the client
with lack of choices, the ones who rigidly do the same thing
over and over again, no matter whether or not it fits. If I were in
the diagnosis business, most of my clients would get the
diagnosis RIGID, at least in the contexts where they are stuck.
The clients described in the case stories that follow more or
less share several characteristics. The most important one is that
I was unable to get these clients into a workable state of
hypnosis. They also repressed feelings, were into control,
rationalized, had a lot of internal dialogue and none of the
attempted NLP patterns worked. If I can't get the client in touch
with the kinesthetic of the problem in the office, I will drag them
out into the real world and make it very real for them. Let's look
at some cases.

Case One - Frank the Multi Phobic

Frank is a guy in his mid fifties who was scared of being around
people and basically any place where more than a few people
were present. He hadn't been to a mall, large store or cafeteria
for over twenty years. He worked in the woods and his wife
would do all the shopping.
During the first session I attempted to do time line patterns
and other NLP patterns, but we got absolutely nowhere. He was
unable to get in touch with his fear, claimed to not make
pictures, refused any and all attempts to induce hypnosis and
had a lot of internal dialogue. However, I noticed three things of
importance:

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1. He had a tendency to mismatch. He would tense up if I
asked him to relax, and he was passive aggressive.
2. His greatest fear was to have an emotional breakdown
in public, especially if he would cry. That he really
couldn't handle.
3. The third thing was kind of intriguing. Several times
during the first session he would lean on the sentence:
"EVERYONE HAS EQUAL VALUE!" As he said these
words, he would gesture downward with his palms. He
did this three or four times. When you get a gift like this,
you have to find a way to utilize it somehow to help the
client.
As the first session came to a close, it was clear that we would
have to do our work in the real world. I would have to find a
way to utilize the three patterns of behavior previously
mentioned.
The next time he came in I took him on a little trip to a local
food store, telling him that we were just going on a little
exploration. I had scheduled the session for a time when I knew
that groups of teenagers would hang outside the store. Imagine
my relief when I saw a big teenage gang outside the store. We
parked the car, locked the door, thereby blocking one escape
route for my unsuspecting client.
Frank was instructed to join me outside the store, just to take
a look. By getting him there I had pretty much blocked all his
escape routes. In front of him was the store entrance, behind
him the group of teenagers, to his left a wall and to his right -
yours truly. We then had a little chat.
J0rgen: Frank, in a little while you are going to walk into that
store.

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 Frank: NO! NO! NO! I am ill, I can't do that! I could break
down! I don't think you realize how big a problem this is for me!
Jorgen: Frank, I am going to count from one to three. On three,
you are going to run into that store '" or ... I am going to tell
everyone here that you are a homosexual and that you have a big
erection.
Frank looked at me and when our eyes met he could see that I
was dead serious.
Jorgen: ONE... TWO ... THREE ... Ladies and Gentlemen! I
have an announcement to make. . . my friend here is a
homosexual.
When all those heads turned he didn't walk into the store, he
ran into it as fast as he could. Frank was afraid of entering the
store, but remember, his greatest fear was breaking down in
public. Given the choice between being ridiculed in public or go
into the store, he would choose the latter. Running into the store
became his only way to avoid his fear of breaking down in
public.
As Frank ran into the store as far away from those teenagers
he could, I told him that he had to decide where to pass out. He
had earlier claimed that he would pass out if he entered a big
store. So, I had to ensure that he passed out safely. I quickly
started to suggest all the different places where he could pass
out. Quite predictably he rejected them all.
In the office he had showed me his mismatching, even
verbally telling me that he couldn't just voluntarily feel things.
Not only did he reject all the suggested places where he could
pass out, he rejected passing out all together. It was amusing,
the more he was told to pass out, the calmer he got.
When Frank reached a state of confusion, a great learning
state, I started utilizing his fear in a slightly different way. I
started walking up to strangers in the store and introduced

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myself as a psychiatric patient. Bringing up the best state of
anxiety and awkwardness possible. I asked these people if they
looked down on me for being a psychiatric patient, and if they
would help me if I passed out. They all responded very
favorably and before long there was a support team ready to
help this poor psychiatric patient in any way required.
The next step was to blame Frank for my misery. The support
team was told that even though I wasn't ready, my psychiatrist
had forced me in here (pointing towards Frank) telling me that I
had to show responsibility for my life and expand my comfort
zone. The group turned on Frank a bit and he asserted himself
quite well. Again, given the choice between being a nut case and
a psychiatrist, he would choose the more prestigious position.
You might have been surprised if you had seen how well Frank
played the role of the psychiatrist. One woman even started
asking him for advice. Following a long and meaningful
conversation with a couple of the members of the support
group, Frank and I left to go to a mall and several other stores.
Frank passed the tests with flying colors.
I was confident that I had set up that knockout punch well
enough. I asked him what he thought would be the appropriate
punishment to administer to myself, considering the fact that I
had just made a fool of myself in public. However, Frank
evaded that one by claiming that I was a professional and
obviously accustomed to stuff like this. This response clearly
demonstrated that we were not done.
Realizing that I had to set up that big left hook a bit
differently, I asked him how he would feel if he went up to
someone in a store shaking, stuttering and drooling.
He very congruently told me that he couldn't handle that.
Back to the store we went, but this time I made an even
bigger ass out of myself than previously, stuttering, visibly
drooling and shaking while approaching all sorts of people. This

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time Frank cracked up laughing almost hysterically. He seemed
to really enjoy my misery, and who could blame him
considering what he had been through. We went back into the
car and Frank was asked again how he thought I should punish
myself for having a breakdown in public.
Frank tried to tell me that I didn't need to feel bad. I
responded by going into a state of indignation shouting out:
"FRANK, YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITE! Here I took you seriously
when you stated that everyone has equal value (firing off his gesturing
anchor as I say this). I can only conclude that you're a FUCKING
hypocrite after all! If I make a fool out of myself in public, then it's OK.
But you, ALL IMPORTANT FRANK, if you do it, it's so terrible
cause you're so damn important." Now he gave me the response I
had been looking for. His state shifted and his face shifted color.
He got it.
One of the best ways to work with these cold left brainer's is
to give them a real world experience that shows them that their
symptom behavior is a threat to their identity. Frank got to a
point at which he couldn't continue doing his problem without
ruining his identity as a compassionate guy who believed that
everyone had equal value.
The final session was also done live, this time at a local
cafeteria. A student/ client of mine had been assigned to meet us
there to playa specific role. My student was told to match and
mirror Frank with the intent of establishing excellent rapport.
He was also told to be just a bit more outgoing than Frank,
acting as if he had the same type of problems. Actually, he
didn't have to act that much, my student was pretty uptight as
well.
My job was to be a total asshole, especially towards Frank.
Understand that Frank was passive aggressive and needed
something or someone to resist. What we did here was to use
the Contrast Principle, or Bad Cop God Cop if you will. Police

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officers will often do this during an interrogation. One cop will
be an asshole claiming that they have all the evidence they need,
trying to scare the suspect into confessing. Sometimes the cop
will be close to abusing the suspect. After a while, the other cop
will jump in and "save" the suspect, backing him up a bit. Cop
number two will use "we language" saying things like, my
partner is right, but if you come clean we will get you X deal.
Cop number two isn't really that nice or generous, but
contrasted with his partner's behavior he will come across as a
saint.
The same principle applies if you take a hot bath. When you
first slide into the hot water, you can really feel the warmth.
After a little you have gotten used to the temperature, but if you
have to get out of the water for a couple of minutes and then re-
enter, you will feel the warmth again.
This is also why I want my client to be strongly in touch with
their phobia, allergy, asthma or migraine headache when they
enter the office. That way, after we have done our intervention, I
will have them attempt to get in touch with their symptom
again. If they could get strongly in touch with their symptom
before the intervention, but can't do it anymore after the session,
that's one hell-of-a-convincer for the client. Get creative on how
you use the Contrast Principle. Sometimes using actors is a
wonderful idea.
In this case, the more I played the asshole, the better the
rapport between my student and Frank. Since Frank could reject
all the crap I told him, he had absolutely no need to mismatch
my student. As my student slightly became more outgoing,
Frank did as well since they had rapport. After a while, my
student started talking about how he felt in social situations,
and once again, Frank started talking about how he felt.
That was the response that I had been looking for and a
major breakthrough for my client. Frank really loosened up and

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at the end he told my student out loud that the solution to my
student's rigidity was that he needed to get laid. Heads started
turning in the cafeteria and Frank handled it like a champ. In
closing I should tell you that between the second and third
session Frank had already been to several stores and public
places without yours truly to assist him.

Case Two - Martin the Hand Shaker

Martin entered my office with an intriguing complaint. Every

time he did something in front of other people with his hands,
like signing a contract or drinking a glass of wine, his hand
would start shaking uncontrollably. Martin fit the profile
perfectly. He repressed feelings, had a lot of internal dialogue,
had a hard time visualizing in consciousness and just didn't go
into hypnosis.
I thought that I might be able to get him into trance using
some sort of confusion induction utilizing his internal dialogue.
However, we just didn't make it. This wasn't really a problem,
since I had discovered that he was one of these types on the
phone. I don't really know how I know to spot these, but after a
few years in the hypnosis world you start detecting stuff like
this. One hint is a dry monotone voice describing things in a
detached academic type language with much dissociated
language like: "One could disagree ... and one would like to think ... "
The guy didn't once say "I think" or "Ifeel."
He had been to a couple of psychologists, and they had
attempted to teach him various relaxation techniques. Like
Frank, this guy was a mismatcher as well. If someone told him
to relax, he would tense up. As you can probably imagine, the
instructions to relax had created the opposite of the intended
result.

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As soon as I observed this pattern, I decided to prescribe the
symptom somehow. Very often, getting someone to voluntarily
do something that's normally involuntary creates change.
Martin told me that he started shaking because he didn't know
how people around him would react. The more he thought
about his hand not shaking the more it shook.
The fact that Martin's hand never started shaking when he
drank a glass of wine or signed something when alone
suggested that his sentence: "I shake because I don't know how
other people will react to the shaking" was pretty much where it
was all at.
I should tell you that I had collected Martin's money up
front, and gotten him to agree that he would do whatever I
asked him. In return, I promised that I wouldn't ask him to do
anything unethical or dangerous. Since Martin worked in a very
large firm with a number of employees, he was given the
following task.
Jargen: Martin! Here is what I want you to do: I want you to
purchase a large poster. On it I want you to write the following
in bold letters. LIVE ENTERTAINMENT.
Under that headline ... I want you to write that I (your name)
shake involuntarily in my right hand ... whenever I use my
hands to drink or eat in front of people. For those of you who
want to share a good laugh at my expense, show up in the
cafeteria at lunch hours at X day.
Martin: Are you crazy???
Jsrgen: Yes, I am! But my hands work quite well.
It took me probably ten minutes to convince him that it was in
his best interest to do this.
Martin: This is certainly not what I expected. But I have paid
you and given my word, so I am going to do it.

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 Jorgen: You're not getting off the hook that easily. I want you
to add something.
You normally start shaking involuntarily as soon as you make
eye contact with someone while you eat or drink, right?
Martin: That's correct.
Jorgen: I want you to start voluntarily shaking that hand before
eye contact. So, as soon as you realize that someone is going to
see you drink or eat, I want you to do it voluntarily.
When you make eye contact and can feel the involuntary
shaking starting, I want you to do what you can to increase the
symptoms. To make a short story even shorter, Martin did what
I asked him to do. However, he was more than surprised to find
his involuntary shaking gone. He didn't seem to realize
consciously that by setting the frame, deciding that this hand
shaking meant entertainment, he knew how others would
respond. More importantly, he knew how he would respond.
There was no longer any basis for him doing his symptom.
Mismatching my suggestion to increase the involuntary shaking
played an important part as well.

Case Three - Caroline the Anorexic

Caroline was a young woman in her early twenties. She was

1,72 meters tall and weighed in at 39 kilograms. She was not a
living dead, but very much into control and as a result of that.
Most of our work was done out in the real world.
Caroline had been doing anorexia for seven years and had
been to numerous anorexia specialists in several countries. I had
also met her parents at a social gathering, and they were the
ones who requested that I worked with their daughter.
The parents had money while Caroline was a "poor" student
who had recently gotten fired from her part time job as a waiter

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at a restaurant. Her boss had told her that she was too thin and
that her appearance was making his customers uncomfortable.
Armed with this information before meeting Caroline for the
first time, I saw a big red flag in front of me.
First of all, people equate price with value. Even though her
parents were paying me handsomely, she would have to invest
something for the therapy to have value for her.
Another factor was that she had been to all these "expert"
therapists for years and hadn't changed at all. When people
work on a problem for years without solving it, they are using
the problem to satisfy one or more of their needs. Often this is
the need to feel significant or speciaL This proved to be true in
her case.
Caroline was given an ordeal over the phone before our first
session. She was given a list of about twenty questions and
explicit instructions to provide very detailed written answers to
every question. She spent days on this task and it built some of
the commitment that we needed.
My main concern was for her to get reaL I knew that I would
have to get very real to get her to get gut level honest. She was
very intelligent and later admitted that I was the first therapist
that she had met that she couldn't manipulate and wrap around
her little finger. Essentially, I was the first guy that would call
her on her bullshit and hold her 100 percent responsible for her
behavior and the choices that she was making.
In my not so humble opinion, one of the worst things you can
do with so-called eating disorder clients is to buy into the
mental illness frame. These clients are not sick. It's wrong to
claim that these clients suffer from a mental illness and need to
be treated. These clients are choosing everything that they do,
and it's important that anorexia and bulimia are seen as
behaviors that clients are choosing. They CHOOSE these

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behaviors because the "disorder" satisfies one or more of their
needs.

Caroline's Session One

Caroline didn't quite know who I was or how I worked, which

gave me a lot of flexibility. Since all her previous therapists had
bought into the mental illness frame, and therefore treated her
as sick, it wasn't too hard to figure out that they had been
"empathetic and understanding."
Obviously, if you want to be successful with a client like this,
you will have to interrupt her pattern big time, which is exactly
what I did. I dressed in a dark suit with a black tie, and since my
grandmother had recently died, I had a lot of funeral stuff, i.e.
brochures and cards. When she entered the office she was asked
the following question as soon as her butt landed on the couch.
J0rgen: Do you want to be buried or cremated?
Caroline: WHAT?
J0rgen: You heard me! DO YOU WANT TO BE BURIED OR
CREMA TED? It's time for you to make arrangements for what
they are to do with your body after you're dead.
Caroline started to laugh nervously at first, but I kept asking the
same question again and again while looking deeply into her
eyes.
J0rgen: By the way, how do you like these brochures (the ones
from my grandmother's funeral)? Do you like the quality of the
brochure? What about the colors? What songs do you want?
What do you want written on yours?
After a while we progressed to talking about coffins, did she
want to be eaten by worms or burned. This continued for about

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twenty minutes before it suddenly got pretty real for her and
she started crying.
Jorgen: You poor thing!
This was said with more than a little sarcasm in my voice. This
was a test and I passed it by not getting soft when she tried to
avoid facing what she was doing.
Jorgen: So Caroline, how long have you been doing anorexia?
Caroline: Doing anorexia? You talk about it like someone
would talk about doing ballet or gymnastics.
Jorgen: Well, it is, isn't it? Ballet and gymnastics are activities
that someone chooses to engage in, just like anorexia.
Caroline: Well ...
Jorgen: Let's be honest! Anorexia isn't a thing. It's a process,
it's something you do. You have to think a certain way, behave
in very specific ways and you have to organize your life around
it just like an elite athlete would. Athletes have goals, things that
they want to achieve as a result of all the training. Not only
that, the training itself provides them with a number of benefits.
So, what are the benefits of doing anorexia? I imagine that
the short term benefits must be really great since you are willing
to die just a little bit down the road, so that you can experience
these benefits now. Come on Caroline! What are you getting out
of doing anorexia? What are the benefits?
Caroline: It takes a lot of self-discipline to do anorexia. Very
few people have that level of control and discipline. Also, it's
exciting to see how far I can get. You know, the doctors have a
rule that says that that at my current weight, I should be at the
hospital for forced treatment. But at every test, I make sure that
I barely weigh more than that weight limit, and I beat them
every time. But, it's a bit sad also because my parents are so
worried about me and they take me to different therapists,
hoping that I will get better.

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As she said this, I could see the same facial expressions of pride
that I had seen earlier. Her voice was also expressed in a kind of
triumphant way.
Jorgen: You little pervert! You aren't too sad about this. As a
matter of fact, you enjoy that your parents are worrying
themselves sick, hoping, getting disappointed again and again,
knowing deep inside that you have no intent of stopping the
anorexia. Far from being the poor victim, you are in a power
position. You are punishing your parents, and you are enjoying
it intensely because it gives you a feeling of POWER.
Caroline: It makes me feel unique and special.
If you had been there and your calibration skills don't suck, you
would have noticed that she leaned on the word "SPECIAL."
There was a strong nonverbal present every time she said the
word. Anytime I am able to identify a context where the client
acts as if he or she is the victim of some Cause and Effect
equation, or they lean on some identity statement while
demonstrating a distinct nonverbal response, I know that it's
time to get to work.
Jorgen: How special is it to die as a result of some eating
disorder? After all, it's the leading cause of death among young
women in Norway. How special is it to deny it while it's
happening, claiming to be in full control? How pathetic and
boring isn't it to have being "special" as the number one mission
in life? How special is that? Sounds very ordinary and very
boring to me.
At this point she went into a state of confusion while I just sat
back unwilling to help her create clarity. She then started crying.
I kept my cool and gave her no sympathy. Instead I pointed out
how ordinary it was to go into self-pity when confronted, versus

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having the guts and self-discipline to deal with it. But again,
only special people are able to do that.
If this sounds harsh to you, remember that clients test you all
the time. If I had started being "nice" at this point, it would
mean that she could manipulate me using her symptoms.
Clients don't want to be held responsible. They will often do
whatever they can to get you to play rescuer while they play the
victim.
I absolutely reject this role, and I show it congruently with
my behavior. I look forward to clients doing their BS to get pity.
Since pretty much everyone else backs off when clients do this,
they help reinforce the exact behaviors that the clients are
paying them to help change. If you have the balls to not do this,
then the likelihood of clients changing is much greater. After all,
the only reason they do their bullshit behavior is because they
are rewarded for it in some way.
After telling Caroline to meet me the following day in athletic
wear, I sent her out of the office while she was still crying.
I am going to be blunt with you. When you play hardball like
this with people you are taking a chance. One out of two things
will happen. The client will either run away or change.
If you have rapport and good calibration skills, you will get
most people to change. The real artistry is to know when to
push, when to use humor, when to get provocative and so on.
Unfortunately, the only way to get good at this type of work is
to go balls out, even when you don't have the calibration skills
to justify doing so.
You will need to get comfortable around strong emotions. I have
had clients attempt to physically attack me, throw things at me
and some have called me a sociopath.
Geoff Thompson, legendary self-defense instructor, former
bouncer and author, has some wonderful advice for conquering
fear. He inspires people to look at the worst possible

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consequence of doing some behavior. Then ask yourself: "If this
worst consequence happens, am I willing to handle it?"
If you can congruently look at the list of what my clients have
done when pushed and decide that you will handle it, or at least
learn to handle it, you can proceed forward without much fear.
It's like the boxer who steps into the ring. He knows that he is
going to take a hard shot sooner or later. When you are willing
to deal with it, you can play full out.
So, give yourself permission to fall flat on your face knowing
that it will happen sooner or later. Also, when you do, make
sure that you learn from it. The really cool part is that any
tendency that you might have regarding being an approval
addict, wimp, or victim will get triggered in you when doing
this. Therefore, you will develop tremendously as a person by
working this authentically with clients.
I have concluded that if I am not called a sociopath or
something equivalent on a regular basis, then I am probably not
doing my job. It's really easy to get that label from many clients.
All you have to do is to not respond on autopilot when they go
into their symptomatic states.
When "tough" clients enter your office, they have a long history
of eliciting very predictable responses from the people around
them when they do their symptoms. No matter what else is
going on around them, they know that if they turn on their
depression, panic attack or whatever, then people will respond
on cue.
As previously mentioned, this is part of the reason why
people get addicted to their symptoms. Many therapists help
reinforce these limiting behaviors by playing their politically
correct "nice and understanding" role.
The sad part is that most of these therapists aren't doing this
as a strategically sound choice based upon calibrating that these
behaviors by the therapist leads clients toward useful change.

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Rather, they are doing this because it's comfortable, politically
correct and because they don't have the guts to deal with
authentic behavior and strong emotions. Most of these
therapists are wimps and approval addicts when push comes to
shove. Taking a risk to get the job done: "OH NO ... what will my
colleagues think?" Many will do more to preserve their image
than to help a client.
You will have to condition yourself a bit to be able to work
like I did into the cases presented here if you are like most
people. A friend of mine pointed this out in an elegant way
recently. He said: "You function as a pattern interrupter ... " He has
some NLP training). "You deliberately provoke where everyone
instinctually wants to move backwards. " It's by deliberately
provoking the responses everyone wants to avoid when you get
such dramatic responses in people.

Caroline's Session Two

The next morning Caroline and I met at the gym. In her papers,
she had written that she used to be in pretty good shape, and
that she thought that she still was. She was clearly in denial
about the damage that she was doing to her body. This little trip
to the gym was designed to give her a rude awakening. The real
reason that she wasn't exercising wasn't a busy schedule or any
other bullshit rationalization she could corne up with, it was the
fact that she was not able to do it.
I challenged her by telling her that a young woman at her age
should be able to do 25 minutes of high speed on the treadmill.
After about twelve minutes she more or less collapsed. It wasn't
because of her willpower or self-discipline that she had so much
pride in. It was because her body just couldn't handle it. After
the little collapse I almost had to support her walking out of the

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gym. Certainly, all the looks she received from shocked exercise
buffs helped fuel her embarrassment.
The task went as planned and was done to give her direct
counterexample to her belief that she wasn't damaging her
body. Since she had so much pride in her self-discipline and
willpower, it was likely that she would view her collapse as
evidence that her body had gotten weak.
Immediately after leaving the gym I sent Caroline to the
library for her next task. Her assignment was to find three
biographies about special and unique individuals. Then, after
reading these short biographies, she was to write an essay about
what made these people unique and special, and just as
importantly, what didn't make them unique and special. The
task was to be completed in two days, just in time for her next
appointment.
The day before her next appointment I called her and told her
to meet me at a restaurant instead of at my office. I had already
been at the restaurant and tipped off the waiter. I asked him if
he was willing to help me save a life the following day. I told
him that I was bringing in a young woman who was severely
anorectic. I further explained that I was in the shock treatment
industry (whatever that is) and that we were her last hope. The
waiter generously agreed to help out.
I gave him a tip and prepaid her meal. I told him that no
matter what she ordered, he was to serve her the largest meat
dish he had, and tell her: "Honestly, YOU NEED THIS!"
I must have gotten through to him since he agreed to help
out despite thinking that I was a little nutty. As previously
mentioned, the least likely place for these dissociated clients to
change is in a therapist's office. They will rationalize and
intellectualize everything all day long if given the chance. The
best place to do changework with anorexics and bulimics is in a
restaurant.

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I told Caroline to write down the rules of the anorexia game on
a piece of paper and bring it to the restaurant. I wanted to learn
how to do anorexia as well as her in terms of when she ate, how
much, when she knew it was time to stop, how she knew she
was making progress and what she couldn't eat. For each of the
rules she was instructed to write down what they were intended
to accomplish, meaning what value and emotional state she was
to achieve by following the rules. Basically, she could hardly eat
anything at all, and all these rules and behaviors were used to
satisfy her core values. These values were control, self-
discipline, challenge, being unique and special, power,
excitement and goal achievement. The emotional states that she
got into by doing her anorexia were:
1. Excitement. She felt a lot of excitement by playing with
her physicians, making sure that she barely weighed a
little bit more than the required weight to stay out of the
hospital. In the same way she enjoyed the excitement of
seeing her parents get their hopes up and then getting
disappointed every time she went to some therapist.
2. Security. No matter how chaotic the world became she
knew that when she did her anorexia, people around her
would show concern, sympathy, and love. The eating
rituals also gave her the feeling of familiarity and
therefore she felt secure.
3. Uniqueness. By being so good at anorexia, she felt
unique and special. She also felt very special since she
had "defeated" all these therapists along the way. This is
a very common way for people to feel significant and
special, by having a problem that never gets solved.
4. Love and connection. As always (almost) doing some
sort of symptom is an easy way to get love and

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 connection from other people without giving in return,
asking for it or taking a risk. She also used this to
connect with herself.
As you can see, the benefits of doing anorexia were gigantic! For
her to change, she would have to commit to getting these
emotional states in other ways.

Caroline's Session Three

Caroline and I met at the restaurant where she showed me all
that she had written on the game of anorexia. I felt as if I had
rapport with her and that I had elicited some useful states in
her. However, our work had not created any change in how she
did her anorexia.
I ordered a big fat steak, and Caroline quite predictably just
wanted to drink some water. When the waiter returned with my
steak he gave one to Caroline as well and told her: "Honestly,
YOU NEED THIS!" I got a big laugh out of it, but he was a bit
incongruent in his delivery. So, it didn't quite have the
emotional impact that I was looking for.
I had another surprise planned for Caroline as well. A couple
of nights earlier I had recruited a couple of friends to play out
some stuff. Two young men showed up and sat down at a table
at an angle away from us. One of them put up a big canvas and
started to draw Caroline. This caught Caroline's attention, and
my friend the artist, sent her some flirtatious looks as he
continued to study her in detail and draw. Caroline refused to
eat anything and was quite content in posing for the drawing.
She even remarked to me: "See, men find me attractive!"
What she didn't know was that there was nothing
spontaneous going on here. The guy who was pretending to
sketch her was drawing the ugliest stick figure cartoon type

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figure you can imagine. It was signed" AUSCHWITZ AUGUST
1944" and "Will Mrs. Super Slim Shady please go hide because
people are losing their appetite."
After about twenty minutes my friend walks up to Caroline,
bows, and says: "Excuse me, but you just inspired me to perform at
high artistic levels." He then delivered his horrible drawing and
this time Caroline responded. She got furious as hell, and I
enjoyed an even bigger laugh. Some joyful sadism at Caroline's
expense.
I have got to give credit where credit is due. I got the crappy
artist idea from a tape by Ross Jeffries, the seduction guru, who
bases his approach on NLP.
Just when Caroline got angry enough that she wanted to
leave, we got some unexpected help. A dentist sitting nearby
walked up to a very angry Caroline and started telling her about
all the damage she was doing to her teeth, going on and on
about all the potential complications in a very concerned
manner. Strong emotional states and responses like Caroline
showed are windows of opportunity. I knew that I had to
continue using this very valuable response.
She started ranting and raving about how I must know
everyone in my hometown, that people were obviously biased
and influenced by me. Instead of ending the session I
spontaneously decided to take her for a forty five minute drive
to another city. I challenged her by saying: " Cool, let's go to
another city where no one knows me, and no one is under my evil
influence." Caroline agreed and we left immediately. It was
about three o'clock in the afternoon as we walked down the
main street, which was pretty packed with people.
I knew that if I had just walked up to people and asked them
if Caroline shouldn't gain some weight, then people would
probably be afraid of offending her and therefore answer "No!"
So, I did something a bit different. I started walking up to

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people at random telling them that my name was Peter and that
I was from the National Anorexia Association. I further told
them that: "We at the Anorexia Association had a campaign where we
were taking anorectics out into the streets to discover how "ordinary"
people thought about food and weight. This woman wants to lose
another fifteen pounds, what do you think about that?"
The first person we approached this way, a middle aged
woman, almost went crazy, begging Caroline to gain weight.
The next person we approached was a guy in his early
twenties, a real idiot. He told her to go ahead and loose another
15 pounds if she wanted to and that she looked great. I don't
know if this guy was looking to get laid by offering a
compliment as absurd as this, or if he was just ground zero
dumb. I couldn't believe how someone who wasn't on drugs
could respond this way.
Turned out this guy came in real handy cause Caroline
perked up and said: "The score is now 1 Jergen versus 1 Caroline."
It looked as if she started to believe as if she could win this little
contest. However, it quickly turned out that she was mistaken in
her belief. About twenty minutes later the score was J0rgen 19
versus Caroline 1. At this point she got real sad and threw in the
towel.
Before we ended the session I reminded her to complete the
homework assignment that I had given her regarding the
biographies she had borrowed from the library. After this
session I got a very strong feeling that Caroline was getting
more real. The key was to get strong emotional responses and
utilize them. As an example, after the stunts at the restaurant,
Caroline responded strongly but rationalized that people were
being influenced by me. Therefore, I spontaneously drove her to
another city. Had I stopped at the restaurant, the responses
wouldn't have been as strong. Another key point is to
compound these counterexamples while she is in a strong

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emotional state. The more counterexamples she gets to her
beliefs while in this emotional state, the stronger the cumulative
effect of the intervention.
If you know hypnosis, you know that a big part of making a
suggestion strong is to compound. The working principle is that
the first suggestion accepted is rather weak, but the second
accepted suggestion would be weaker while making suggestion
number one stronger. The third accepted suggestion is weak
again, but it strengthens suggestion number two and makes
number one even stronger.
The same goes for Caroline. I am giving her strong
counterexamples to a belief while she is in a strong emotional
state and just compounding it again and again, hopefully
forcing a massive reorganization on the inside.
If you have an NLP background you might be familiar with
the "Last straw/going through threshold pattern" where you
associate the person with a strong negative emotional memory,
then go to a second strong memory, and a third and forth,
recycling until it's like they are all happening at once. The goal
here is to take someone over the threshold so that they can't go
back.
Remember that you can modify all the stuff that's done in an
office to work outside the office as well.

Caroline's Session Four

Caroline went home and did some serious work on her

assignment during the next couple of days. At this point it was
clear that something was happening, some reorganization was
going on inside to make sense out of all the stuff that I had put
her through.

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Looking back, I am convinced that a key point to our success
was that we did intense work like this for hours every day for
almost a week. I knew that if I had let Caroline off the hook,
gotten soft, or pulled my punches in any way, she would have
gotten into her analytical mode. The result of that would be that
she would reject everything that didn't match her previous
experience.
I am also pretty sure that any formal attempts at hypnosis or
NLP patterning would have failed, because it would threaten
her sense of control. Besides, her pattern was to feel unique by
defeating therapists, rendering their techniques ineffective.
I was going to force her to get real or run away screaming by
doing the work in the real world while activating her symptoms
and taking her to restaurants. Since we did this every day,
followed up by intense homework assignments, the chances
were a lot slimmer that she would be able to distance herself
from the work and the reorganization that it forced.
Once again, I had planned a little surprise for Caroline. Her
father had previously told me that Caroline hated drug addicts
and that she really despised them. I told him to not tell Caroline
that he had told me this, since I decided that I would utilize this
somehow.
The day before session four, I went to a friend of mine 00
Gjerpe) and asked him to dress up as a junkie. Not only did he
generously agree, but he also did a very convincing job acting as
a junkie. When Caroline arrived at the local train station the next
morning, this disgusting drug addict immediately approached
her. They had a conversation that went something like this
Drug Addict: Hey you, do you have anything to sell me?
Caroline: WHAT! Do I look like THAT?
Drug Addict: C'mon, you're one of us. It takes one to know
one. Lighten up girl!

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This upset Caroline. When I met her a bit later, she was angry.
She asked me if I had organized any new stunts on behalf of the
anorexia association lately. When I pretended to be confused by
this, she told me what had happened.
Jergen: And this surprises you? Look at your arms (said while
grabbing her arm pretty hard) you fucking look like an addict
AND you were outside the train station.
Caroline: I'm sorry.
Now that she had fallen for my little bluff, I gently inquired
about the drug addict.
Caroline: My god, he had really hit rock bottom.
You can probably imagine that my friend the drug addict" was
II

less than delighted about this when I told him later. His mother,
a psychiatric nurse, was present as I enjoyed some joyful sadism
at my friend's expense. She was pretty outraged at my
approach. She asked me if I wasn't concerned that her feelings
might get hurt or that she would become angry. I responded by
telling her that I was more concerned if she died, and I knew in
my heart that I could have done more. The really cool part of my
drug addict stunt was that a few weeks later something similar
happened at another train station, which impacted her greatly
since she knew that I couldn't possibly have any part in it.
My intent in having my friend meet her at the station in the
way he did was to give her an experience. I wanted her to
associate the way she looked now as a result of her anorexia life
style with the thing that disgusted her the most, namely drug
addicts. Instead of just telling her this I generated an experience
for her hidden in another activity that she wouldn't consciously
recognize as relevant, since she didn't know that I knew about
her disgust for addicts.

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When Caroline entered my office after meeting my friend, she
was confused. I could sense that she had reached the limits of
her old model of the world. The following conversation ensued.
Jargen: So Caroline, are you for real, or are you just a coward
and a hypocrite?
Caroline: What do you mean?
Jargen: How would quitting anorexia and starting a new life
not only require a lot more self-discipline, uniqueness, be a
much greater challenge and prove that your truly a special
person to a much larger extent than anorexia ever could? Not
only that ... by living these qualities in an authentic way, you
would also develop them in abundance. You see, Caroline, you
started anorexia because it was a challenge, which took some
self-control and made you feel unique and special at the time ...
BUT, let's be honest, you are very good at anorexia, you have
done it for a long time, and because you're so familiar with it ...
it's not really much of a challenge anymore. However, quitting
anorexia, just the thought of it scares the shit out of you. You
have no idea how you would do that or if you really could do
it ... that would be a REAL challenge requiring a lot of self
control and self-discipline ... as you confront your deepest fears
head-on. To do this would require a person who is unique and
special. After all, it's easy to live in your comfort zone!
Caroline's physiology shifted dramatically and her face
exploded with color as the reorganization on the inside became
very evident.
What I did was to utilize her values that she had leaned on
the entire time. By doing a reverse presupposition I made
continuing anorexia a threat to her core identity. She
emotionally got it this time. The simple fact that quitting
anorexia and designing a whole new game of life would not
only require her living her values, but give her these emotional

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states as well. At the same time she realized that the anorexia
itself was a direct contradiction to her identity and the values
she held so dearly.
I call this technique the "Identity Threat" with reverse
presuppositions. I had written down all the values that she
identified with, the ones with strong non-verbals attached to
them. I knew that the key point in working with her would be to
make doing anorexia incongruous with her identity. I had
planned this technique since the first session, but when to do it
is a timing issue. If I had attempted it during the first or second
session it would have failed. She was so rigid and in "control"
with a model of the world set in concrete.
To get her to respond, I arranged all these real life
experiences designed to provoke, destabilize, challenge her
beliefs and induce a massive state of confusion. The state of
confusion is really what we needed. With a very shaky model of
the world, some war fatigue and massive confusion going on,
she was ready to respond to a maneuver such as this one.
Caroline was lit up like a Christmas three at this point. There
was only one thing remaining for our work to be completed.
Now that she couldn't continue anorexia and keep her identity
constant at the same time, it was time for her to decide on what
to do instead. To complete our work she needed to decide on a
new game and some new rules for living, a game that would
satisfy her need for excitement, security, love, uniqueness, self-
discipline and challenge. The only difference was that her new
ways of meeting her needs would enable her to grow and be
empowering to her and her health.
She was told to leave my office with instructions to return the
next morning with her new game designed. That night she
experienced a surge of energy as she designed her new game of
life. When she entered my office the next day she looked and
sounded very different. With pride presented me with her new

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game of life! I offered to teach her self-hypnosis to give her more
self-control, and she worked out a number of suggestions
designed to enhance her ability to play her new game with
gusto.
I have found it very beneficial to give analyticals writing
assignments such as these. The left-brainers are often skeptical.
It's generally tougher to get them to commit to something new
and different initially. However, once you get their
commitment, they usually stick to it. The highly hypnotizable
easily step into new realities, often with dramatic initial results,
but it's often" easy come, easy go."
Another key point in working with the left-brainers is that
they often have a high need to understand what happened
during the therapy. They will analyze and attempt to rationalize
for some time after the work is completed. This is a golden
opportunity to give them tasks that ensure their continued
success. This way, you are using their need to rationalize to
cement in the changes that you're looking for. This is certainly a
lot better than them talking themselves out of some beneficial
change.
I am happy to report that the last time I heard from Caroline,
five years after the intervention, she was still doing great. Since I
know people who are her friends, I know that the changes have
lasted long term. She even had to buy I new wardrobe as she
gained healthy weight.
I would like to elaborate a little bit on the technique I just
presented, the "Identity Threat." I have found this technique
very useful, especially in cases where there is a lot of secondary
gain, and where the problem behavior is to a large extent under
conscious control. It's been a very successful approach with stuff
like anorexia and bulimia.

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The Identity Threat
Pernille was a woman in her early forties who entered my office
with the request of eliminating her fear of public speaking.
During the first session I asked her if there was any benefit to
having the fear of public speaking. She said that her husband
was a practical man who resented her intellectual friends and all
the dinner discussions she had with those friends. He felt like an
outsider and she felt that the more she tried to learn and
develop herself, the more it created distance and hostility in the
relationship. But, her husband had moved out, and since he had,
it was now OK for her to learn new things and develop her
career further.
The first session went great. We did a rapid induction,
activated her fear by associating her into a past memory where
she could really feel the fear and used the fear as an affect
bridge back in time to the first event the fear was connected. In
her case it turned out to be a memory/reconstruction from age
three. After clearing up her fear from all past related memories,
she was good to go and left my office in an enthusiastic and
confident state.
However, when she came back for a follow-up two weeks
later, she told me that her fear was coming back gradually. As
you might have guessed, her husband was gradually moving
back in with her.
In the conversation that followed she leaned on the sentence:
"I am a very responsible person." I also picked up that she felt
contempt for people who were divorced, especially single
moms. At the same time she wanted to get out of the
relationship. Her husband spent her money, drank way too
much and gave her absolutely no respect or love. BUT, she
couldn't leave the relationship since she had to take care of him.

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 J0rgen: How responsible is it to live life as a drug dealer?
Pernille: What?
J0rgen: Let's be gut level honest here, so that we can see exactly
how hypocritical you are.
I had recently watched some Tony Robbins DVDs called
Ultimate Relationship Mastery at which he claims that all human
beings have six human needs. According to Tony they are:
1. Certainty
2. Uncertainty
3. Love and connection
4. Significance
5. Growth
6. Contribution
According to Robbins, these six human needs are needs
everyone needs to fulfill, and will find a way to fulfill in one
way or another. The only question is if a person will satisfy
these human needs in a low quality way or a high quality way.
By low quality, we are referring to behaviors which are
dangerous to self or others, behaviors such as drug abuse,
violence, overeating, symptoms, being needy and so on. High
quality refers to behaviors that improve life, like healthy
relationships, meaning full activities, exercise, learning new
things and so on. Robbins claims that the last two needs, growth
and contribution, are needs of the spirit and are essential for
true fulfillment. Personally, don't know how accurate this
model is, but I do know that it can be a useful way to relate to
some clients. I prefer to not really believe in anything, but use
and utilize everything to help the people I work with. Realize

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that models and theories like these are constructions. Basically,
it is all made up.
I challenged and provoked Pemille, claiming that she was
using her fear and her husband's symptoms to maintain her
own identity and her needs but in a low-quality way. Let's look
at how she was using her fear symptoms to satisfy her basic
needs.
1. CERTAINTY
One of the reasons why people go back to bad relationships and
destructive behavior is simply because it's familiar. They know
that if they tum their symptoms on, people around them will
change their behavior or respond in very predictable ways. They
also know that they have access to their symptom any time they
want, and this familiarity gives them a feeling of security and
stability. This was relevant for Pemille as well, but the key point
was that she was using her symptom and her husband to keep
her identity as a very responsible person constant. People are
very motivated to keep their identity constant. They will do the
most outrageous things if they perceive that their identity is
threatened.
Her husband was very irresponsible which matched her
identity of being "a very responsible person." She would save
him and take responsibility. This gave her power in the
relationship and made her feel very needed and significant. It
also gave her something to talk about. Every time she
complained to someone about her husband she was implying
that she was super responsible.
Also, the idea of being single with kids was a big threat to her
identity of being very responsible as well. As previously
mentioned, she felt very significant and content when she
observed all the people around her who had given up. She had
decided to not be one of them. When I suggested these things to

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her, I saw strong nonverbal signals telling me that I had hit
bull's eye, especially around the theme of keeping her identity
constant.
2. UNCERTAINTY
Paradoxically, not only was she getting certainty by doing her
symptom, but she was getting uncertainty as well. By
uncertainty I am referring to variety, changing states, excitement
and the like. She admitted that all the drama that ensued from
her husband's irresponsible behavior was quite a rush for her
and quite exciting. It certainly prevented boredom.
3. LOVE AND CONNECTION
There wasn't too much love in the relationship. She did what
many people do, she settled for a certain level of connection. All
the drama and her role as rescuer maintained a connection
between her and the husband.
4. SIGNIFICANCE
Her role as rescuer gave her the feeling of being very important
and needed. She actually had become addicted to her husband
being a fuck up for her to be the rescuer. So, instead of taking a
risk and developing herself, which takes some guts, she could
feel significant by having a problem which never got solved.
After going through this I asked questions like: "What will be
the consequence of this role over time? What will happen to your self-
esteem? What are you teaching your kids about relationships?"
Pernille went into a strong emotional state where she
associated massive pain to what she was doing. I then did the
Identity Threat:
You claim that you are a responsible person, but how responsible
is it to use someone else's alcohol addiction and irresponsibility
to have your own identity constant, satisfy your needs in a low

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 quality way, while hypocritically maintain that it's for someone
else's own good?
Emotions exploded in her body, a very nice color shift in her
face and a solid shift in her physiology followed. She got it, and
she had a felt experience that it wasn't possible for her to
maintain her old behavior and her identity at the same time. She
spontaneously started creating new behavior that she would do
instead to satisfy her needs and identity in a high quality way.
No further work was necessary. I am happy to report that her
fear disappeared again, and she divorced her husband which
proved to be a good choice for both of them.
I have found great use for this Identity Threat technique. I
find it a lot more effective than Six-Step Reframing, visual
squash and other forms of hypnotic parts work, particularly in
cases with relationship issues, self esteem issues, eating
disorders and so on. I have noticed an increase in my success
rate since working this way compared to the early days when I
used Six-Step Reframing more frequently.
However, I prefer Six Steps Reframing with symptoms where
the unconscious produces the symptoms, migraine headaches,
allergies and different forms of pain. As an example, I worked
with a woman who had a heart that was growing, very high
blood pressure and she could hear her heart thumping loudly
while sitting still. She was a friend of the family, and I sensed
that she wouldn't open herself up for hypnotic regressions of
any kind. Instead, we induced hypnosis and did Six-Step
Reframing using involuntary finger signals and fluctuations in
her heart rhythm as well as signals. Her heart rhythm slowed
down to normal during the session, and a follow-up with the
doctor revealed that her blood pressure had returned to the
ideal range. In cases like this, where the symptom is totally
involuntary and hard to connect with any specific behavior,

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unconscious reframing ala Six Steps Reframing seems to be a
good choice. Sadly, six months later, a new severe family
conflict developed and she went back to her old symptoms and
drugs instead of coming back to see me for additional sessions.
Experiences like this has shown me that for Six-Step
Reframing and other unconscious forms of reframing to have
long-term effect, it is very helpful, and it makes the process
more reliable if two factors are present.
1. The neural network associated with the symptom is
active at the same time that you communicate with
involuntary signals. So, if you want to work with a
migraine or allergy or pain, the symptom should be
active while you do the reframing. It doesn't seem to
make a difference if you use the symptom itself as a
signal (and increase in pain for "Yes", and a decrease for
"No") or you use involuntary finger signals as long as the
symptom is active as you do.
2. The neural network associated with the symptom and its
memories is accessed and reframed. So, if the person has
a phobia, you want to activate the fear, access the
memories where they have been scared including the
first event, and then release the emotion while
preserving the learning's.
Unless these two factors are dealt with, it's a strong chance that
the symptom will come back after a certain amount of time, or
that the" cure" is not complete.
In the heart case and the cancer case described earlier, the
neural network connected with symptoms was activated while
we did the reframing, which is why I think the process worked
initially. However, the memories and underlying conflicts that
were behind the symptoms were not accessed and dealt with. I

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think this is why the symptoms returned. Also note that I had
no commitment from these clients.
Contrast this with the work I did with Pernille. In her case,
we reframed the earlier memories, including what I think was
the first event, but there were huge secondary gains in the
present that justified her continuing to do the symptoms.
My learning over the years has been that it's useful to work
with the past memories connected with the presenting issue,
and also make sure to work with present day obstacles like
secondary gain. Having said all this, be aware that any identity,
identification and belief is limiting. Identity is huge trap with
the potential for many negative consequences. One consequence
is that whenever we believe something, we have a tendency to
look for all the things that confirm the belief while deleting
anything that doesn't match. In other words, we don't pick up
all the counterexamples and differences. It's the differences that
we learn from. In Pernille's case, her strong identity was part of
the problem. By strengthening the identity, we might be
creating worse problems in the long term.
So, using people's identities is a good idea, but strengthening
beliefs and identifications isn't a very good idea. If you figure
out how to do that in an elegant way, be sure to contact me and
let me know. This is the reason I never do standard NLP
techniques of changing beliefs. I prefer that the clients end up
with no beliefs in the context that they were tormenting
themselves. When I write that beliefs are limiting I am not only
referring to so called negative beliefs, but supposedly positive
beliefs as well.
Think of people you have met who consider themselves very
intelligent. Have you noticed how defensive these people often
are to admitting mistakes, or engaging in activities that
challenge their deeply held belief?

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 CHAPTERS
MR. "I CAN'T PISS IN PUBLIC"

An academic professor (yep, he sure fit the profile) called me to

help him with an embarrassing problem. He couldn't urinate in
a public bathroom! In fact he hadn't done so in thirty years. Not
only was it a very awkward problem, but a terribly time
consuming one. Imagine all the planning that went into not only
hiding his problem but also finding places to urinate where
people couldn't spot him, especially while traveling and
teaching. He further told me that he had never told anyone
about his problem, and that he had been to other
hypnotherapists but he couldn't be hypnotized.
Just based on this phone conversation I could easily
determine that he was one of those types that Virginia Satir
would call a "Computer." He spoke with a monotone voice,
using long sentences that never seemed to end, while never
using I, ala "I feel." Instead there were sentences like: "One could
think, a person might under the appropriate circumstance ... " and so
on.

The Professor's Session One

When I picked him up at the train station prior to our first

appointment, I nearly went into a laughing fit. He was exactly as
I had imagined him: looks, clothes, facial expression, just a
prototype of the academic professor portrayed humorously in

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movies. After we sat down in my office, he leaned back in his
chair, stroked his chin and initiated our conversation.
Alfred: One can easily get discouraged by all these untested
treatments. Are there any double blind studies confirming your
hypothesis?
J.0rgen: The only thing that is doubly blind here is you being a
fucking queer and not even knowing it yourself.
I did this to jolt him out of his detached analytical state, and it
worked. He went into shock first and then leaned forward with
a bewildered look on his voice
Alfred: What? NOOOOOf!!
J.0rgen: Come on man, it must be fairly obvious! You're afraid
of getting an erection around guys, but I think you already
know that deep inside.
I went on for a while arguing that he must be a repressed
homosexual, and that any psychologist could tell him that this
all came down to repressed wet-sex fantasies. This strategy,
adapted from Provocative Therapy author Frank Farrelly, involves
deliberately hallucinating some highly unlikely interpretation or
problem, has a tendency for clients to get really specific about
what their problem is really fast. It also has a tendency to elicit
self-assertiveness, humor, shock and confusion. At this stage
Alfred was mainly in shock followed by confusion, which was
exactly where I wanted him.
Shock ensured that he wouldn't go into his ordinary
analytical detached mode, and a state of confusion is great for
opening the door for new learning's. It's a great way to get
analyticals into hypnotic states. The simple reason for this is that
the more attached the client is to being a certain way/playing a
specific role, the more suggestible they will be when their
current pattern is interrupted.

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I then handed him a bottle of water and told him to drink it as
fast as he could. As soon as he did I started harassing him again
exclaiming: "Jesus Christ, can't you even drink a bottle of water
without simulating the movement of sucking someone's cock?"
Alfred started laughing nervously and had no idea as to how
to respond. Whatever expectations Alfred had before the
session, he certainly wasn't expecting this. I can tell you that for
sure. After a little while of this abuse, he started ranting and
raving about how wrong I was about my observations
desperately trying to convince me that he wasn't a homosexual
and that he didn't have repressed wet sex fantasies. The more he
did this the more emotional he got. The more he invested in
proving me wrong, the more commitment and compliance I got.
While waiting for all the water to take its toll, I told him that
a Neanderthaler would never have the problem he had. He
agreed. Therefore, I had him start moving like a Neanderthaler,
screaming, shouting, breathing and moving like a monkey. This
had the effect of radically shifting his state. We both cracked up
and had a lot of fun. Well, at least I had fun. Someone once told
someone else: "If you aren't going to enjoy your life, then I certainly
will enjoy it for you." I think that's a great philosophy applied to
clients.
Suddenly, he had to urinate and off to the bathroom we
went. For a while he just couldn't do it. He felt a tension in his
stomach. So, I used Bandler's rotating feeling technique that I
described earlier. He was still struggling and didn't quite get
into it, so I told him to just act as if.
In an attempt to make it more real for him, I asked him what
color the feeling would have if it had one. He answered gray. I
had him make the color yellow while he continued to rotate it
and VOILA he started urinating. This time while someone stood
next to him for the first time in thirty years. Since we had some

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momentum going, I decided to take him to a nearby hotel. We
repeated the same procedure with the same result.
To be honest, I don't know if the rotating feelings technique
was the straw that broke the camel's back here, or if it was just
the relief of escaping the harassment by urinating. Or maybe it
was the thought "I have to prove to this madman that I am not a
queer or sexual pervert by urinating in public." I view it as my job to
make it harder to keep a ridiculous symptom like this, than it is
to let it go. By making the therapy and tasks more severe than
the symptom, the easy choice becomes letting the problem go.
Keep in mind that he had never told anyone about his
problem even though his wife must have known somehow. I
gave him a homework pissing assignment. The assignment was
to recruit a friend, drink a lot of water and bring the friend to
some public place and urinate there. Frank was also to tell the
friend of the problem that he had been carrying inside all these
years.

The Professor's Session Two

He entered my office claiming that nothing much had changed.
When I enquired about his homework pis sing assignment, he
reported that he had done it twice and successfully urinated
both times. By now he had done something he hadn't done in
thirty years four times, twice with me standing around and
twice with two different friends.
J.argen: Sounds like an improvement to me.
Alfred: It certainly is, but on both occasions it took a couple of
minutes for me to urinate, but I can't stand around like this at
urinals. People might think I am screwed up!
J.argen: Afraid of showing your true colors Albert, still scared of
getting that erection aren't you?

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 Alfred: Absolutely notl I am a married man in case you haven't
noticed.
Jergen: Well, on paper you certainly are, but that ring won't
help you much when you get erections in urinals while it just
hangs there like a wet noodle when you're around your wife.
Perhaps I should send you to a gay bar, curious about that one
aren't you?
Alfred: I am not going there I
At this point we had good rapport and linked enough pain to
him keeping his problem that he accepted the ordeal I
suggested. The ordeal was that he had to go to a public place
and urinate every day. Before he went in, he had to drink
enough water so that he really had to go. He was to further
deliberately hold back from urinating exactly for two minutes. I
asked him to do this, since he had claimed that it always took
him a couple of minutes to urinate. I might as well have him do
it voluntarily and with intention. In addition to this, he was to
not leave until he had urinated, no matter how long it took. The
ordeal would end when he was satisfied that the problem was
solved. If he at any time started doing his problem again, it
would mean that he would have to go back to the ordeal.

The Professor's Session Three

When Albert entered my office for session three with yours

truly, he reluctantly admitted that he had made some
improvement, but the ordeal was hell and he couldn't live this
way. At this point I offered going into hypnosis as an easier
choice by telling him that I would free him from the ordeal if he
were to go into hypnosis with me. Unless he solved it during
hypnosis, he would have to go straight back to the ordeal.

145
After securing Albert's commitment, we went straight to work
using a rapid induction. I had him put his right hand on top of
mine while closing his eyes, instructed him to press down as
hard as he could for each number I counted. Then, at the same
time, I pulled my hand away, pushed his head back and yelled
sleep at the same time.
We then went straight into an eye lock test as a convincer for
hypnosis. I suggested that while he went deeper and deeper into
hypnosis, I would count from five down to one and at the count
of one, his eyes would be so heavy that the more he tried to
open them the more locked down they would become. He
passed the test and went into a pretty deep state.
As a side note, when I started working with clients I very
seldom did rapid or instant inductions. The few times I did
them I reserved them for people who were hypnotically gifted. I
assumed that they wouldn't work with the analyticals. I was
wrong. After viewing some videos of Stephen Parkhill, known
for his fantastic work with terminal illness, I started using them
with analyticals. To my surprise it worked a lot better than I had
ever imagined.
Back to my session with Albert ... Following the induction
and eye lock convincer I said the following:
Jorgen: You have a feeling inside that you don't like, a feeling
that has everything to do with you not being able to piss in
public ... You have tried avoiding the feeling, this time, it's time
to face it and deal with it ...
As I count from one to five that feeling grows as strong as it has
ever been ... let that happen, this is the perfect time and place ...
This was followed by a one to five count, suggesting that the
feeling that had everything to do with his pissing in public
problem grow more and more reaL

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 J9rgen: There is the feeling Albert, where in your body do you
feel it, and what do you feel.
Albert: NOTHING!
This is an amusing response to get after attempting to build a
strong feeling in his body. I didn't sense that his unconscious
was resisting. He was in deep hypnosis, and there was
something about the way he said "NOTHING."
Jergen: That's great Albert, because sometimes nothing is
something ... and as you continue to focus on the feeling of
nothing, I am going to count from ten to one, and at the count of
one, you're going to be back at an event that has everything to
do with the feeling of nothing.
To give credit where credit is due, I picked up this and the way
of regressing people back in time from Stephen Parkhill, who
further credits Jerry Kein for teaching him much of what he
knows about hypnotism. Parkhill and Kein are heavily
influenced by the late Dave Elman whose work has been very
useful for me and clients. For those of you who have only
studied Erickson, I promise that studying Elman will
complement your training in a superb way. After the ten to one
count that followed:
Jergen: First impressions, is it light or dark?
Albert: Dark
Jergen: Inside or outside?
Albert: Inside, and I am feeling totally numb?
After a few seconds Albert got very uneasy and blurted out:
"MY FATHER IS MOLESTING ME" as tears started going down
his cheek. Then, anger started coming to the surface.
Jergen: Float up above the event ... look down on it, and while
you're there... I want your unconscious to preserve the

147
 learning's from this event, so that you can let the negative
emotions go ... Remember, it's not repressed emotions from the
past that protect you, but the learning's.
Float so that you're at least fifteen minutes above and before
the event ... Turn around mentally and look towards NOW ...
What happened to those old emotions ... Are they GONE NOW?
He claimed to have released the emotions, and further claimed
that he had when I had him re-associate into the event.
However, his non-verbals told a very different story. His jaw
was tensed and tilted forward, fists clenched, lips thinner and
eye browns down. He was so repressed that even though his
nonverbal signs clearly suggested anger, he wasn't really in
touch with it.
This is one context where the traditional way of doing Time
Line TherapyTM is less useful. If the client is very dissociated to
begin with I would rather have them express it and own it
before letting it go. Therefore, we did Chair Therapy, where he
hallucinated his father in a chair in front of him and he really
told him off. After a while I would have him become the father,
then himself, alternating back and forth until we could reach a
state of forgiveness.
The forgiveness seemed genuine enough, although I wasn't
quite convinced. I had him release negative emotions on all
related events on his time line, did some testing and future
pacing by sending him out in bathroom scenarios in the future.
After Alfred opened his eyes he told me that he didn't know
that he had been molested, never even suspected it, and could
the information be trusted, had it all really happened?
At the time of this session I had done changework for eight
years, but I had never had anyone discover" abuse or
1/

molestation that they didn't already know about before the

session. I had always been very perplexed by all the people who

148
claimed to recover repressed memories of abuse after
discovering the molestation during hypnosis. Well, maybe not
that perplexed considering how many therapists use leading
language and questions during hypnotic regression.
My regressions (a better term would be reconstructions since
memory is largely a reconstruction process, where every time
you access a memory you change it forever) is totally non-
directive as the only questions I will ever ask are questions such
as: "Are you inside or outside? Alone or with people? What happens
next?" and so on.
I told Albert the truth. The simple fact is that I don't know,
and while hypnosis makes it easier to imagine and remember it
doesn't make the memories more accurate or reliable. We had a
long talk about false memory syndrome. Clients invent
memories of abuse as result of being asked leading questions by
a therapist who has often decided before the session starts what
they should be looking for ala: "This person has been abused, now
we need to find memories of the abuse. "
The therapist will often ask questions such as: "Can you feel
daddy becoming sexually aroused now that he is holding you?"
sometimes resulting in clients creating a "memory" of it, and
then they claim to have discovered abuse during hypnosis.
To be fair, you don't need formal hypnosis or hypnotic
regression for this phenomenon to take place. All you often need
is a vulnerable client in a state of confusion and a therapist who
digs for information in a leading way. While all of this is true, it
is also true that traumatic memories can be repressed and be
called forth later during hypnosis, and also outside of formal
hypnosis. In other words, it's possible to be abused, repress the
memory and have amnesia for years, and then later recall it.
However, having said that, even if a repressed memory of abuse
surfaces many years later, it doesn't necessarily mean that it

149
happened or that it happened that way. It's next to impossible to
find out how accurate the memory is.
This discussion helped Albert calm down, and I concluded
the session by saying: "I don't know if this abuse happened or not,
but we seemed to have resolved something very real to your
unconscious. If this emotional clearing helps you solve your problem,
then that's all that really matter isn't it?" Albert agreed.
I was disappointed when Albert came back and reported that
the hypnotic regression hadn't helped him at all. He was still
struggling while urinating in public. When clients report this, I
take it as an indication that we haven't found the first event that
the problem is connected to, or that we haven't quite resolved
the negative emotions from the memories that we worked with.
Another possibility is secondary gain, but I never start my
sessions with parts work anymore. I pretty much always
attempt to deal with the memories associated with the state that
drives the problem before doing any parts or secondary gain
work. So, there you have another trouble shooting tip from
yours truly. Activate the state that drives the symptom, illness
or behavior first. Use the state itself as an affect bridge back in
time until you find the very first memory / reconstruction. Then
help them reframe, relearn and let go of the old negative
emotions on all related events.
If you are convinced that you have done this, then there
might be something in the present that is reinforcing the
symptoms: some gain that they are getting out of it resulting in
them not being willing to heal up. At this point, parts work
might be in order. The only time I would start out with part
reframing is if some" part" was preventing us in doing the state
work to begin with.
Remember also that although there is some neurological and
physiological justification for the concept of parts, it still is a
concept and just a way to frame and talk about things. So, use

150
the concept if the client presents it by saying something to the
effect of: "Part of me wants to X and another part of me wants to Y."
But don't start believing in the concept of parts as many people
do. As John Grinder is fond of saying: "Working with parts can be
very useful until you start believing in it."
There is one more thing to keep in mind. You might have
resolved everything related to anger, but there might be another
emotion that still needs to be dealt with for complete resolution.
Another trance, another regression, and up came the same
notion of NOTHING, and we ended up in exactly the same
place in the same way. There was nothing earlier to be found,
there was no other emotion present: the whole thing seemed
pretty cleared up.
After redoing forgiveness and relearning, having him
experience himself and his experience of father, I had hoped that
we would have integrated whatever we needed to integrate. We
finished up with some rehearsal of him being relaxed and
confident in the future while urinating in public.
Albert knew that it was up to him to either resolve this
during the hypnosis, or go back to the ordeal and resolve it the
hard way. A couple of weeks later I got an SMS from Albert
where he wrote that he was terminating the therapy,
disappointed in the results. This was clearly one of those limited
therapeutic outcomes cases where some progress was made, but
we didn't achieve complete resolution.

Wisdom of Hindsight

So looking back on this experience, what the hell did I learn, if

anything? Reflecting back I should have just gone for the ordeal.
I would have made him keep it up until we got results, since
that was where he was making the progress. However, I sensed

151
that he wouldn't complete the ordeal. By offering trance at this
point he actually responded to it. I am very sure that he
wouldn't have done so during the first couple of sessions.
The reason I went for the regression is because I thought that
if we could activate the state that was driving the urination
problem, we could reframe all the memories connected to his
problem, thereby solving it. This is my preferred way of doing
changework.
You might be wondering why I didn't go for that to begin
with. The simple reason was that he wasn't ready. I did several
covert tests, but he just didn't respond. Therefore, my strategy
was to make trance the easy way out of a severe ordeal, or if he
wouldn't take it, have him resolve it by doing the ordeal.
In light of all this, I am not quite sure what I could have done
differently. At least we got some therapeutic gain, even if it
wasn't all that we were looking for. But I did learn one thing I
already knew: the importance of the client having a felt
experience of them creating the problem and a willingness to
own the problem. For those of you who do Gestalt Therapy
where Chair Therapy is common, there is a pit you could easily
fall into. When clients explode with anger and beat some pillow
to death, they are often not in touch with the anger at all. Quite
simply, just as some people repress emotions to the point where
they can't consciously feel them at all, some people escape
emotion by creating a lot of drama. While punching the pillows
and doing rage the client is no longer really feeling the emotion
and owning his experience. I am more than a little skeptical of
Chair Work. Encouraging people to emote, create drama, project
the emotion onto some dead relative and play victim while in
deep hypnosis is not a good idea. So, if you are going to use
Chair Work, then make sure that the client is feeling his
emotions, being present with it, and make sure that they don't
project it outwards. Even at the last session he kept talking

152
about how certain situations "made" him struggle with
urinating in public (at least he was now doing it).

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 CHAPTER 6
HARALD THE ASTHMATIC

Harald was a guy in his late forties who had a severe allergy to
cats as well as asthma. He wasn't really dissociated like many of
the rest of the people described in this chapter, but he was rather
skeptical about the whole thing.

Harald's Session One

In the first session he wanted to work on his allergy. We started

out with a basic hypnosis pre-talk (preparation for hypnosis),
designed to build his expectancy, commitment and erase
whatever fears or misconceptions he might have. Following the
pre-talk, we did a rapid induction followed by an attempt to
bring up the feeling that had everything to do with the allergy.
While we are on the subject of allergies, I should tell you that
I work with them in exactly the same way I would work with a
deep-rooted fear. I assume that allergies are just associations to
some traumatic event. As an example, someone experiences
intense grief and at the same time there is a lot of pollen in the in
the air. Many times this will result in an allergic reaction. Later
whenever there is pollen in the air the unconscious and immune
system will signal to get out of the situation by creating an
allergic reaction.
Despite that some people don't develop allergies, and some
things seem easy to develop allergies for (pollen, certain foods,
cat hair) while other things people don't, going for the emotion

155
behind the allergy and clearing it works wonders for
eliminating allergic responses.
In the past I would use Robert Diltls Allergy Cure, a pattern
where you use anchoring to retrain the immune system and Six-
Step Reframing as well to deal with secondary gains. I have a
very good success rate whenever the exact substance is known,
and there is one or just a couple of very concrete allergies.
Despite initial success, the number of people who recreated their
allergy at a later time was way too high, too high for a guy with
a "No Cure, No Pay Policy."
In addition to this, if someone came in with a bunch of
allergies and a burnt out immune system, I very seldom got any
results to speak of. This has changed dramatically using the
feeling behind the allergies as an affect bridge back in time to
reframe the memories it's connected to.
I must also add that my training in Time Line TherapyTM
didn't help me much here. While TLT often worked wonders
with issues where the emotion was known to the conscious
mind. The process can easily turn into an intellectual left-
brained type exercise, exactly the thing we want to avoid.
Back to our session with Harald and what happened after the
induction and eye lock test.
Jargen: You have a feeling inside that you don't like ... a feeling
that has everything to do with you developing your allergy for
cats and dogs ... you have tried running from it, drugging it
away ... this time it's time to face it.
After the now infamous one to five count.
Harald: I can't feel anything, it's blank.
This response seems similar to the one I got from Albert, but it
was actually quite different. Harald was in hypnosis, but
seemed to shut down or flatten out when I attempted to excite

156
the feeling behind the allergies. When this happens, as it does
from time to time, I will go for apart's reframe.
Jsrgen: Open your eyes, we need to talk ... cause you need to be
protected ... YOU, Harald's unconscious is trying to protect
Harald from pain by not letting him get in touch with the
emotions and memories that have everything to do with his
allergy. Your intent is good, but repressing these old emotions
aren't good for the body, and he can handle it.
He went through it once more and then he had far less resources
than he has now.
Jsrgen: .. .AND it's the learning's from those past events and
memories that protect him ... so by learning what you need you
will have all the protection you need. Will you, Harald
unconscious, support us in protecting Harald in a way that is
healthy and mature?
Harald was still in hypnosis and nodding along as I spoke, so I
knew his unconscious was onboard.
We re-did the induction and the one to five count, and up
came a strong feeling of sadness. After tracing the feeling back
in time, Harald ended up at age five in a scene where he found
his grandfather dead. After clearing the sadness from this
memory and all related memories his allergies cleared up.

Harald's Session Two

A couple of months later Harald came back for a second session.

He was amused and happy that his old allergy was gone. He
had tested it on a number of occasions and he had handled it
like a champ. No symptoms at all!
For this session Harald wanted to work on his asthma. The
fact that he had let go of the allergies had opened his mind for

157
the possibility that perhaps we could do something with the
asthma as well. Harald had always viewed asthma as a physical
problem, but when he reflected back he could see a
psychological component.
As an example, every time he went cycling he would bring
an inhaler with him and keep it in his pocket. Despite feeling
fine when cycling, if he discovered that he had forgot to bring
his inhaler, that discovery would be enough to trigger an
asthmatic attack.
This information gave me the perfect opening and an ideal
context to help him create an asthmatic attack in my office. My
strategy for dealing with asthma is a little bit different than
dealing with allergies. When doing allergy work I am looking to
activate the feeling inside that has everything to do with the
allergies. The difference with asthma is that my goal is to have
them create an asthma attack and use the asthma itself as an
affect bridge back in time to find out what it's connected to.
Having said that, I have also noted that allergies often seem
to trigger asthma. Therefore, clearing up the allergies has made
it so that many of my clients have been able to quit asthma
medication and be free of the symptoms, all of this without
addressing the asthma directly.
However, this was not the case with Harald evidenced by the
fact that his allergies were gone, but the asthma was still there.
Quite amusingly, the exact same thing happened that happened
the last time. After a rapid hand drop induction into hypnosis I
had him remember a time when he couldn't find the inhaler. I
had him step into the image and make it bigger and brighter,
turn the volume up and suggested that an asthmatic attack
would build up as I counted from one to five. Nothing
happened. Just like what happened the last time initially. I just
had him open his eyes and used the exact same parts reframe.

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We then re-did it and this time he went into a VERY strong
asthmatic attack. This time he ended up back at age eighteen,
which was when he had his first asthmatic attack. He had been
driving a car that he had borrowed from someone and was in
rush hour traffic with no possibility of getting out of the car. He
had a cold and a flu and felt his allergy come on quite strongly.
It turned out that a car filled with dog hair and a severe cold
was not a good combination. He started having a hard time
breathing, panicked and developed an asthma attack.
We attempted to regress him further back in time, but we
ended up in the exact same memory in the car time and time
again. Seems like we had cleared up the rest during the allergy
work we did. We then reframed the memory and all related
memories in the usual way.
After some testing we re-did the rapid induction and
attempted to create an asthmatic attack again. This time he
couldn't do it. Before we did it I asked his unconscious to
recreate the asthma if there was more stuff to clear, and to not
create asthma if we were done. This was quite a convincer for
his conscious mind. Thirty minutes earlier he had created an
asthma attack in my office using his own mind, and now he
couldn't do it.
He left my office quite convinced that something must have
happened. This felt experience is so very important in doing
changework. As soon as a client emotionally gets that he can
choose to create an asthmatic attack, he can choose not to create
it again.
It's not enough usually for many clients to be told that they
are choosing their symptoms. They need the felt experience of
creating it and then choosing not to create it. As an example, I
recently worked with a very analytical guy who struggled with
a lot of fear issues and panic attacks. He had done a lot of
therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, through which

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he had learned to challenge his distorted thinking patterns. He
had also challenged himself by exposing himself to the different
contexts where he would feel the fear. As soon as he entered my
office I told him the following:
"You have learned to challenge your thinking and you have
challenged yourself by doing the different things you fear doing.
That is very good! You theoretically know how to think, BUT
you still feel the fear. The result of this is that you are logically
thinking one thing while feeling very different, as if the thoughts
you have learned to think don't really affect how you feel. So,
you have gained a lot by knowing that you can handle yourself
despite the fear and you do it, but it still feels like a strain to do
it. True or false?"
He lit up like a Christmas tree and said: "That's exactly it!"
Dear reader, do you see where this is going?
I further asked him if he had ever felt fear in the therapy office
while working on his distorted thinking. The answer quite
predictably was "NO." I then told him that for therapy to be
effective the fear needed to be activated in his body while
challenging his thinking patterns.
It's a bit like self-defense training and martial arts. Not only
are most of the techniques ineffective, but in most schools and
systems, the training sucks as well. It sucks because the training
is done in a controlled environment of calm and cooperation
with no stress, adrenaline or fear. As a result, the practitioners
get really good at doing their stuff in that environment.
However, skills practiced in a choreographed way in a
controlled environment doesn't prepare you for the shock,
adrenaline rush, breathing problems and savage energy of a
sociopath committed to taking your head off. You will be quite

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lucky if there is any transfer of skill between the states you are
in and the state you will be in while in a real encounter.
For the skills to be available during high stress, the
techniques needs to be practiced in that state, in a simulation as
close to reality as you can possibly get. The same thing goes for
changework. The fear needs to be activated while you challenge
the distorted thinking. If you can do that, then you get results.
Jens (the guy from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
understood and I told him that we would get spectacular results
by doing the work while he felt fear in his body. To be fair his
former therapist had attempted to get him in touch with the fear
by doing different imagery techniques, but the guy was just too
analytical.
After a quick conscious/unconscious dissociation, I
explained to his unconscious what we were about to do. His
involuntary head nodded showing that the boss was onboard.
With a super-analytical like Jens, don't do progressive relaxation
inductions or imagery inductions. It's not that these clients can't
go into hypnosis, it's just that they don't respond well to the
standard relaxation stuff where people are told to relax a zillion
times and then to imagine different things. Sadly, these
inductions are the only tools many hypnotherapists have in
their toolbox.
Instead we used a rapid hand drop induction, it's short and
sweet and doesn't give those goddamn analyticals time to
analyze anything. Jens went right into a deep hypnotic state and
in this state we created a severe panic attack and regressed right
off of it to reframe the state-dependent memories. Since Jens was
very much a perfectionist who had to do things perfectly, he
was tasked to go out and do five things obviously wrong before
the next session. He was to be an absolute perfectionist when
doing his screw ups so that no one could even suspect that he
was screwing things up on purpose.

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We later did another session and when I last heard from he was
doing great. Oh, in case you thought I had forgotten about
Harald, I haven't. He sent me an SMS that night. He had been
cycling without medication or an inhaler, and to his surprise
there were no symptoms.

Harald's Session Three

About six months went by before I heard from Harald again.

When he called me he was quite fatigued after working long
hours with little time off for some time. He had a cold and flu
symptoms and had experienced those for a couple of weeks.
During this period of fatigue and flu symptoms his allergy had
started emerging again, as well as his asthmatic symptoms. The
symptoms were very mild, maybe fifteen to twenty percent of
what they used to be. Before we started the session Harald
agreed to take some time off and agreed to meditate twice a day
for at least two weeks.
I told Harald that he had done a great job in healing, and that
there was something left inside ... unresolved ... which had
everything to do with these symptoms reemerging. Another
rapid induction, another regression and this time he ended up
back at some stuff in his late teens. We cleared it out the usual
way, and after this session Harald's symptoms disappeared
again. When I last heard from there was no allergy and no
asthma.
This case is an example of the fact that when a symptom
comes back, it's not a failure. It's best to just view it as
something in life has triggered something that's unresolved and
needs to be dealt with inside the person. All you need to do is
activate whatever states that are driving the symptoms until
there is nothing left to drive the symptoms.

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 CHAPTER 7
A CASE OF SEVERE TINNITUS

Gabriel called me on the phone after reading about a successful

allergy cure I had done live for the local newspaper. His
complaint was constant and very often severe tinnitus. He had
developed tinnitus about ten years prior to calling me right after
going of the antidepressants that his doctor had told him to take.
He had taken these to cope with a couple of panic attacks he had
experienced at work.
I probed for what had happened in his life in the period
before he had his panic attacks, but Gabriel didn't give me
anything. As a matter of fact the whole idea that there was some
connection between what he had been doing at the time and his
panic attacks was a notion that he had never really entertained.
Obviously, Gabriel was no believer in what I was doing, but he
was desperate enough to try pretty much anything at this point.
The first session was a "disaster". When working with
tinnitus I do a rapid induction and excite the feeling they have
inside that has everything to do with the tinnitus. Same old stuff
as I do with allergies, asthma or any other presenting problem
they might have. Tinnitus is a tough one. I have had a couple of
so-called "spontaneous remissions." Most of the time I have
been able to help clients make improvement, sometimes major
other times minor. I don't have a lot of experience with tinnitus
and most of the successes have occurred when people have seen
me for something else, often some fear-based issue. When we
clear that they spontaneously improve the tinnitus.

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Gabriel resisted the hand drop induction, as well as confusion
inductions and metaphor inductions. He wouldn't bring up any
feelings. He obviously didn't regress back in time, and claimed
that he couldn't make pictures at all.
For those of you who have studied Elman style hypnosis, the
answer is "Yes." I had done a long hypnosis pre-talk designed to
build expectancy and eliminate any misconceptions and fears,
but without any result. I felt that the session was so bad that I
told Gabriel that I wouldn't be able to help him. I told him to
leave and not pay me.
Gabriel begged me to help him with tears in his eyes:
"Couldn't we do something?" I liked Gabriel. He seemed sincere
and honest, but he just didn't respond. I thought to myself:
"Bloody hell, why not?" I want to help the guy and even though I
am totally stuck I might learn something.
A couple of weeks before I saw Gabriel I had worked with
another super analytical named Arne who wanted me to help
him cure his allergies and asthma. Same story, just a different
name. Despite my best efforts I wasn't able to get a workable
state of hypnosis or the attention of his unconscious at all. So, I
decided to do something different. I placed a piece of paper on
the floor. I further told Arne to see himself over there in the
strongest memory of an asthma attack he had ever had. Arne
was good at making pictures so he followed along. I then had
him physically step over onto the piece of paper, close his eyes
and associate into the memory. Of course, the intent here is to
have him produce an asthmatic attack. As you might imagine,
nothing happened at all.
If you have been to a New Code NLP seminar (detailed
instructions on New Code follows in the next chapter) with John
Grinder, you will recognize that we just did step one and two of
the New Code Change Format. Let me give you a quick trouble-
shooting tip. After having the client select a troubling context

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(Step One), and then step into the hallucinated context (Step
Two), if the client doesn't get pretty strongly in touch with the
feelings in Step Two, then you don't have anything.
I told Arne that we would do a game. It's called the Alphabet
Game (more on this Game in the next chapter) and the intent of
the game is to create a high performance state where the
unconscious can select the proper resources for the context the
client has selected.
Step Three is to have the client reenter the selected context
while in the high performance state. If done correctly the high
performance state will be linked to the sensory representations
that used to trigger the old problem.
You need to keep two things in mind here. The quality of the
state you produce during the game will determine the quality of
the intervention. Also, the more real you can make the
hallucinated context for the client, in other words, the stronger
the feeling, and the greater the change.
Arne was an athlete so he was able to produce a pretty
decent high performance state. Actually, I like the term "Flow
State" a lot better so from here on forward I am going to use that
term. Before he started playing the game, I told him that the
intention when he reentered the context was to make the context
as real as possible. In other words, to produce an asthmatic
attack. If we can't do that, then we don't have much.
This time he produced a mini asthmatic attack as he
reentered the context. I suggested that the feeling would get
stronger as I counted from one to five, and then we used the
mini asthma attack as an affect bridge back in time to find the
first event that it was connected to. Notice that I am saying
connected to, not caused by. Big difference!
He ended up reconstructing something from age four. We
did the usual stuff to help him heal up. When Arne came back
for session two he told me that he still had asthma and allergies,

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but that the allergies hadn't been quite as severe as they used to
be. The asthma had been a little bit better as well.
I asked him when he had experienced the strongest
symptoms during the week that had gone by between the
sessions. Same old stuff, we spatially anchored the context to a
place on the floor, did the Alphabet Game until he was in a
good flow state, then sent him back into the context. His chest
tightened as his breath became more constricted. We regressed
of it back in time and ended up at the same place. That's a sure
sign that we hadn't quite resolved the stuff that we had dealt
with the last time.
I never heard from Arne after this session so I have no idea
what the results were. If I were to guess I would predict some
improvement, but nothing close to a remission or cure.
Still, I was excited about what we had done. Never before
had I thought to use a New Code Game to set up a hypnotic
regression, especially for a guy who was totally unresponsive.
Since this session I have used New Code Games to set up
regressions a few times and more often than not. It has worked
out just fine. I had just learned another tool to handle my
beloved analyticals. Believe me, whenever I discover that, I am a
happy camper indeed.
As you might imagine I gave this a shot with Gabriel as well,
but nothing. Sometimes movement and games that activate the
person's physiology is a great way to a workable state with
people who just won't respond to a "mental" approach, but
Gabriel would have none of it. He just didn't go into a workable
flow state using the Alphabet Game or the NASA Game
(another new code game presented in the next chapter). So, I
told him to go home and practice the Alphabet Game hoping
that some practice, especially in a context where he didn't have
to perform, would help him to get more into it. In case you got
your hopes up, it didn't.

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Since I had absolutely no idea what to do to help this guy out,
my frustration grew. In the preceding days and then, suddenly,
in the middle of a meditation, an idea popped up: "Why not have
him model someone who is good at hypnosis?"
My sister was home on vacation from her biology studies so I
had her help me out. I have used her as an actor a few times
with clients and she is quite good at hypnosis as well. Therefore,
I hypnotized her to hypnotize him when he came in the next
time. While Karine (my sister) waited in another room I
attempted to hypnotize Gabriel again knowing that he would
resist everything I did, but that was exactly what I wanted him
to do anyway. I wanted all his resistances linked to me and to
the chair he sat in. Then after a while I had him shift to another
chair while Karine came into the room in a deep trance. Could
he resist being hypnotized by a young attractive woman already
in a trance feeling good?
She matched and mirrored him with the intent of pulling him
into her trance. She would match his breathing rate and then
slowly slipped into a trance, the intent being for him to follow
her.
Gabriel started responding but just a little bit, nothing major,
but some small signs that he was responding somewhat. This
told me that it was time for some fractionation. In case you don't
know by fractionation I mean inducing hypnosis, bringing the
person out of hypnosis and then immediately back into a
hypnotic state.
I instructed Gabriel in matching Karine's physiology
including facial expressions, breathing, posture and so on. While
Gabriel did this I asked Karine about previous trance
experiences. Questions like: "Where were you? What was going on?
What was the first signal you got from yourself that let you know you
were GOING INTO TRANCE .. ? And then what happens as you go
even deeper .. ?"

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By searching for the information Karine would go into trance,
and he would follow very slightly. I would then talk a little bit
fluff bringing Karine out of trance. After a little while I would
ask about previous trance experiences again, and as a result she
would reenter trance a little bit deeper than the last time.
We did this fractionation, bringing her in and out of trance, a
little bit deeper every time for about an hour. She ended up in a
deep hypnotic state while he was in what you could call a light
hypnotic state. Following this Gabriel was given a task. He was
to find people who were good at getting absorbed into
experiences, the people who really got into movies, books and
daydreaming. Gabriel was further instructed to have these
people relieve these experiences while he matched their
physiology. The intent here was for Gabriel to model the skill of
being able to get absorbed into experiences, especially internal
experience. To do this I also taught him to ask specifying
questions, more specifically: "Which specifically?" for nouns and
"How specifically?" for verbs.
Gabriel carne back a month later and reported that he had
improved in his ability to get absorbed in experiences. This was
a guy who in the first session told me that he never daydreamed
and now he had even done a little bit of that. My goal for
Gabriel with all this modeling was to develop his ability to do
imagery to the point where he could create some new
synesthesia patterns. Specifically, I was looking for him to turn
the sound into a picture or movie, then changing the
submodalities of the movie to affect the tinnitus.
First of all I helped him elicit his social panorama. I got this
idea from a book named "Social Panoramas" by a Lucas Derks.
Derks' idea is that we represent! construct the people in our
lives visually and that it's where we place these pictures
spatially in this panorama that determines how we feel about
them.

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I had Gabriel imagine that he was in the center and that around
him were the people important to him. He was asked: "Where do
you see your wife? Your daughter? Your son?" and so on including
people he liked, were neutral about and even people he disliked.
Of course, he felt that he was just making all this stuff up, but
something very funny happened when I had him push pictures
of his wife and kids far off into the distance.
He suddenly reacted emotionally. Suddenly he had an
experience of intentionally changing how he felt by shifting an
internal image. When he pulled the pictures of his dear family
members closer again, he once again felt a significant shift in
how he felt.
Another troubleshooting tip from yours truly: If you want to
train someone to create strong synesthesias (in this case create a
feeling based upon an image) use something that's likely to
trigger an emotional response. Instead of using the standard
stuff of having someone imagine that they are walking on the
beach or hiking in the woods, go for the social panorama. Once
you know who is important to them and where they are placed
spatially, have fun and have them attempt to put a person they
dislike in the place reserved spatially for a loved one. They
won't do it! The whole thing will suddenly become very real to
them. As I did this with Gabriel, his beloved wife was straight in
front of him. When I had him push her away off into the
distance he experienced an immediate state shift.
If it isn't already obvious the reason I recommend going for
the social panorama is because nothing triggers emotions more
than close family and loved ones, unless they experienced some
intense trauma on the beach or in the woods. But we are not
looking for trauma here, we are looking for comfort in directing
internal experience as well as creating more neurological choice.
This is also a covert way of asking for "Yes" and "No" signals
from the unconscious. At the same time as he becomes aware of

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his own signals you can calibrate them while they experience
the "Yes" and "No" signal.
This has another subtle benefit as well. In my experience
almost all problems clients see me for are related somehow with
their close relationships. So, when there is a shift in the social
panoramas, be aware of nonverbal shifts and increase or
decrease in symptoms when you manipulate the images and
their position.
I have had several clients who suddenly noticed the
relationship between some symptom and their relationships. By
moving images around the symptoms have gone up or down.
This not only gives insight, but choice as well.
No such thing happened with Gabriel. Nothing we did with
his social panorama impacted his tinnitus one way or the other.
However, now he had a felt experience of having some choices.
THAT is a big key to successful changework in my opinion.
Our next step was for Gabriel to close his eyes and go into a
state of focused attention and tune into his tinnitus. When I
asked him to rate his tinnitus on a scale from one to ten, he
answered six.
I followed up with asking Gabriel: "If that sound in your head
was a picture ... what would it look like?" He started constructing
an image of a grinding saw. He was further asked what that
grinding saw looked like. The submodalities of the movie and
the sounds accompanying the movie were elicited.
This is a great strategy for pain control in case you were
wondering. If you can get them to create an image of the pain
their no longer stuck in their feelings. Then you can alter the
picture and thereby effect the feelings again. When I had him
make the picture of the saw smaller and experimented with
adjusting the auditory submodalities there was no change in the
tinnitus.

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In a last desperate attempt to make something happen I asked
him which internal eye he was seeing the saw through. He
paused for a little while before saying: "My right eye."
He was told to slowly... in a way that was comfortable to
him ... to shift his attention over to the other internal eye and
notice what it looked like from there. VOILA another state shift
and a reduction in the tinnitus from six to three on his
discomfort scale took place.
To conclude the session, he was tasked with practicing what
we had just done and he was taught how to meditate with the
instruction to mediate for fifteen minutes twice a day.
Once again it's important for me to give credit where credit is
due. I got the idea to switch the internal eye from a book called
The Other Minds Eye by Al Sargent. I have no idea how accurate
this idea of another internal eye is, but in this case and a few
others it has proved to be a useful concept. That's all that really
matters!
We met a few weeks later to do another session, but for some
strange reason Gabriel was never able to replicate what he did
in that wonderful previous session where he was able to lower
the volume on his tinnitus. Despite this, however, he claimed
that there was some minor general improvement.
Since then Gabriel was in a home accident and later had some
flue type symptoms, which increased the sound on the tinnitus.
Nothing we did had any effect on the tinnitus whatsoever. I
called Gabriel's wife after the session with the proposal that she
meet me to learn how to hypnotize Gabriel while he was asleep.
Gabriel agreed to this intervention, as it seemed as a great way
to bypass his conscious mind and directly access the
unconscious. As far as I know she succeeded in attaching
hypnosis to sleep once, but nothing spectacular came out of it.
At this point Gabriel is on my mind as I am trying to figure
out what to do next. Even though the results here weren't too

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impressive, I learned a lot. Whenever I get a new idea I know
that Gabriel will be eager to test it out. Gabriel was also the first
client of mine who did a disciplined modeling project with the
intent to learn how to go into a workable state of hypnosis.
Undoubtedly, Gabriel improved his ability to go into
hypnosis, got better at being absorbed in an experience, got in
touch with his feelings better and improved in his ability to
make internal images in consciousness. Having said that, he
never got close to a deep hypnotic state. Another disappointing
factor is that once he stopped doing the modeling he seemed to
lose the skills he gained from doing it pretty fast. I have heard
that this often happens with others who have undergone
training programs to improve their ability to go into hypnosis.
They improve, but seem to pretty much lose it all after the
training is done. Admittedly, this is a mystery to me and I have
no good answer or explanation to offer for this strange
phenomena.

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 CHAPTER 8
WHEN NOTHING WORKS

So, what do you do when nothing works? Well, if you haven't

got client commitment, you do what you can to build that or
you let them go. If the client is committed and after you have hit
them with everything including the kitchen sink, probably
frustrated as hell, then it's time for a severe ordeal. In my
opinion, the whole point in ordeals is to make it harder for the
client to keep his symptom than to let it go.

The Girl Who Wouldn't Close Her Eyes

Jenny was a sixteen-year-old girl who wanted to get relief from

a number of different phobias and a general sense of anxiety
and low levels of confidence. While she claimed that she wanted
relief, she was at the same time very passive aggressive. No
matter what I said or did she would apparently comply, but at
the same time not quite do it.
Her most severe phobia was to lie down on her back. It didn't
matter if it was on a bed, a couch, the beach or anything else, a
strong feeling of terror would rush through her body. She had a
few other phobias as well, but this was the most intense.
You're probably wondering if she had been raped or sexually
molested in some way, but she claimed that nothing traumatic
had ever happened in any of the contexts where she did her
phobia. Her story is that she had been on a boat trip on the lake
with her family one day. Everything was fantastic but suddenly
out of the blue a strong panic attack exploded in her body.

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I have heard many similar stories throughout the years where
people claim no connection between their symptoms and how
they life their life, but then once they go into deep hypnosis a
VERY different story ensues. I had no doubt that the same thing
would happen to Jenny, but I couldn't even get her to close her
eyes for more than a couple of seconds! When I asked her to
close her eyes, even after a hypnotic pre-talk, she would almost
instantly open them claiming that an uncontrollable fear entered
her body as soon as she closed her eyes.
During the next hour I did my best to utilize her weird
behavior by instructing her to continue to keep those eyes open
as she started at a point. She was instructed to fight fatigue and
to not CLOSE THOSE EYES, no matter how tired they got. The
embedded command to close those eyes was mentioned again
and again while I told her different metaphors about
overcoming fear and a few other things. After a very long time
her eyes closed and I attempted to use her fear as an affect
bridge back in time. It soon became very obvious that she wasn't
going to release anything in the office, at least not that day.
Before the next session a few days later I got a phone call
from her rather skeptical mother who was concerned if I knew
what I was doing. Despite knowing a former client whom I had
helped totally turn her life around and who had recommended
me, the mother was concerned that since I had a reputation as a
very brief therapist, her daughter's self-esteem might be
damaged if she didn't change quickly. The mother further told
me that her daughter didn't like me much, felt like resisting me,
and hadn't improved at all since the session.
That the girl had a lot of resistance towards me could be
utilized. She was clearly extremely stubborn. These were all
factors to consider in creating a strategy to help her out. Another
factor to consider was that she was seeing a psychologist for all
these issues. The psychologist had told her that change took a

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lot of time. The fact that she adored her psychologist and
believed in her so strongly made it foolish to directly challenge
the psychologist's idea. A quick analysis made three things
obvious to me.
1. Her resistance towards quick changes and me would
have to be utilized somehow.
2. Her stubbornness would be an ideal resource to utilize
to help her get over her fear over an acceptable time
frame.
3. She was going to do the change on her own.
Since she resisted formal techniques and wouldn't change in the
office, my job was to ensure that the problem turned out to be
harder to keep than let go by using an ordeal. As Jenny walked
into my office for her second session I started ordering her
around. I further told her that I had an idea that would help
only very determined people to solve problems like the ones she
had, and that I would get back to it later. This was done to build
suspense and response potential.
We went straight into the New Code Change Format (more
on the format later) but with the intent to fail. I knew that Jenny
wanted to defeat me, and I wanted all her resistance linked to
my office and me. We didn't need to use an imagery context
since lying down on my couch on her back was enough to
trigger intense fear. After having done so, she was instructed in
playing the Alphabet Game. The whole idea was to create a high
performance, or flow state if you will, and then link that state to
the context where she did her problem.
As I had predicted she sabotaged her own attempts to create
a flow state. After she had worked on it for some time I had her
reenter the couch on her back. I acted as if I really believed that
we had cleared her fear and done a wonderful job by putting

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myself into a very enthusiastic physiology. She was absolutely
delighted to crank up her fear, proving that she had defeated
her prick therapist and shattering to pieces my overt expectation
that the technique would work. It was easy to see that she very
much enjoyed this. I directed her to another part of the room
with the words: "That stuff I tried over there clearly didn't work." I
took full responsibility for her therapeutic failure, admitted
defeat and fully acknowledged that none of my quick-change
tricks had worked.
Since she now felt significant and I had given (by admitting
defeat), it was now her turn to give something back. I had also
given her a couple of hints during the session that there was a
solution to her problem, but only for the very determined. The
identity of being determined and stubborn was a very strong
one. Now we had enough leverage to utilize it to create change.
Jenny was told that the solution for the very determined was
not illegal, immoral or fattening, but really required some
stubbornness. She was also told that I needed her commitment
before I told her exactly what it was. Before I asked for her
commitment I played the devil's advocate by doubting that she
really had it in her to complete the assignment, that maybe she
was all talk and no show.
When I got her commitment I told her that I wanted her to lie
down in bed every night turning towards her back as far as she
could. She claimed that she always slept on her side or on her
stomach. While partly on her back she was to lie there for
exactly thirty minutes. She was to use a stopwatch and maintain
a position where she felt fear. Another part of the ordeal was to
draw how her fear would look like if it was an image, a picture
or a movie with plots and characters. Her task was to continue
this religiously every night until the problem was resolved.
Before she left the office she also agreed to give me a call every
two weeks to give an update on how she was progressing.

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Well, you guessed it: she defeated me again by resolving her
fears. She religiously followed the ordeal and it took her five
months to get a complete resolution. All the other fears shifted
automatically as she eliminated her main fear. Why did this
work?
1. She got to defeat me once again (by changing). For an
insecure and stubborn teenager with a lot of resistance,
defeating a prick therapist twice and solving her
problem is a pretty good deal!
2. The ordeal utilized her determination and model of the
world about change taking time. In this way she did the
change on her own terms.
3. Having to draw pictures for half an hour in an awkward
position for thirty minutes every night made it a lot
easier to let go of her problem than to keep it.
In addition to this it might have taken her five months to
readjust her identity and learn to satisfy her needs in other
ways. Perhaps the drawings helped her in addition to getting
her out of her feelings and into another rep system, to
metaphorically solve whatever conflicts were the source of the
fear to begin with.
In closing, it's natural to think that the disciplined constant
desensitization and exposure to her fear helped her overcome it
as well. For those of you that might think that it was all about
desensitization, this method had been attempted with her
psychologist in the past with no effect whatsoever. One more
thing, if you as an agent of change can allow yourself to be
flexible enough to fail to succeed, then you can help some clients
do some wonderful stuff. As you can see from this and other
cases in this book, ordeals are a major key to the work I do. Let
me give my preferred using ordeals with clients.

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First of all, they are best done as a last resort. It's beneficial that
the client's pain levels are amped up a bit, the more frustrated
the better. You absolutely need commitment. High levels of pain
associated with the unwanted behavior are most often a great
way of ensuring that. Having said that, here is a general
formula.
1. Clearly Define The Unwanted Behavior Or Symptom
Your goal here is to identify when they do this behavior, as well
as how they do it, and with whom they do it. But don't stop
there, what's the payoff? What are they getting out of doing
this?
2. Create the Ordeal
It's important that the ordeal be severe enough to overcome the
symptom. The whole idea is to have them commit to doing
something that makes it a lot easier to let go of the symptom
than keeping it. My goal is to have the ordeal structured in such
a way that it eliminates the need to have the problem by taking
away the presuppositions, frames and social role necessary to
have the problem. If you think back to Martin the Handshaker,
the guy who experienced involuntary shaking of his hands
whenever he did used them in front of other people. There were
two things he did that I utilized to create the ordeal
1. His verbal statement: "I am afraid of how others
perceive me when they see me shake like an idiot."
2. His mismatching tendencies. When I told him to relax he
tensed up.
When he wrote the large poster: "LIVE ENTERTAINMENT!"
offering a free laugh at his expense in the cafeteria at a specified
time, he had changed his own frame of reference. There was

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little need to worry about what others would think, which I
always translate to: "What will I think?"
He had now framed the experience as a humorous one. I also
knew that he feared people laughing beforehand, but by
framing it like this, there was no problem at all. In addition to
this, in the past he had tried to suppress the shake, which made
it worse. It was clear that if I could get him to voluntarily do it,
there would be no fear or stress around if it would happen
involuntarily. By having him agree to increase the shaking if it
occurred, I was very sure that he would mismatch me by
turning it down. This ordeal effectively eliminated two
conditions necessary for the problem to exist.
Some people recommend designing ordeals that are
interesting and rewarding for a client, and this can certainly be
useful. At the same time, never underestimate the power of
pain. I prefer to either take away the conditions necessary for
the problem to exist as in the above example, or scare them in
another direction. The guy I threatened to expose as a
homosexual in front of a crowd to get him into a store would be
an example of a task based on this principle.
If there is any obvious secondary gain connected with the
unwanted symptom, the ordeal should be designed to eliminate
that as well. Let's take a look at how this can be done. It's time
to meet a former client of mine, a snotty and arrogant vice
principal at a high school.

Meet Thomas: The Vice Principal Everyone Hated

Thomas wanted me to help him to get rid of an intense fear of

public speaking. This fear was especially crippling when he
spoke in front of so called equals or people higher up on the
hierarchy, like the principal. When I asked him if he ever felt

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any fear when he spoke in front of the students, he rolled his
eyes and coldly uttered: "Not at alll" He further stated that he
didn't respect the students whatsoever. After all, they were
further down in the hierarchy than he was.
At this point I decided to do the world a favor, including his
students, himself, and even myself to be blunt. Those were the
types of teachers I used to hate when I went to high school.
What gift to get a client like this and get paid on top of it all!
Jergen: Thomas, you are an arrogant piece of shit! You know it
and I know it. Of course you should fear people getting to know
the real you. And they just might if you expose yourself. Would
anyone like the real you? HELL NO! I sure as hell don't and I
am pretty sure that no one else would either.
Thomas: Come on now ...
}0rgen: No, you come on! Cause it's a hell of a lot worse than
that. You know that you are arrogant, but you didn't know that
you are just a simple coward and a bully did you?
Thomas: Huh?
Jergen: Maybe you thought that you needed big muscles and to
shove people around physically to be a bully?
You're being a bully by hiding, by not truly offering what
you have. Here other people give their all and you hold back
because you don't have the guts to participate. You claim to
respect these people, but it's all about you and your lack of self-
respect. You reject them before they get a chance to reject you.
Of course, it's even worse. You're teaching your students the
same hypocritical values where image and not being rejected is
the ultimate goal. As a result, one never really contributes
anything of value and life becomes passionless and joyless.
You are a vice principal who teaches incompetence and
hypocrisy, while claiming to be about learning and growth. Can
you get any lower? I bet you get angry whenever some
independent student challenges your knowledge and authority,

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 because maintaining you identity and status as important and
perfect is more important than the students learning. So, you
punish by giving bad grades, but you reward the students who
suck up to you!
Thomas was stunned as I went on like this for probably twenty
minutes, never letting him even get in a word. I didn't do this
stuff humorously at all as I often do when I provoke clients. No,
I was dead serious, spoke straight from the heart and was very
confrontational.
Thomas had already paid me for the session and had agreed
on the phone to do whatever I told him. So, I had some
anticipation and a lot of commitment going. I knew that he was
a super left brainer, so I wasn't going to even bother with any
hypnosis or standard NLP techniques.
I also knew that the principal was celebrating his birthday the
week thereafter, and that a lot of the people Thomas respected
and would deeply fear speaking in front of would be present.
J0rgen: There is only one way for you to solve this and make it
all right. I want you to write a letter to all the teachers at the
school. I want you to apologize for being an arrogant bully all
those years. I want you speak at the principal's birthday as well,
and when you do, I want you to repeat the apology. Further, I
want you to deliver all the letters in person.
During the next few days, Thomas' fear increased more and
more in his body, until it went over his threshold to a point
where he got tired of feeling it. He just couldn't take it anymore.
When he biked around to deliver the letters in person, he
discovered that the recipients of the letter were very surprised
and they pretty much all had a good laugh.
When the big day finally arrived, he did exactly what I had
instructed him to do. He even told people: "Not yet... I am not
scared enough yet ... " when they first requested he give his

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speech. Thomas told them that he felt that he deserved to suffer
more before he took center stage.
He eventually spoke, admitted to being afraid, but for some
strange reason not as scared as he used to be. After describing
what happened in his body and how he really felt, he
apologized for being a bully all those years. The people present
easily identified with him, and he got loads of pleasant laughs
combined with a standing ovation and tremendous support.
Thomas told me the day after that it had felt as if a huge
weight had been lifted of his shoulders. He was also extremely
surprised at the tremendous support he had gotten. I had
expected this and hoped that this would install a strong positive
anchor associated with public speaking. The thing that
surprised him the most however was that he really wasn't that
fearful at all. However, a few days later he called and asked me:
"What about next time, what do I do then?"
I told him just to apologize again if he acted like a bully
again. I also asked him to read a book that would teach him to
challenge his own thinking patterns. He refused both tasks.
I don't have any long-term feedback regarding this guy. He
knows what to do if the fear is ever a problem again, but maybe
he has decided that maintaining a perfect image is the most
important thing after all. Clearly, he has the choice.
I build anticipation by telling clients early in the session that I
have an idea that is guaranteed to work, but let's get back to that
a little later. The more painful and severe the symptom, the
easier it is to get commitment. On top of this, the more you get
them to invest in the changework the better. As an example,
when I work with smokers, one of the things I require them to
do is to write down every cigarette they smoke the week before
they see me. They are required to write down the exact time,
what they were doing as they lighted up and what they felt in
their body right before smoking. If they fail to do this I will rip

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their list to pieces in front of them and throw them out of the
office!
Most will choose to come back despite the harsh treatment.
When they do come back you can bet that they have a solid list
and their commitment level has gone up. The majority of the
smokers will also report smoking less. They state that it was a
drag to have to get out the list. This is an example of how you
can make an unwanted behavior more troublesome to keep.
Another thing to remember is that people generally equate price
with value. This is a shortcut to making decisions in a society
suffering from information overload. The less we know about a
subject and the more hurried we are, the more likely we are to
use shortcuts like "high price means good product or value."
Generally, the more people have to invest to get something, the
more unavailable it is, the more they will appreciate it. Should
you and I utilize this? You bet! Start today by having your
clients wait at least a week or two before you see them even if
you have available time tomorrow. Generally, I recommend that
you don't give them evening appointments or weekend
appointments if they work during the day. If you do that you
will often get a stressed out client who might even be inclined to
fall asleep in your office. By having them deliberately take some
time off from work, you will get serious clients who have made
the session the most important activity of the day. The rest of
their day will be arranged to benefit full focus in the
changework instead of the other way around. But, don't stop
there! While you're at it increase your price as well. I am not
going to tell you what you should charge, but the price should
be an effort for the client. It should really feel like an investment.
This doesn't mean that you can't work with someone who
has little or no money. If they are genuinely poor and can't
afford your regular fee, then give them a lower fee, but one that
they have to struggle and prioritize to be able to pay you. If they

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have no money at all you can get them to assist you in other
ordeals and have them be actors during some of your client
work that you do outside of the therapy office. WARNING!
Whatever you do, have them do the acting BEFORE you accept
them as a client. Same thing with money, never ever allow them
to pay after the therapy is completed, or pay half now half later.
They need to invest first. As a result of that they will look for
reasons to support their investment with the result being
commitment. As soon as they have invested it's likely that they
will build a strong belief in the probability of change, your
competence and the quality of the work you do. It's common for
people to build beliefs and expectancies as result of some action
or investment they have done. Did you know that the more
people argue for their belief, the more emotion gets connected to
it and the stronger they end up believing in it? In this way,
when family and friends are resistant and attempt to talk the
client out of seeing you instead of them succeeding, it's more
likely that they instead help strengthen the client's commitment
to see you. I always require clients to book their own
appointments. That means that I never allow a wife to book an
appointment for her husband or vice versa. I also never accept
government money as payment for a client's treatment. I only
work with clients who can either afford and is willing to pay for
their own treatment or willing to meaningfully contribute in
other ways. As a consequence of this, if I really want to help
someone who is dead broke but can get government funds for
the therapy, I will reject the money. I will work with them for
free, but get them to contribute in a way that creates value for
me and other people.
The exception to these rules would be children. Personally, I
don't prefer to work with kids, so I will only do it occasionally.
However, kids need to choose to be there as well as have their
own reason for being there. One thing that is important is that

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they get on the phone and verbally ask for and confirm the
appointment. You can do this even if most of the details of the
work are discussed with the parents. There is one reason why I
generally don't like to work with kids who has little to do with
the kids themselves. It has to do with the simple fact that their
symptoms are often strongly connected to the family system
that they are part of. I also think that many of the behaviors that
parents and psychologists want to treat kids for are behaviors
that are quite justified considering the situation that they are in
and can't leave.
A good example of this would be a rather desperate mother
who called me a few years ago. She wanted me to cure her son's
depression. During the phone conversation I discovered that the
boy's stepfather had been hitting the mother regularly and for
some time. The mother was frequently in and out of women's
shelter homes, but elected to keep seeing her boyfriend.
Now, guess what my good friends, the legalized pushers had
done to help this young child out. Sadly, you guessed right.
They told the mother he was mentally iII and gave him
antidepressants! I told the mother it shouldn't take a genius to
realize that the boy's feelings of helplessness, sadness and
hopelessness were a pretty accurate and appropriate. There was
nothing sick about the way he was feeling at all. The only thing
the kid could do to stop a grown man from abusing his family
would be to shoot the bastard or slowly poison him over a
period of time. Ironically, if the kid had done that, and I would
be the first to suggest that he be given a medal for doing so, then
some other disease label would have been tossed at him in
addition to some other drug solution.
I firmly informed the mother that I was unwilling to work
with her son under the premise that the boy was somehow ill
for feeling the way he did. I also called her on her intent to
return the kid back to the same old battlefield that related to his

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symptoms. I further told her that I would only work with him
after she had left her boyfriend and provided a safe haven for
her son. I offered to work with her so that she would find the
strength and confidence to leave, but she wasn't interested in
that at all. In my experience, whenever parents want to change
their children by sending them to therapy, it's time for them to
get dirt level honest and consider what they would be better of
changing in themselves.
Since this chapter has focused on how to work with the super
left-brainers, there is one distinction I want to add about what I
have written so far. The main challenge with the walking dead,
in addition to getting them in touch with their feelings, is to get
that initial commitment. Therefore, tasks should be used in
order to secure commitment and a decision to change. The good
news is that once the left brainers have decided and are
committed, they are likely to do whatever it takes to change and
follow the agreed upon ordeals 100 percent. This observation
stands in stark contrast with the highly hypnotizable who more
often than not are very willing to step into a brand new world
but equally willing to very easily step out of it. These clients and
the changes they produce are often easy come easy go, so you
will often need to structure your work a little bit differently
(there is a whole chapter coming up on these guys later.
3. Give Them a Reason for Doing the Ordeal
Robert Cialdini, in his superb book Influence writes about the
tremendous power of the word "because." The book refers to
experiments in libraries where one person would ask the person
in front of the copying machine if they could use the machine
before them. 63 percent of the time the answer was "Yes." Then
they did something interesting. The person would once again
ask to use the copy machine first, but add the sentence:
" ... because I am really in a hurry and only need one copy." As a

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result of this, the "Yes" responses increased to a whopping 94
percent.
Even more interesting was the next little twist they added.
This time the participants would ask to use the computer first
again in the following way: "Excuse me, can I use the computer
before you because I am only going to make some copies." This time
they scored a "Yes" rate of 93 percent. It seems as if the word
"BECAUSE" did most of the trick. What came after the word
"because" didn't seem to matter that much. Personally, I think
that what comes after the word because, depending upon
context, matters a great deal.
Anyways, utilize this by using the word "because" and give
them a good reason for carrying out the ordeal. Usually,
explaining that the more complex a symptom is the harder it is
to keep it, is a good way of framing things. Of course, you will
be enforcing the belief in Cause and Effect, so be careful.
4. Be Congruent and Matter of Fact
It's very important that you are congruent and matter of fact
when delivering the instructions. Calmly expect them to do it,
even if what you are asking of them seems weird. Just act as if it
is the most natural thing in the world. Offer the reason for doing
it, but don't argue or get into any long-winded discussions. Just
calmly and congruently expect them to. If you need to, remind
them that they agreed to do this before you told them what it
was.
5. Keep Going until the Problem is Resolved
Last year I had a client named Stein who was about to be elected
into some businessman brotherhood. One of the things
newcomers had to do was to give a thirty-minute speech about
themselves and their business. Stein hired me for two reasons.
First of all, he was scared to death of public speaking. The

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second reason was that he wanted me to help him design a great
speech. During the first session I attempted a number of
different NLP approaches, but it was easy to calibrate after the
session that we hadn't really gotten anything which. Stein was
an emotionally repressed left brainer, scared to death of feeling,
stuttering, blushing and forgetting while doing his presentation.
As he entered my office the second time, it was clear that he had
a sense of urgency, fear and frustration. He still wasn't where he
wanted to be and the presentation was just a few days away.
Since we both had frustration, urgency and fear present (a good
combination by the way!) it was time for the ordeal set-up:
Jergen: Stein ... I know of something that is pretty much
guaranteed to help you solve your problem ... you will pleased to
know that it isn't illegal, immoral, dangerous or fattening.
However, it might be a bit uncomfortable ... I need to know that
you are willing to do it before I tell you what it is.
Stein answered "Yes" and shook my hand to symbolize our little
pact. I always have clients agree to do it in advance, in addition
to shaking my hand. This is very useful in helping clients build
their internal consistency. If you can get them to verbally state
that they will do it, as well as shake your hand before you tell
them what it is, then you have dramatically increased the
chances that they will indeed follow through. Stein was
instructed to get up on stage and say the following:
During the next half hour it is very possible that I might blush
like a pig, stutter like an insecure teenager, or demonstrate a
memory loss that my age in no way can justify. If these things
happen, be glad you're not in my shoes. I won't enjoy it, so make
sure that at least someone gets something out of it. Feel free to
have a laugh on my expense!
Then he was to go straight on with his presentation."

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The day after his presentation Stein called me. He was ecstatic
and felt absolutely fantastic. The whole thing had gone
extremely well, the audience had cracked up laughing when he
did the ordeal part. He hadn't been scared at all. Stein was
convinced that his fear of public speaking was gone and no
more work was necessary. The ordeal he did helped him to
develop the skill he needed: openness and utilization of
emotions, instead of repressing them to appear to be in control.
Since he no longer had any stress around the symptoms he had
described, there was no reason to fear them, and since he no
longer communicated danger to himself, there was no fear. I am
happy to report that Stein sent me a client some months later.
The new client told me that Stein had done several presentations
since our session together and was very happy with the
changes.
Although many people change after one experience, or even
before doing the ordeal, it's extremely important to have a deal
about following the ordeal until the problem is resolved.
Thomas, the snotty Vice Principal, and Jenny who used five
months to correct her fears are good examples of the need to
have this agreement.
6. Ratify the Resolution
I have often skipped this step, but having the client ratify the
change in some tangible way is very useful. Some sort of
celebration or ceremony is ideal, especially if the ceremony
requires them to do something that they previously couldn't as
a result of their problem. If, for example, they had had a fear of
heights, they could book a suite in a very large hotel with a
wonderful view to celebrate and reward themselves as well as
ratify the change.

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 CHAPTER 9
GETTING DEEP HYPNOSIS WITH
ANALYTICALS

As soon as I started working with clients in the real world, I

noticed that most of the clients I had who got very good results
had a couple of things in common. In addition to being
congruent about changing, they had the ability to easily go into
deep hypnosis. For some time I believed that the key to getting
change revolved around getting deep hypnosis. If we could get
that, the rest would be a walk in the park. Although real life
experience has proved this belief to be incorrect, there certainly
is great value in getting a deep state of hypnosis.

What's the Value of Deep Hypnosis?

1. Hypnosis is basically an amplifier of experience.

That means that you can feel emotions more intensively, create
more compelling and realistic imagery, and as a result of that
create not only intellectual insight but also a felt emotional
experience of change.
If you carefully analyze the cases in this book, you will see
that a large part of my work involves getting people strongly
associated into the states that drives their unwanted behaviors,
symptoms and illnesses. The same thing goes for resource states.
I want the clients to feel intensely. The more intensely the states
are felt, the deeper the change.

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I think that this is one major weakness of cognitive psychology.
Quite often, people intellectually know what they need to know,
they have challenged their distorted thinking patterns, BUT they
don't feel it.
By doing the same type of work in a state of hypnosis the
clients would be able to have a felt experience of the cognitive
changes they have made. Jens was a good example of this. He
had challenged his thinking, but never while activating his fears
and emotions at the same time. With hypnosis, the changes are
deeper. Hypnotic interventions have a tendency to create
change at a deeper level than language can reach.
2. Hypnosis is a state of focused attention.
One of the first things you learn when experimenting with
hypnosis is that whatever you focus on, you amplify. When
people are in a focused state they are less likely to be distracted.
This is why hypnosis is such an amplifier of experience. The
client is no longer questioning and analyzing. Rather they are
experiencing and getting absorbed into what they focus on.
When someone focuses intently on one thing they become
less critical and therefore more responsive and more
suggestible. As a result hypnosis is an ideal place for the client
to be whenever you really want to communicate an idea.
3. Hypnosis is an ideal learning state.
If I were to diagnose most of my clients, they would get the
diagnosis "rigid;" especially in the context where they are stuck.
It's often hard to change old patterns of thought, emotion and
behavior by using positive thinking and willpower. We are
essentially using the same patterns of thought that's creating the
problem in an attempt to solve it.
Hypnosis gives you the ability to bypass your ordinary
beliefs and thought patterns and go inside to find other

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perspectives, emotions, memories and capacities that you have.
In this way you can return with these resources, amplify them
and link them to the contexts where you normally do your
problem.
4. Hypnosis allows you to reorganize your own experience.
Most of us are highly ignorant of our own capabilities. One of
the key learning's for me has been that people have a lot more
capabilities than they might consciously realize.
As an example, I may suggest to someone in chronic pain
that all they need to do to make life a lot more bearable is to
make the moments of pain seem like they last for just a few
seconds, and make the pain free periods seem to last for a really
long time. If I were to suggest this as a solution in an everyday
conversation, people would most likely look at me as if I were
an alien. This look would be followed up with a startled:
"HUH?? How am I supposed to do that?"
However, in hypnosis people can take an ability, such as the
ability to perceive time that ordinarily is perceived to be
involuntary, and voluntarily decide to use it in a specified
context at a specified time.
To give you one more example, the standard NLP allergy
cure is an illustration of inner reorganization. Here you can take
a client who is allergic to something and train them to
reorganize their experience in such a way that they respond to
what they were allergic to as if it was something they were not
allergic to.
5. Hypnosis helps facilitate multiple perspectives.
Remember in Chapter One when I wrote about the difference
between a subject who fakes being in a trance, and a subject who
is actually in one. When the faker is asked to negatively
hallucinate a person standing between them and another person

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they're supposed to go over and shake hands with, the faker
will walk right into the person he was told to negatively
hallucinate. The person in deep hypnosis, however, will walk
around the person, but at the same time claim that they couldn't
see him. People in trance are less bound by linear logic and
normal time and space constraints. They can be here and there
at the same time. When people are deeply stuck in a problem
they tend to turn into religious fanatics. They lock on to one
"truth", one perspective and one solution. When is the last time
you saw a religious fanatic with a sense of humor? By holding
several perspectives simultaneously clients can utilize paradox,
humor and new wisdom in solving issues.
I am reminded of physicist Niels Bohr's quote: "There are two
types of truth. In the superficial truth, the opposite viewpoint must be
false, but in a deeper truth the opposite viewpoint is just as true."
Stephen Gilligan, Ericksonian hypnotherapist and founder of
self-relations therapy, has a great way of expressing these things
as well: "The problem is not the problem. The problem is that what's
called the problem is isolated from other truths and perspectives."
6. Hypnosis is a doorway to the unconscious.
John Grinder has often stated that, "The conscious mind is
superb at organization, framing and categorization, but lacks the
power to do any significant change. The unconscious on the
other hand has enormous capabilities for change, but little
capacity for organization."
When in hypnosis, we can build a stronger alliance between
the conscious and the unconscious. Any skilled and experienced
hypnotherapist can probably tell you about miracles taking
place when people have accessed their unconscious. Sometimes
there are conflicts between the conscious and the unconscious.
Let's say someone is struggling with a serious disease. On the
conscious level the person might be very positive and fighting

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for their life. At the same time, at the unconscious level, there
might be a calling for self-mutilation.
Hypnotic states can provide the key to eliminating these self
mutilation programs, so that the unconscious starts moving the
person towards health instead. If this sounds too far out for you,
then consider bad habits like smoking. Consciously most
smokers want to quit, but the unconscious feeling level mind
has associated pleasure with smoking. The hypnotic state is
wonderful for resolving these types of conflicts.
Consider all these benefits carefully and it's almost
impossible to be results-oriented and not seriously study
hypnosis. After all, not only do you have more choices since
both of you have access to more resources, the hypnotic state
makes your NLP or other techniques both more effective and
more easily done.
If you read the list above you will see that being able to
induce the hypnotic state is only a first step. The important part,
and the part that requires the most skill, is what to do once you
get them there. Guess who most instructors deliberately avoid
as demonstration subjects during seminars? You don't need to be
a rocket scientist, or better yet, an experienced hypnotherapist to
figure this one out. You got it, it's the left brainers.
The analyticals are often very difficult to get workable
hypnotic states with, and that's often a problem. You see almost
all NLP techniques require the client to go into at least a light
state of hypnosis to work. I am talking about the usual
submodality interventions, anchoring formats and time line
techniques. If the client doesn't go there and you don't know
what to do about it, then you're in deep shit to be blunt.

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The Importance of a Superb Pre-Talk

In my experience, the biggest obstacle preventing deep hypnosis

is fear. Some hypnosis instructors claim that people accept
hypnosis to the degree that they don't fear it. I think this
statement has a lot of merit. However, there are big differences
in just how responsive someone will be to a hypnotic induction,
even if you are flexible in your approach. People have all sorts
of theories as to why that might be, but I don't bother too much
with that. The late Dave Elman claimed that there is no such
thing as a good or bad hypnotic subject. Just build mental
expectancy and eliminate their fears (which sometimes is a lot
easier said than done) and anyone will be a good subject. I don't
think this notion is accurate, but I do I think that it's a very
useful lie, at least to some extent. Just don't start believing in it.
This will determine what you do. Those who believe in Elman's
theory will go back to the pre-talk, and if that doesn't work, it's
easy to dismiss the client as resistant.
While unconscious resistance might often be true, and while
a better pre-talk will often work, it's not always the most useful
approach. Some people just don't seem to have developed the
capacity to go into deep hypnosis. These people often claim they
don't daydream, they don't get absorbed into movies or books
and they're stuck with a lot of internal dialogue. I am unwilling
to project my limitations onto other people's potential. Meaning,
just because I don't know how to get all my clients into deep
hypnosis doesn't mean that it's not possible, it just means that I
don't know how to do it yet. Having said that, I don't believe
that anyone whose material I have studied knows how either.
My current thinking is that that these subjects can be trained
to perform better. So far I have been able to help quite a few
people to improve their hypnotic capacity. For some strange
reason these people seem to lose most of this capacity as soon as

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the training ends. Further, I must admit that I have only had a
few examples of taking a person who is totally umesponsive
and turn them into an excellent hypnotic subject. By this I mean
people who can do phenomena like negative hallucinations on
cue.
Other people have the capacity to go into deep hypnosis, but
for some reason aren't flexible enough to respond to your
induction technique. This might suggest to you that it's time to
do the induction a little bit differently. Another possibility is
that it's time to work on the relationship that you have with the
client. Hypnotic work is a very intense relationship between the
therapist and client. When the relationship changes in some
way, so will the hypnotic responses. I have had clients who have
responded wonderfully one day only to be completely
umesponsive the next.
Not long ago I worked with a guy to quit smoking and he
responded beautifully. He quit in one session with no
withdrawals or any problems whatsoever. A little while later we
did a session for weight loss, but this time the session had no
effect whatsoever. I noticed that his responses weren't as good
and that his hypnotic state wasn't as deep. Being lazy, I
assumed or hoped (which is never a good strategy by the way)
that we had done something useful.
In the second session, once again he responded very well, so
we will just have to wait and see. I have had clients come see me
for some minor issue and had no success in getting a workable
state of hypnosis. A year or two down the road the same clients
return with either the same problem, which has gotten a lot
more severe or a different problem that really hurts. Suddenly
they go into hypnosis and do the work without any problems at
all. Same thing goes when people initially resist hypnosis and
fight it tooth and nail. At this point my strategy is usually to
give them an ordeal to help them either solve it, or after a while

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present hypnosis as an attractive way out of the ordeal. More
often than not, this tactic has worked very well. The" pissing in
public client" described in the previous chapter is an example of
this.
This is part of the reason why I largely think that so-called
hypnotizability testing is at least partially a joke. It totally
ignores context, relationship, expectations and motivation. Now,
flipping the coin, I had a client many years ago who I helped
overcome a pretty minor problem. As a metaphor for seeing
solutions that she hadn't before I had her positively hallucinate
a tennis ball. The tennis ball was so real to her that after the
hypnosis she asked where I had put the ball. She was quite
stunned to find that there wasn't one there and hadn't been
during the hypnosis either. That session and many others of a
similar nature taught me a couple of very interesting lessons.
Before I had her hallucinate the tennis ball, I had attempted to
get her to have amnesia for the number 4. She rejected this
suggestion, but easily did the positive hallucination. However,
according to many scales, amnesia is supposed to be easier to
get than positive hallucinations. People have different
capabilities and both express and experience hypnosis and
hypnotic phenomena differently.
Last year she came back for a very heavy-duty problem. And
guess what? She totally rejected hypnosis initially. We had to do
a few other things first. When someone doesn't go into hypnosis
I think you have a decision to make. Is the client afraid of
hypnosis or even what they might find during hypnotic work? If
so, you probably did a poor job during the pre-talk.
If the client has responded well in the past but suddenly
resists and doesn't respond well, you have to find out if it's your
induction technique you need to change, or has the relationship
between the two of you changed? Maybe there is a "part" of
them that is opposing the work, or you might have to work on

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their level of commitment. In this regard, I usually find that
working to build up commitment and pain levels is the most
useful strategy.
You might have covered all the bases. The client has no fear
of hypnosis, they are committed and you have great rapport,
but still, no hypnosis. If so, there is a big chance that they simply
haven't developed the ability or capacity to do hypnosis. This
group of clients, at least for me, is a pretty small group. You will
do both yourself and your clients a favor by looking into how
they can increase their capacity for hypnosis. Sometimes you
will decide that the amount of work needed to accomplish this
isn't worth it because you have some other way of helping them
solve the problem. However, it's important that you have the
choice. You also have to accept that some people won't ever go
into hypnosis for reasons currently unknown.

How to Do a Good Pre-talk

The late Dave Elman, a major contributor to the field of
hypnotherapy, is famous for emphasizing the importance of a
good pre-talk. Elman believed that if you remove the fear of
hypnosis, you would be able to hypnotize one hundred people
out of a hundred. More accurately, you will help one hundred
people hypnotize themselves with you functioning as a guide.
Elman was quite clear that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. In his
book Hypnotherapy, Elman wrote:
You probably think that in a few short sessions you will become
an expert hypnotist. Frankly, you are hoping for the impossible,
because - THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A HYPNOTIST.
You are never going to hypnotize anybody. All you can ever do,
and no one can do more, is to show a person how to go over the
hurdle from a normal waking or sleeping state into the peculiar

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 state of mind known as hypnosis. You won't hypnotize him, he
will hypnotize himself.
Elman also wrote that there are three things required for
hypnosis.
1. The consent of the subject - tacit or implied
2. Communication between the operator and the subject
3. Freedom from fear
Despite the fact that I don't agree one-hundred percent with his
perspective, I think that it's very useful and therefore my pre-
talk is to a large degree based on Elman's work.
A. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis
The client needs to understand that all hypnosis is essentially
self-hypnosis. That way, if someone comes in claiming that they
can't be hypnotized, you can say: "You're right, you will have to do
it yourself! I can guide you. Are you willing to follow some simple
instructions so we can solve your problem?" Simply by
incorporating this point into your pre-talk, you will eliminate a
lot of potential resistance, as well as putting the responsibility of
change where it actually belongs, and that's with the client.
B. Hypnosis is not sleep or being out of it or unconscious
The more you can relate hypnosis to something natural that
clients are already doing, the less scary they'll find it and the
easier it will be for them to adapt to your instructions. I like
Dave Elman's definition of hypnosis. I don't think it's accurate,
or does the phenomena of hypnosis justice, but that applies to
all theories that I have heard. For my objective in the office,
which is to get results with clients, it's quite useful. Elman's
definition of hypnosis is: liThe bypass of the critical factor, and the
establishment of selective thinking."

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Now, understand that by selective thinking or really focusing in
on something you will automatically bypass is the critical factor.
Most people will automatically bypass their critical factor and
go into selective thinking whenever they meet someone they
perceive as an expert or authority.
A frightening example for me is the obedience many people
show their physician. If we use Elman's definition of hypnosis,
we can safely assume that a large percentage of patients are in a
deep trance when they enter a doctor's office. Most doctors
don't seem to realize this or know how to utilize it in a useful
way. While I find Elman's definition useful, I think that selective
experience or absorption is a more accurate description. At least
concerning the types of states needed to help people change. I
am not looking for blind obedience, but rather a learning state
where clients can learn and reorganize in a useful way.
Now, if you are a doctor, you can utilize this in a way that
might prove very beneficial for the patient. For example, if you
have to tell the patient about a potential side effect of some
medication you are giving them, you can tell them about the
side effects with a doubting tone of voice. This will strongly
suggest to the client to not develop these side effects. You can
also use suggestion to enhance the effect of the medication or
other medical intervention you are giving your patient.
While doing the pre-talk I usually describe different natural
experiences of being absorbed, or hypnosis, if you will.
1. Being absorbed in a movie
2. Reading a good book
3. Daydreaming
4. Driving a car
5. Meeting a fascinating person

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6. Experiencing a flow state during sports or musical
experiences.
These are natural experiences where people go into hypnosis.
Most people will easily identify with several of the examples
mentioned above. By mentioning these experiences clients will
identify hypnosis as something that they already do. As a result
of this expectancy will increase and fear will be eliminated or at
least reduced. But don't just mention these experiences. By
describing these experiences clients will often go into hypnosis
as a result of identifying with the experiences. As I mention
examples, I am looking for the clients to respond or identify
with one or several of the experiences. If they like movies I
might say something like this: "Have you ever gotten ABSORBED
into a movie... you know, when you SEE SOMETHING
FASCINA TING right in front of you. .. something that rivets your
attention ... NOW... As you find yourself FOCUSING IN ... listening
INTENTLY ... and after a while the environment disappears ... time
stands still ... and you feel intensely as you get absorbed into what you
are experiencing ... "
If your client likes movies, there is a good chance that they
will go into at least a light hypnotic state as a result of
internalizing this description. In other words, they will use their
imagination to fill in the blanks. By doing this they will likely
enter the same state, at least to some degree, that they were in
when they had the experience.
During these descriptions I will change my own state. If I go
into hypnosis myself and pace their breathing, they will often
follow. In addition to changing my state, I will use a deeper
voice and adjust my posture slightly. This allows me to anchor
the hypnotic state to a voice tone and to certain gestures. If they
go into hypnosis I will change my physiology and voice tone to
my normal "waking state" tone/physiology to bring them out

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of hypnosis. After a few seconds of fluff talk I might start
another trance description while firing off my anchors. This is
called Fractionation, meaning that you bring them into
hypnosis, then pull them out of it, and then guide them back in.
Most of the time they will go deeper when you bring them back
in.
Too many hypnotherapists just do a pre-talk alone, instead of
inducing hypnosis indirectly, establishing anchors and
fractionating at the same time. You might as well utilize the
opportunity. You can induce hypnosis indirectly in many ways.
In addition to simply describing experiences, you can describe
other client's hypnotic experiences, or even your own.
Something to the effect of: "I find that when I GO INTO TRANCE ...
it's like you just start to LET GO and RELAX D EEPL Y... "
This I where you shift and you start to talk about your own
experience and then describe it as if they are having it is a useful
way around resistance. Metaphors and stories are often a good
way to get around resistance. They consciously think: "ah ... this
is just about him ... "but unconsciously they will start responding
in an attempt to make sense out of the experience.
If your client starts talking about the stuff you are describing,
let them do so. This is a way for them to make the experience
more real for themselves. As they describe, notice if they lean on
or emphasize certain words. If they do, you can use these words
when later when doing the hypnosis.
Let's say the client starts describing some experience where
they were absorbed. It might even be that they went into formal
hypnosis before with some other therapist. A very easy and
indirect way to induce hypnosis is by asking very detailed
questions about a previous hypnotic experience. Questions like:
"Where were you? What did the hypnotist's voice sound like? What
was the first signal you got from yourself that let you know you were

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GOING INTO TRANCE .. ? What do you experience inside as you GO
EVEN DEEPER NOW.?" and so on.
Usually, when doing the pre-talk, I am not looking for a deep
trance. I am just looking for them to start responding. I am also
testing for how well they respond to an indirect approach. Some
people will just listen analytically and not respond at all. This
lets me know to be more direct when I later do the formal
hypnosis.
On the other hand, if the person goes into a deep hypnotic
state during the pre-talk, I will take that as a sign of rapport, and
that we can immediately start working. No reason to go back to
the pre-talk if their unconscious is responding right now by
going into the state needed to do the work.
I must admit that sometimes I don't do any pre-talk at all,
quite simply, because the client shows me that they are ready to
work right now. If a client enters trance as they step into my
office, I will just go to work immediately. This means that the
length of my pre-talk lasts from zero seconds to half an hour.
C. Clients Maintain Control At All Times
It seems as if the most common fear clients have is that they will
surrender their sense of control to someone else. Of course, you
and I know that control is an illusion in the same way that
Cause and Effect is an illusion. However, most people believe
strongly in both these illusions. Clients need to know that they
can reject anything they choose no matter how deep they go,
and that they won't reveal secrets or anything thing else that
they are unwilling to reveal. At this point, many clients will
object, but what about stage shows? Even if they don't object,
it's very likely that they have this fear even if they don't
verbalize it.
It's smart to address this issue no matter what. Tell your
client that the people who attend stage shows have in fact
...
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volunteered to attend. They even compete with others to get
their place on stage as a performer. The phenomena are real,
meaning that people are sometimes unable to stand up, forget
their name, see something that isn't there, and not see
something that is there. Again, the more you can relate these
phenomena to things they already do, the better. Let's go
through some of the phenomena.

A Look at Hypnotic Phenomena

1. Eye or Body Catalepsy

Has the client experienced waking up in the middle of the night
so tired, that for a while, they were unable to move their body?
Or has your client maybe been watching a movie that he wanted
to see to the end but been extremely tired at the same time ... so
he decided to close his eyes during the commercial thinking that
he could just listen for when the movie started again ... but
then ... when he attempted to open those eyes, he could not?
Another thing that you will often see during hypnosis is arm
levitation and arm catalepsy. An arm that seems to live its own
life, either in a rigid position, or moved up or down by the
unconscious. A real life example of this would be the talkative
person whose fork with a bite of meat seems to just hang there
as the person drones on and on, completely oblivious to his arm
and the food on the fork.
2. Amnesia
Some clients are very intrigued that someone forgot the number
four or something else during a stage hypnosis show. Real life
examples would include meeting someone at a social gathering,
and then a few minutes later realizing that you have forgotten
the person's name. Or what about being in an interesting

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conversation, and then suddenly someone interrupts the
conversation and you lose your train of thought. When you then
resume your original conversation you discover that you can't
remember what you were talking about.
3. Positive and negative hallucinations
Perhaps the most impressive hypnotic phenomena at a stage
show are the positive and negative hallucinations. Who hasn't
looked for their car keys or the salt even though it was right
there the whole time? You just couldn't see it until someone
handed you what you were looking for. Another common
example is to walk past someone and not see them as a result of
being absorbed in a daydream.
Not long ago I visited my father. He has a cat and one
morning I positively hallucinated the cat in my open suitcase on
the floor. This was so real for me that I had a pretty long
conversation with a cat that wasn't there. After a minute or so, I
suddenly realized that what I thought was a cat was a
combination of a plastic bag, boxer shorts and a pair of socks. I
am still in awe over how my brain was able to create that one.
4. Pain control.
Can you remember having a headache or some pain and then
suddenly something really exciting happened and you forgot all
about it? Or what about having a leg fall asleep?
5. Time distortion
This is a phenomena that has a lot of very interesting
applications. If you were to look back through last week I am
sure that you could find examples of time seemingly lasting
forever,like standing in line at the bank. Or time going by in the
blink of an eye, like when you do something that you really get
into something with your heart and soul.

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After going through different hypnotic phenomena like these
with your clients, it's easy for them to appreciate that what they
see at stage shows are normal behaviors: behaviors that have
been isolated and amplified for entertainment. In a
hypnotherapist's office these skills can be used to help create
useful changes. Here is something else that's interesting. Guess
what people will do, to varying degrees, when you go through
these phenomena and describe them? They will relate it to
themselves and their own personal history for examples that
match ... and guess what state they will go into to get that
information. The highly hypnotizable clients will usually go into
deep hypnosis and you can see them really responding. This is a
useful way to test for hypnotic capacity and responding before
doing changework. The deeper the hypnosis, the easier the work
and the more choices you have at your disposal.
6. Symptoms are forms of hypnosis
Remember Elman's definition: "Bypass of the critical factor and the
establishment of selective thinking." Well, what could be a more
perfect fit to that definition than a strong phobia? Or what about
major depression? I tell my clients that they are in hypnosis
when they do their symptom. Our job is to dehypnotize them,
get them out of the trance that they are in, and build a new and
better state where they have better choices and behaviors to
select. Whenever clients claim that they can't go into hypnosis,
the best way to counter that belief is to point out that the phobia
or other symptom is deep hypnosis.

Conscious/Unconscious Disassociation
There is another tool I have been using for a long time that is
very useful in preparing a client for a deep trance experience. I

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will describe the qualities of the conscious mind using my
"normal" voice tone. I will use a different voice tone and
posture while describing the qualities of the unconscious mind.
Generally, it will go something like this:
You have a conscious analytical and rational part of your mind.
I know that and you know that, but you also have an
unconscious mind, whether you know it or not. Your
unconscious mind is close enough to listen and respond in its
own way. Your conscious mind is analytical. The unconscious
mind is the feeling level mind. The conscious mind is responsible
for focus. The unconscious is responsible for habitual behaviors
and instincts.
I will go on alternating like this for a while, anchoring one voice
tone with the conscious and its qualities, and another voice tone
for the unconscious and its qualities. After a little while I will
mostly talk about the unconscious mind. If I have good rapport
with the person's unconscious the client will give signs of
hypnosis as I do this. Some even go into a deep state. It's also
easy to fractionate by using the voice tone associated with the
conscious mind for a little while and then shifting back to the
other voice tone.
There is another, often overlooked, advantage by doing this
process and that is simply this. Whenever you take someone out
of their element, or out of their normal way of relating or
understanding the world, they become more suggestible. Why
do you think the army takes away people's habits, rituals and
identities during training? Some people don't like to use the
term "the unconscious," preferring instead to use terms like
"soul" or "gut intelligence" or "somatic self" and many other
metaphors. One reason I like to use the term "unconscious" is
because most people I meet are curious to learn about the
unconscious and claim that they know little about it.

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When most people are presented with new information they
have a tendency to attempt to distort everything that is
presented into an old and familiar category. By doing that
people get a feeling of understanding. As I write this, my mind
flashes back to a psychologist who called me a few years back.
He was curious about how I worked with phobics. He wanted to
know how I did it. No matter what I said, this guy distorted
everything I said into the category" desentization and exposure
therapy." I used four different metaphors, and if you think that
helped at all, think again.
We all have a tendency to be sleepwalkers and do what's
familiar. This is the appeal of diagnosis and personality profiles.
We get the feeling of certainty and the illusion of understanding
someone we haven't met. That way we know what category to
put them in, how to treat them, and we have an excuse for being
lazy and not getting to know them. If you get the idea that I am
not exactly thrilled about personality profiles and diagnoses,
you're right! I hope that you will be a little disturbed about
those things as well by the time you finish this book, if you
aren't there already. Now, depending on the client and the goals
they have, I have freedom in how I define the unconscious and
its prime directives. At this time, the client is open, curious,
suggestible and with no preconceived notions when accessing
the unconscious.

An indirect Test for Hypnotic Readiness

I mention that the unconscious is responsible for automatic

behaviors like blinking (pace whatever experience they are
having). If I see them blinking I will mention blinking and say:
" ... and you don't know when you will blink again." As soon as they
blink I say: "That's right!" Now, they think that they did the

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blinking because I suggested it and became more suggestible as
a result. Now, here is a great covert test. Tell them: "If I were to
tell you to TAKE A DEEP BREATH ... " and use voice tone
associated with the unconscious and take a deep breath
yourself. If they spontaneously take a deep breath, then they are
responding and ready to go into hypnosis. If they look at you
and then consciously take a deep breath, then that shows that
they are responding to some degree
If they don't respond at all, but keep the same breathing rate,
you haven't got rapport with the clients unconscious yet.
Remember, the whole point of all this stuff is to get the attention
of the person's unconscious and get responses you can utilize.
Hypnosis is paradoxical. It's paradoxical because you are
directing the person to behave spontaneously. Common
examples would be hand levitation, a process where you direct
the person to lift an arm, but at the same time make it clear that
you don't want them to lift it. The result will be that the client
finds that arm lifting all by itself. This is my criteria for knowing
that I have a workable hypnotic state, namely, I can direct the
person to behave spontaneously or have involuntary responses
like arm levitation, amnesia or catalepsy.
If you get the idea that all of this is very complicated and
takes a long time, think again. As I wrote earlier, I want to get
the attention of their unconscious and I want conscious consent
as well. My pre-talk lasts everything from zero seconds to half
an hour. If I see that they are ready to respond right of the bat, I
will skip all this. If they have a lot of fear and" skepticism" I will
take my time. However, even when I take my time I usually do
everything all at once. Meaning, as I talk about hypnosis I will
induce it, do conscious unconscious disassociation and covert
testing pretty much simultaneously.
One last point to keep in mind. Sometimes I won't mention
the word hypnosis at all. That doesn't mean that I am not using

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it. However, in the past when I did the work, very indirectly,
people would suddenly stop and say: "Are you hypnotizing me?"
Then, fear of hypnosis would emerge, and this made the work
more complicated. My preference these days is to use the word
hypnosis and be straight about using it, which makes the
importance of preparing the conscious and the unconscious for
the hypnotic experience vital. The stuff I have just written works
exceptionally well for me. I trust that it will for you and your
clients as well.

Establishing the Hypnotic Contract

Let's say that you have done a good pre-talk. You have
eliminated fear and misconceptions, and you have built
expectancy. Ready to jump in? Actually, if you are doing formal
hypnosis, I recommend that you do one more thing before you
start. I recommend that you establish a hypnotic contract. My
preference is to activate the state that drives whatever symptom
they have so we can reframe the state-dependent memories. My
proposed contract is the following:
Jorgen: You and I need to establish a hypnotic contract. My job
is to help guide you into a hypnotic state. In this state I will help
you access the feeling that is driving your symptom. We will use
that feeling as an affect bridge back in time so that we can find
out what it's connected to and then deal with it.
Your job is to be totally uncritical. By that I mean: have no
theory or expectation as to what might emerge from your
unconscious. Don't try to consciously find anything or control
the process. Neither do I want you to censor anything that
emerges. It's up to your unconscious to bring up the feelings
and the related memories.

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 Finally, I don't know what will emerge from your unconscious,
but I do know that you need to have a willingness to face
whatever comes up, no matter who or what it's connected to.
Are you willing to let this happen?
If they answer "Yes" congruently, you are ready to do the work.
If they aren't congruent I recommend that you probe for what
objections they might have before starting the formal hypnosis. I
know that you can do a lot of powerful work indirectly and
metaphorically, but I really prefer to have conscious consent. As
soon as they say "Yes", they will have increased motivation to
respond since not responding would be inconsistent.
We human beings have a need to be consistent. By getting
conscious consent you are building internal consistency. I don't
stop with verbal agreement either. I walk over and have them
shake my hand. If this seems silly to you, get Roberts Cialdini's
brilliant book Influence and read the chapter on internal
consistency. This is a very powerful persuasion principle that
you should understand and utilize in changework.

My Favorite Speed Induction

Would you like to know how to induce deep hypnosis in just a
few seconds? If so, you will love what I am about to share with
you. Now, there are quite a few benefits to creating deep
hypnosis very quickly.
1. If your induction is done in a few seconds you have
plenty of time to do the actual changework. It's sad to
think about all the people out there who spend 15
minutes to an hour inducing trance. Too often, the only
tool psychologists, hypnotherapist's and NLP
practitioners have in their tool box is a long, and I mean

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 long, boring progressive relaxation or imagery
induction. Stephen Gilligan, a prominent student of
Milton Erickson's work claims that so called
"Ericksonians" will often spend up to an hour in
securing deep trance. Sometimes, they might even train
the client for weeks in how to respond. Quite frankly,
while perhaps useful in a few cases, this is neither
necessary nor useful for most clients. It is just a gigantic
waste of time.
2. It is congruent with the work I do. My intent is usually
to activate the feeling state that is driving the symptom.
It's not so much eye rolling somnambulism (more on
that later), but rather the strong emotion I am looking
for. I want to crank that sucker up. It doesn't matter if
it's anger, sadness, guilt or an asthmatic attack. I want
them to feel the emotion as strongly as they ever have.
Focus less on the so-called depth of hypnosis and more
on the intensity of emotion. In my not so humble
opinion, this is a major weakness with the way many
NLP and hypnotherapists work. The work is too
cognitive. Sure, we can do a lot of wonderful stuff
cognitively, but what really drives human behavior are
emotions.
Since my goal is to activate strong emotions, I need an
induction that is congruent with that goal. It makes little
sense to do a long progressive relaxation induction and
get them really relaxed over a thirty-minute period, and
then attempt to bring up rage or intense fear. Instead,
use an induction that is emotional, sudden and a bit
"violent." That way it's easy to bring up the juicy stuff.

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3. It works wonders with analyticals. If I were to give you
one advice and one advice only regarding getting
hypnosis with analyticals, in addition to saying
"SCIENCE PROVES", it would be to learn instant shock
inductions. When I started doing hypnosis I had the
erroneous belief that these shock and speed inductions
were only appropriate for the hypnotically gifted.
I was wrong. These inductions are, in my experience, the most
reliable inductions for the walking dead. Very early in my
hypnotic career I discovered that progressive relaxation and
imagery inductions just don't work very well with this client
group. While metaphors are useful, it didn't seem to me as if
indirect and metaphorical hypnosis worked much better either.
Of course, sometimes it would work, but that's not enough. I am
always looking for tools that work consistently. That means that
the tool or approach must work more often than it will not.
How much more successful could a very prominent
"Ericksonian" practitioner be with the exact same inductions
with the same clients? I don't know. I suspect that some skilled
"Ericksonian" therapists might get a deep trance with some of
these clients. I also suspect that they would have struck out a lot
too. My results improved a bit when I started getting more
skilled at doing confusion inductions. The only problem was
that it often took forever to get a decent level of hypnosis, and
even while using these I still wasn't as consistent as I wanted to
be.
The one thing that saved me from insanity was the day I
started using an induction called the "Hand Drop." Suddenly,
most analyticals, most of the time, went into a workable level of
hypnosis and they did so in just a few seconds. By workable
level of hypnosis I mean a state of focused attention where I can
direct them to behave spontaneously. Usually I want their

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unconscious to spontaneously bring up the feeling that has
everything to do with symptom X, and I want their unconscious
to bring up the related memories. For me, this is what hypnosis
is all about. Simply, can I direct the person to behave
spontaneously? Examples would be strong feelings and
memories emerging, eye catalepsy, arm catalepsy and so on. If
you ask the client to lift an arm unconsciously: "I don't want you
to lift that arm I want you're unconscious to do it." When that
happens you have something paradoxical going on. Being
directed to behave spontaneously is certainly paradoxical. I
must give some credit where credit is due again. I got this
distinction from studying the work of Jay Haley.
Another powerful distinction or focus point if you will, I got
from studying the work of Stephen ParkhilL In addition to
reading his book Answer Cancer and watching his video tapes,
one of his students (Brian Mahoney, he practices hypnotherapy
in Boston), has helped me out as well. One key point I got from
collaborating with Brian for the past year or so, was to
emphasize emotion in my inductions. Instead of being so
concerned with getting eye-rolling somnambulism, my focus
has been on getting strong emotion, getting deep trance by
getting strong emotion. Even though I was doing speed
inductions successfully before I met Brian, this little distinction
has been very usefuL Another reason that this induction I am
about to present works so well is because the induction is so
short. There is simply less stuff to think about and less that can
go wrong.
4. People won't go to sleep on you. If you are doing long
inductions and working either early in the morning or at
night, there is a chance that some clients might fall
asleep on you. If your clients manage to stay awake
there is a chance that you will become bored out of your

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 mind by doing several long inductions every day. So
don't do that. These days I use the hand drop induction
about 85 percent of the time, and both my clients and I
are better off as a result. It's a great way to deepen
hypnosis and to do hypnosis hijacking. It's very
common for clients to be in a hypnotic state when they
enter a therapist's office. Only problem is that the trance
they are in doesn't include the therapist. Hypnosis
hijacking simply means that you find a way to include
yourself into the client's hypnotic state. The client can be
in a very deep state, but if it doesn't include you then it's
of no use.
Think of it this way: if you go to a movie or sit next to someone
who is absorbed into a great film, they are highly responsive to
whatever they have identified with in the movie. However, that
hypnotic experience doesn't include you. So, even if they are in
a hypnotic state, they won't necessarily respond to anything you
do or say. I assume that this is what Milton Erickson talked
about when he wrote that a person can be in a deep trance and a
1/

light trance at the same time." A common example would be a

therapist escorting a phobic to some context. The phobic might
be in a very deep trance regarding the spider (how they
represent the spider to be accurate), but be in a light state
regarding the therapist or even totally block the therapist out.
So, the therapist's suggestions may have no effect whatsoever!
Whenever I couldn't get a client to respond strongly in my
office I would drag them out into the real world, right into the
context where they are stuck. When doing this I need to ensure
that I am a big part of their experience. I need to know that they
are highly responsive to what I do. Let's say you have a client
who is afraid of heights and you take that person to a height,
elevator, etc. to help them resolve their fear. One option is to just

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do exposure therapy, but it's boring, torture for the client and it
takes forever. Instead of doing exposure therapy I will do the
exact same thing I would do in the office. I have done intense
hypnotic "regressions" in elevators, in pet stores with spiders
for sale and a bunch of public places. It looks weird, but I don't
care. It's well worth it since we can do the work quickly and test
it right then and there.
To pull this off, I need a way to enter their trance and hijack
it. Since the phobic state is so strong and sudden, the hypnotic
hijacking needs to be strong, quick and sudden as well. There is
no place for a progressive relaxation induction here. Before I
teach you hypnosis hijacking I have to teach you to do the hand
drop induction.

How to Do the Hand Drop Induction

Ok, the induction is simple, but it requires total congruence to

pull it off. Let's assume that you have done a good pre-talk,
established the hypnotic contract and gotten a congruent signal
from the client that she is ready to go into hypnosis with you.
Quite simply, have the client put her palm on top of your palm.
Instruct your client to stare at your forehead and to listen
intently. Tell her that in a few seconds you are going to start to
count and for each number she is to press down harder and
harder.
Tell her that you will be pressing up against her power. Place
your elbow on your thigh for maximum support against her
pressure. Then do a quick test drive. Have her press, making
sure that she presses down instead of out. This is all
preparation. Tell her that in a little while you will be using the
word SLEEP and that when you do, you aren't referring to sleep

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like at night, but rather a state of totally letting go. Now you are
ready for the actual induction:
1. Have her put her palm on top of yours
2. Instruct her to close her eyes
3. Have her press as hard as she can down as you count
4. Suddenly pull your hand away, push her forehead
slightly back with the other hand and at the same time
yell: "SLEEP!!!!"
The whole idea here is to create shock and overload, and then
while in that state giving one clear instruction being: "SLEEP."
This whole process should take just a couple of seconds to get
the person into a deep trance.
1. Keep talking. At this point I just tell her to go deeper
and deeper as she just lets go. After the shock, the
person will either go into hypnosis or reject it. The
whole key here is to continue talking so that the client
has a clear idea of where to go.
As you can see, there are very few things here that can go
wrong. The combination of confusion, distraction and shock
creates critical faculty bypass for a second or two. While they are
in this state you yell out: "SLEEP!" their mind gets one clear
instruction and then you just continue talking about letting go
all the way into deep hypnosis for a few seconds. The reason I
use the word "SLEEP" is because it's the only word I have time
to use in that split second opening. If you were to stop there, the
client would probably just open their eyes and come out of the
state so you need to keep talking.
At this point my next goal will usually be to get the client
absorbed into the emotion that is driving the unwanted
behavior or symptom. I will say something like this:

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 You have a feeling inside that you don't like ... a feeling that has
everything to do with x (whatever they are therefor) ... you have
tried running from this feeling ... today it's time for you to face
it ... as I count from one to five that feeling is going to grow as
strong as it has ever been ... let that happen this is the perfect
time and place ... ONE there is the feeling ... TWO growing
stronger ... THREE as you get absorbed into that feeling now
FOUR as it grows even stronger ... FIVE there it is ...
Remember that therapeutic hypnosis is a paradox. You are
directing the person to behave spontaneously. I am directing the
client to feel strongly the emotion that is driving their issue, but
I am telling them that I don't want them to do it consciously.
Instead it will happen all by itself involuntarily as I count from
one to five.
Why don't I associate the person into a past memory to bring
up the emotion?
Let's say that the client's presenting issue is a phobia. Why
not just have him or her remember a time in the past when they
were phobic? Have them associate into it and bring up the fear
that way. I prefer not to do it that way. I don't want the
conscious mind to select either the context or the emotion used
to recreate the context. I think that it's the job of the unconscious
to bring up the emotion, and to use that emotion to create a
context that will allow for reframing of the related memories.
Let's say that the client has some serious illness. Many clients
have no idea which emotion or combination of emotions needs
to be dealt with to create healing. Sometimes the client will have
a theory and a story to tell that suggests that a specific emotion
needs to be cleared.
Pay no attention to these stories. They are just rationali-
zations created by the conscious mind and will only confuse and
distract you. More often than not, these stories have nothing to

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do with what the unconscious brings up in the hypnotic state.
This is partly why I chuckle whenever I read about studies
attempting to prove that mind has nothing to do with a so called
"physical illness." By interviewing clients at the conscious level,
researchers think that they can get an accurate idea of whether
so called "psychological" factors have anything to do with the
creation of illness and the healing of illness. First of all, the idea
that you can separate mind and body is a very bad one.
Secondly, the conscious mind seldom has a clue as to what is
going on. I remember years ago, I worked with a cancer patient
and asked his unconscious during hypnosis if there was an
emotional source that needed to be cleared for him to heal his
cancer. He verbally answered "NO" while the "Yes" finger lifted
involuntarily at the same time. Sure enough, up came an
emotion and some pretty intense stuff for him to work through.
The cancer disappeared and I personally think that the session
we did was significant and so does the client. He was in
standard medical treatment at the same time, so I don't know
how much of the success can be credited to our work and how
much was a result of the chemotherapy. The client and I might
be totally wrong. There is a possibility that he would have
healed as quickly just doing chemotherapy. It's important in
cases like these to be honest and admit that we just don't know
how relevant, or even relevant at all, the work we did was.
I must say that I have always viewed the work I do as
complementary to traditional medicine in the case of "physical
illnesses." I have never encouraged a client to not do
chemotherapy or surgery or any other traditional treatment. The
exception to this is psychiatry patients and psychology patients.
I have no reservations about clients canning those treatments.
Cancer patients, at least the ones I have seen, are usually in
traditional treatment at the same time. It's hard to isolate the
effect of what we are doing. So, let's focus on clients where we

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can do just that. Allergy clients fit perfectly. I always have them
be off the allergy drugs when they come in, and most of them let
go of the allergies in one or at the most, two sessions.
Clearly, there must be a relationship between the work in the
office and the person leaving the office without the allergic
reactions. Let me tell you something funny. The majority of my
allergy clients have believed that there is no relationship
between emotion and allergic responses. Some of the clients
have had compelling stories to tell about trauma and which
emotion and memories the allergies are related to. Almost
without exception, the clients have been wrong about which
emotion and which memories have needed to be reframed. The
tragic part is that researchers would have concluded, by
listening to the stories created by the conscious mind, that there
might be "psychological" factors at work in some cases, but that
most of the time, the mind had nothing to do with the creation
of these allergies.
But, what about that phobia?
Obviously, fear must be the emotion to be dealt with here? Well,
most of the time it is, but I have had quite a few cases where
strong feelings of sadness or intense grief has showed up right
after the induction, or even before any official hypnosis
induction. In these cases I have worked with the grief or
sadness, and guess what, the phobias have disappeared.
Guess where these clients have been before entering my
office? More often than not, at some psychologist's office or with
some hypnotist attempting to work with the fear, or to some
NLP practitioner doing the phobia cure again and again
wondering why there is no relief.

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THE MAGIC OF INSTANT SPONTANEOUS HYPNOSIS
If you have some experience doing changework, you have
probably experienced just talking to the client and "WHAM!!!"
up comes an emotional explosion seemingly out of nowhere.
Most clients and therapists fear these moments and think they
are bad, but that's all wrong! This is what you should hope for.
This is an invitation from the client's unconscious that now is
the time to go to work. I just mentioned cases where phobics
have entered the office to work on some phobia and suddenly
during the first couple of minutes a strong feeling of sadness,
grief or anger appear.
When I first started out I would calm them down so that we
could get them back on track, so that we could work with the
phobia. It's funny that therapists do this. The unconscious
signals show that now is the time. The client has spontaneously
gone into a deep trance, but the therapist attempts to bring the
person out of it so that the client can get comfortable, and the
therapist and client can invest even more energy into the
fabricated bullshit rationalizations of the conscious mind. Then
they wonder why changework is hard and use that as evidence
that change takes a long time. Good Grief...!
If you think that the madness ends here, think again. Here in
Norway, these professionals, doctors and psychologists, who
don't even have hypnosis as part of their education, are the only
ones who legally can practice hypnosis. Of course, this is to
protect the public from incompetent practitioners. You know:
"Those dangerous people who often have both formal training and
years of experience in hypnosis." In addition to ignoring such facts
that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, and that hypnotic states occur
spontaneously and naturally for most people in many contexts,
these law makers and so called professionals ignore that
spontaneous hypnotic states will occur in a therapeutic

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environment very often. The only question becomes: "Do you
know how to recognize and utilize these states to help the people who
are paying you handsomely for your time?

LET THE UNCONSCIOUS SELECT THE CONTEXT AND THE

EMOTION
Let me ask you a quick question. Let's say a client enters your
office to quit smoking.
Suddenly, before any hypnotic induction or right after an
official induction, up comes a super strong emotion and the
client spontaneously regresses back to some terrible unresolved
trauma. What would you do? Some instructors would prefer to
get the person out of that spontaneous regression, calm them
down and then proceed with whatever preplanned suggestions,
techniques or metaphors. Who are these therapists to decide that
what the unconscious brought up isn't relevant for the smoking
cessation?
A better choice is to follow the unconscious lead and deal
with the trauma. My experience has been that the unconscious is
saying: "We need to deal with this before the person can quit
smoking." We simply don't know what is related to what and
predictions, if you bother to make them, are very difficult.
Recently, a woman who cleared up some emotional issues in my
office spontaneously improved her eyesight. She hasn't worn
her glasses since the session and can now see stuff that she
couldn't in the past.
Smokers often use cigarettes to deal with stress. Even though
quitting smoking is a smart choice for most people in many
contexts, I know of several people who have developed asthma
or ulcers and a host of other symptoms right after quitting
smoking. When some of these people have resumed smoking,
the symptoms have disappeared only to reoccur when they
attempt to quit once again. Having said that, if the unconscious

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spontaneously brings up some trauma, it doesn't necessarily
mean that you need to deal with it to help your client quit. It
doesn't need to be related to the smoking at all. People often
spontaneously go into hypnosis during trauma and great stress.
Later, when entering the same state in your office, there is a
chance that these state-related memories come up as a result of
entering the state. The smart money is on using whatever the
unconscious spontaneously presents during the session.
So, there you are with your client. The two of you have great
rapport, the client's unconscious decides that now with you is
the time to finally deal with some unresolved trauma, and up
comes the spontaneous symptomatic hypnotic state. You realize
that it's an invitation from the client's unconscious, go over and
do the following
2. Tell the client: "That's right ... thanks unconscious ... you
just focus on that feeling ... close your eyes ... "
3. Place your hand on the clients forehead ... rocking the
head from side to side ... tell the client to follow that
feeling back to the very first event the feeling is related
to as you count from ten to one.
4. When you reach the count of one you ask questions such
as: "First impression, inside or outside .. ? Alone or with
people.. ? Give me a report ... how old are you .. ?"
This way they can reconstruct the memory and reframe it.
Have them focus on the emotion and suggest that as you
count back from five to one, they will be back at the very
first event. When they end up at the same event twice, that's
a good sign that you have recreated the first memory.

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 Now you deal with it by reframing the memories. You can
use Time Line TherapyTM, New code Games, Re-imprinting
or whatever works.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS TO MAKE

There are two important distinctions to make. When a client
goes into deep hypnosis, does it include you? No reason to get
philosophical here, it's about how responsive the client is to you.
We are talking about rapport, having the attention of the other
persons unconscious. If someone is in a deep trance and it
includes you, it's possible to do what I described.
If they are in a deep state and it doesn't include you, then you
will fall flat on your face unless you manage to include yourself
into it. You might be more or less connected to the client's
experience. If the connection is strong, then I will just walk over
and tell them to close their eyes, focus on the feeling and follow
it back to the first event of significance.
If I sense that we aren't quite that connected I will go over
and do the hand drop.
I start out by telling them to: "Keep focusing on that feeling, put
your hand on mine while feeling that feeling, close your eyes, press and
SLEEP ... just let go all the way into that feeling, as it gets even
stronger as I count from one to five ... "
This is a very effective way to include myself into the trance
and hijack it.

Real-Life Regressions

Let's say that you have a client who is scared of heights. In the
office you just don't get him strongly enough into the emotion to
be able to do much. A good choice, if you have good rapport
and the person goes into hypnosis, is to take the person with

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you to a high place. Pace the person's breathing and physiology,
make sure that you have good rapport and have the person
walk out on the cliff or whatever. Then, when the person goes
into the fear state strongly, tell the person to take a step back.
They will of course want to do that. Make sure that they don't
move so far back that they no longer feel the fear. The goal is for
them to still feel the fear while you enter their experience.
Then do the following: "Focus on that fear while listening to my
voice ... stare at my forehead ... put your hand on top of mine ... close
your eyes ... press down and SLEEP ... just allow yourself to go into a
deep trance ... feel that fear and as I count from one to five ... "
Here comes the test. What you want to do is to direct the
person to behave spontaneously. You are attempting to amp up
the fear using suggestion. If they respond, that means that they
are in hypnosis AND you are part of the trance. When you do
this, the hypnotic state will be very deep. Understand that when
they first go out on the cliff, they spontaneously go into a pretty
deep hypnotic state. The only problem is that it doesn't include
you. Whenever you pull someone out of trance and then re-
hypnotize him or her, they have a tendency to go deeper. This
change is called "Fractionation." That's exactly what you are
doing here. You are taking them out of the state, and then give
them some simple things they can voluntarily do. Things like
taking a step back, placing their hand on top of yours and
closing their eyes. By doing this you are directing their
experience and fixating the client's attention. Then you do the
hand drop and attempt to get a strong fear going by suggestion.
You have now directed your client to behave spontaneously and
the unconscious is on your side. Not only have you deepened
the hypnotic state as a result of fractionation, but you have also
included yourself in the trance. You have successfully hijacked
the client's trance.

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In closing, I have done real life regressions with a client's
informed consent, and I have done it spontaneously. It's usually
easier if you have their conscious consent, but if rapport and an
intense desire to change is there, then a spontaneous real life
regression in an elevator or other public place can work
wonders when nothing else will.

Pity Cry vs. a Symptomatic Trance

John Grinder once told me that one of the benefits of studying

hypnosis is to learn to distinguish which responses are from the
unconscious and which aren't. In other words and relevant to
what I am describing here, you need to learn to differentiate
between a pity cry, a distraction and a real symptomatic trance.
This might take some time and effort and be prepared to fall flat
on your face from time to time. The rewards of learning to do
this are very high and well worth the embarrassment both for
you and your clients; at least for the clients you see later.
A few years ago a student and friend of mine, Odd Arild
Ringen, brought in a client for me to work with. The client was
afraid of spiders and had been to quite a few therapists, and she
had done a wonderful job in manipulating them around her
little finger. As she walked into the office I congruently told her
that I had a little surprise here waiting for her. She just scoffed
and didn't go into a fear state at all. That was the first time that
had ever happened for me. The fact that her state didn't change
at all gave me a solid hint that spiders wouldn't be our focus
during the session. In a way, I choose to interpret it as her
unconscious saying: "No, that's not it, attempt another angle." So I
did just that."
In the process of interviewing her it became apparent that
unlike most people who do phobias, she didn't do her phobia

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every time, just some of the time. As I asked questions I was
looking for nonverbal state shifts, incongruence and even
phobic responses. Since she never did her phobia when she was
alone, but with some people (especially her boyfriend) in some
contexts, you can be sure that she was using her phobia in some
way socially. For her it was about boundaries and controlling
other people without being held responsible for doing so. Of
course, she didn't verbally tell me this. She showed me when I
started to overstep her boundaries and didn't let myself be
manipulated.
When I started holding her responsible for her
communication, she told me that she was so sorry that her
boyfriend had to put up with her illness (the phobia, and her
fear determining what they could do together as a couple). I just
remarked: "Not really, or else you wouldn't CHOOSE to do this."
She immediately responded by going into a pity cry. Clients
will often do this whenever you hold them responsible, but they
don't want to accept responsibility. The pity cry works well for
them. It's a way for them to control the interaction without
being held responsible. Society teaches us that feelings are
involuntary, caused by someone or something else, so anyone
who doesn't back off is clearly a psychopath with no empathy.
My response was to lean back in my chair and say: "That
really doesn't impress me much." I did so in a very laid back and
matter-of-fact way. Then I shut up. Instantly, she went into a
state of anger, asking me: "How dare you treat me like this?"
Again, I did the same thing. I leaned back and said: "Nah, that
doesn't impress me much either ... "
Immediately she snapped herself out of anger, leaned back
and said: "OK!" I then went over to grab her arm and told her to
stand up and go with me to meet some spiders. This time she
went into her phobic response very strongly. I amplified her

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response by doing the hand drop and regressed her back in
time. The problem was resolved right then and there.
This is another case where the standard phobia cure,
anchoring formats, or exposure therapy wouldn't have worked
very well. The real issue was boundaries and personal
responsibility. It took some provocations and tests to find the
proper context. In addition, by passing her bullshit testing, I got
credibility and rapport at the unconscious level, evidenced by
the fact that she responded and resolved her issue. For me, this
case was another example of a client who I had excellent rapport
with, but hated my guts (and still does!) at the conscious level. I
should state that it's not a goal of mine to have clients dislike
me. At the conscious level most of my clients like me and I like
them. I just want to provide counterexamples to the idea that
rapport means liking, and that the client needs to like the
therapist for therapeutic change to occur. This client liked the
therapist who referred her a lot, but clearly, the unconscious
rapport wasn't there. So, if your clients like you, that's great and
a bonus, but don't hold back from doing things you intuitively
feel will work just because the client might dislike you a bit. It
really isn't a problem if make something happen in the first
session. If you don't, there is a chance that they may not come
back.
My student was quite stunned by all of this and wondered
how I knew when to regress. The answer I gave him was that
the first two emotional responses were pity cries and
distractions, while the third one was a symptomatic trance
produced by the unconscious.

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How to Recognize a Spontaneous Symptomatic
Trance

I have noticed the following characteristics:

A genuine look of surprise. Surprise is the briefest of all
our emotions and can only be triggered by a sudden
unexpected event. When surprised people's eyes open
vide, pupils dilate, eyebrows lift, jaw drops and they
often move back just a little plus a straightening of the
spine.
The straightened spine is very common in the
symptomatic trance. It looks as if they're waking up,
something is getting activated and their facial
expression shows surprise since the trance is sudden
and unexpected. Surprises don't last long and their
facial expression will show which emotion they then go
into. It can be fear, anger or sadness or some other
emotion.
A pity cry or distraction always lacks the facial
expression of surprise. Further, they have a tendency to
collapse their spine, look down and away, sob and hold
their hand in front of their face. The pity cries are also
under conscious control. Clients can snap out of them in
the twinkling of an eye if they want to. If you study the
pity cries you will notice that people have a tendency to
make sure that they have eye contact with you before
they look down and sob.

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How to Create Instant Hypnosis

We just talked about how to utilize spontaneous symptomatic

trances, as well as how to differentiate between those states and
pity cries. You know how to do the hand drop. You know how
to include yourself in a trance and you know how to hijack a
trance to do real life regressions.
You don't need to wait for a spontaneous trance. You can
create one to induce instant inductions. Earlier in the book I
wrote that the goal of changework isn't to fabricate a cause or
root cause. Hopefully, by now you know that there is no such
thing. However, most people don't know this and they act as if
there is such a thing as Cause and Effect in many contexts where
they pretend to be suffering the effects of some cause. Our job is
to find the contexts where people pretend the hardest that they
are the effect of some cause.
These contexts will be where they are most stuck. If you can
spontaneously or not-so-spontaneously create the context where
people act this way in your office, they will instantly go into
state. Let's look at a couple of client examples.
Heidi, who I wrote about in the first chapter, is a wonderful
example. She claimed that criticism and rejection caused her to
feel fear. After calibrating how she responded to my voice on
the phone, I created a context that would have her go into deep
hypnosis. By asking her what the fuck was wrong with her (in
THAT tone of voice) after deliberately making sure she didn't
find my office. She instantly went into state. I was part of her
experience and we were able to reframe the memories, giving
her choices and breaking the Cause and Effect curse she had set
up for herself.
Sometimes you can get very valuable information by listening
intently and taking literally what the client is saying for the first
thirty seconds of speaking.

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One guy called me and during a phone call that lasted for a few
minutes, he leaned on the sentence: "I NEED TO TALK TO
SOMEONE!" Our first session started with me taking him
literally. I just sat back and shut up and was totally quit. I
matched his physiology so I knew that we were connected. He
got irritated and wanted me to speak. I just smiled and
continued my weird silence. It didn't take long for him to enter
a symptomatic trance. We used the feeling as an affect bridge
back in time, and boy did he have some stuff to tell his father.
A woman called me not long ago and she was a constant
blabbermouth on the phone. I couldn't get in a word. She told
me that she was anxious all the time and out of touch with
herself. Just before our first session I met her outside of the
office. She was told that after she entered the office door she was
prohibited from speaking. Therefore, if I needed to know
anything before the session, then she would have to tell me
before entering the office. When she entered my office, she was
told to not say anything and to not do anything, but answer
everything nonverbally. It didn't take long for her to respond
strongly.
As you ask questions during the sessions, learn to pay little
attention to the verbal answers and look for the nonverbal
responses. When I think back to when I have screwed up with
clients, a common denominator has been that I have allowed
myself to get seduced into the stories and have ignored the
small nonverbal incongruence along the way.
Learn to notice when and during what topics the client goes
into a slight or strong symptomatic state. When do they react
with incongruence? In what contexts is there a big difference
between the stories they are telling and what they are actually
doing.
A final biggie to be on the outlook for is projection. We all
have a tendency to project onto others whatever issues are

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deeply unresolved in ourselves. A typical example would be the
people who are jealous all the time and always attempt to
control who they are with. When these clients enter my office I
usually ask: "50, what have you done?" Guess what, often they
have been unfaithful or have strong fantasies of being
unfaithful, or they think that they are so unlovable that if their
partner gets exposed to someone else, the partner will leave
them in a heartbeat. Of course, sometimes there is a strong
reason to be suspicious, but I am talking about people who
present this as a pattern. It's like the people who often march in
front of anti war demonstrations time and time again. Have you
ever noticed how aggressive many of these people are?
If someone has a lot of anger and it's an unacceptable
emotion for them, they will usually either repress it or develop
some symptom like back pain or chronic fatigue to cover it up,
or they will project it on to someone or something out there with
the greatest hook. Notice in what contexts clients are projecting
things out there strongly and then help them turn their
projection around. There is an art to doing this. Reread Chapter
One and you will discover how a key piece is to change the
projection of something being" out there" to dealing with it on
the "inside." It doesn't matter if someone says: "I can't handle
strong feelings in others" or "People don't respect me." Change will
happen when they turn it around and learn to deal with strong
feelings in themselves or respect themselves more.
There you have it! These are the inductions I use at least 85
percent of the time. Master instant and rapid inductions and
your success will sky rocket. Since you are probably wondering
what I do for the last 15 percent of the time, this is probably a
good time to troubleshoot a little bit.

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 CHAPTER 10
WHAT IF THEY DON'T GO INTO
HYPNOSIS?

When I am working with someone I have three objectives.

1. A deep state of focused attention where I can direct them
to behave spontaneously.
2. Strong activation of the state that is driving their disease,
symptom or unwanted behavior.
3. Reframing the memories related to their issue.
We need Step One to do the others. So, let's say that someone
doesn't respond when we attempt the hand drop. When I do the
hand drop with someone, I will keep one hand on their forehead
as I rock their head from side to side while instructing the
person to go deeper. It's easy to feel if they drop into hypnosis
when you yell: "SLEEP!!!" and pull the other hand away. If the
body goes limp and relaxed and they relax the neck as you
move the head, that's a sign that you are in good shape.
However, if the client stiffens the neck and tenses the body
including voluntary facial expressions, that's a sure sign that
they are not going in. That's another beauty of the hand drop.
Since you are touching the client you instantly get feedback. It
effectively takes all the guess work out of it. Just feel the neck,
and if they go limp it's a green light. If they tense up, you got
some work to do.
Some people like to do an eye lock test right after the hand
drop. The eye lock test goes something like this: "Focus all your

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attention on your eyelids as they get heavier and heavier as I count
from five down to one ... so that when I reach the count of one they will
be so deeply hypnotized that the more you try to open them ... the more
locked and sealed shut you will find them to be... "Then you count
down suggesting that the eyes get heavier and heavier, and at
the count of one you have them TRY to open their eyes only to
find that the more they try, the more locked and sealed in the
down position those eyelids are. The eye lock challenge
functions as a hypnotic convincer. The client knows that he or
she is in hypnosis, and you know that they are at least in a light
state. It also functions as a deepener since accepting a convincer
creates a deeper state. You have successfully directed the client
to behave spontaneously by having the person consciously try
to open, just to find that they involuntarily stay shut. The client
has proved that he is in a suggestible state and you can ask for
involuntary responses from the unconscious.
I sometimes use the eye lock test. The benefit to using it is
that it's a very easy convincer to achieve. It will often impress
the client and give them more confidence and a deeper state
prior to asking the unconscious to bring up the emotion that has
everything to do with whatever they are there for. The large
majority will accept the eye lock challenge. On the other hand,
know that people can reject this convincer even if they are in a
deep state. If the client is a control freak, then don't do this. It's
no fun to suggest eye lock only to have the person open his or
her eyes and stare at you in disbelief! You don't need to have
that happen. If they stiffen the neck when you do the hand drop,
don't go for the eye lock.
Let's say the client stiffens the neck and rejects hypnosis, or
let's say that you go for the eye lock and they just open their
eyes. This doesn't occur often, but when it does I will go straight
into a parts reframe: "That's right ... keep those eyes open cause
we've got to talk ... there is a part of you that is preventing you from

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going into hypnosis ... and it's trying to protect you ... and I agree that
protection is important and I want to ensure that you are a lot more
protected than you are now ... because it's not repressing negative
emotions from the past that protects you ... rather it's the learnings
from those past memories that protect you ... It's by accessing those
past memories and learning what you need to learn that will give you
the protection you need, and I promise that we have a way of doing
that that is totally safe ... So if your unconscious really wants to
protect you ... and I know it does ... we need to go into hypnosis for this
to happen ... Now that you think about it like that is your unconscious
willing to do that ... "
You will see an unconscious head nodding as you do this,
and often the person is on his way into trance already. If that's
the case, just go ahead and do the hand drop again. This will
usually work. Sometimes they will consciously bring up some
objection, and then you can resolve it before attempting another
induction.
If parts reframing or probing for objections doesn't work and
you know that you have done a good pre-talk and established a
hypnotic contract, then you got an important distinction to
make. This is an important distinction that will probably take
some time to master. Is the client capable of going into
hypnosis? Or haven't they developed that aspect of themselves
yet?
If the client has many experiences of being absorbed into past
experiences like movies, daydreaming, being in the zone when
working out and so on, then you know that the person is
capable but for some reason just isn't responding right now. If I
know that the person has the capacity I will probe for objections.
Sometimes there aren't really any objections but the person is a
dabbler. These clients have a tendency to not quite do things full
out.

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I had a stuttering client a couple of months ago who clearly had
the capacity, but he just didn't go into hypnosis. He had
traveled from another part of the country to see me, so I just
used congruence. Congruently I told him that I knew that he
had the capacity, that I was tired of playing games, that I would
leave the room for three minutes, and when I came back he had
a decision to make. He was further told that when I came back
we would do it again, and he would either show me deep
hypnosis or I would send his ass back on the plane home.
The guy dropped into deep hypnosis really quickly. I have
had many experiences like this and more often than not it has
worked great. Whenever you get a dabbler it's no use in using
another induction. It's not about the induction, it's about going
full out, it's about commitment! If you have enough patience
you can send the person out of the office to do some task or
ordeal to prove to you that they are committed. After a while,
when the task is wearing them out, present hypnosis as a way to
avoid the task. The "pissing in public" example was an example
of this.
The lack of commitment is the most common obstacle in my
opinion. As previously mentioned, I have had quite a few clients
come into my office with some light symptom and they have
dabbled around. Then, a few years later when the symptom is
severe they come into the office and into hypnosis they go
without any objections at all.
If you have many dabblers as clients, that means that you are
creating a context for them where being a dabbler is a bit too
easy. Work on your own congruence. Display a willingness to
not accept them as clients, and a willingness to walk away at
any time. Increase your use of tasks and ordeals and increase
your fees.
What about intense performance anxiety? Some clients just
block out because they do performance anxiety. Sometimes they

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are really committed, but they just paralyze themselves. It's a bit
like the committed athlete who just doesn't handle the pressure
well during competition. Quite often these clients have some
deep hurts inside that they are doing their best to repress. The
idea of getting in touch with these deep emotions is often
overwhelming, so they just go numb. It might be a good idea to
work on your rapport. Not only in the usual ways of matching
and mirroring, but by working to pass their congruence tests. I
sometimes think that the unconscious can be a bit like a flaky
woman. If you are a woman reading this book you have
probably just waited for my sexist side to appear. You all know
what I am talking about. Women tend to test men a bit, testing
them to see how much bullshit they can get away with. I think
that they do this to see if I guy has any self-respect, if he can
stand up for himself. If he can't stand up to her, how can she feel
safe around him and count on him to stand up for her? Women
are looking for strength and security, so they can open up and
surrender to the experience emotionally.
Well, I think that clients are the same way. If they are going
to open up, feel the deepest aspects of themselves and surrender
to the experience, then they need to know that you are strong,
steady and ready to handle it. I think this is one reason why
clients often test therapists by being rude, snotty,
condescending, passive-aggressive or resistant. Of course, they
might just be ambivalent about change or not really want to
change, AND at the same time there is a chance that they are
testing you to see if you can handle them.
You just need to accept this as part of the game. Look at it as
a respect opportunity, a way to deepen the rapport and really
bond with them. You have to show them that you are there for
them, and willing to support them all the way. At the same time
it's important that you not be attached or needy about them
having to change. One test they will often present you with

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where you to play rescuer while they play the victim. Don't fall
for it!
Don't misinterpret this to mean that you have to be dominant
or authoritative, even though you definitely want to have those
skills. Sometimes you will show strength by using humor. The
client will then often think: "This person isn't afraid of my
problem." Other times you might want to reveal a vulnerable
side of yourself, showing emotion or admitting to flaws. By
going first you show them that it's OK to open up. Another
client might need someone really confrontational who calls
them on their bullshit and doesn't give in at all.
I can't emphasize enough the willingness to walk away! That
you show your client that you have boundaries, and that you
don't need to work with him or her. I don't work with clients
that I don't like or want to work with. I reject a lot of clients and
I think that I am doing both them and myself a favor.
Personally, I think that a combination of working from the heart
and at the same time being dirt level honest is a rare
combination and the best foundation for deep credibility and
rapport. I am convinced that this combination is what has
allowed me to influence clients to do all the crazy stuff that you
have read about. If they didn't sense that I was working from
the heart, they wouldn't have done it. At the same time, if I was
just touchy feely about it nothing much would have mattered
either. Whenever the client is stuck or resisting, ask yourself the
following question: "What skill or state does this client need to
develop and then you go there first?" If you aren't willing or able to
go first, then have enough integrity to refer the client out, or
reschedule at a later time so that you can work on yourself in
the meantime. I must admit that sometimes I get soft and fall
into the traps I have warned you about.
Recently, a woman in her early thirties called me to work on
a couple of issues. I sensed quickly that although she verbally

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stated that she wanted to change, that she was more than a little
ambivalent. My schedule was full for the next month, so I gave
her an appointment about a month later. She asked me to
promise to call if someone postponed or cancelled an
appointment. I did call her a couple of days later and gave her
an earlier appointment. Then she asked if she could come in
even earlier. She was very seductive and a great hypnotist in the
sense of selling her urgency and the idea that she really needed
to come in quicker. Stupid as I was, I ended up offering to work
a bit later one day to fill her in.
You know what happened next. A few days later she sent me
an SMS telling me how grateful she was for the effort I had
made in getting her an appointment, but that she had changed
her mind about coming in. She had decided to wait for a while.
Right after I got that SMS I think I laughed myself silly for ten
minutes. I even had to lie down on the floor. You got to have a
sense of humor about these things. I am grateful to that woman,
whose bitch qualities were well developed, to remind me of
something I already know well. I screwed up, she tested my
congruence, and I gave in. Who can blame her for changing her
mind?
I still chuckle when I think about it. I am in the middle of
writing this book, and after all these years I fall into a simple
trap like this. Since I have just picked a bit on female clients, it's
only fair that the male clients get their share. They have their
own tricks. Being overly skeptical", disrespectful or abusing
/I

your time seems to be some of the common ones.

I was only 21 years old when I started seeing clients. Many of
my male clients were old enough to be my father or even
grandfather, and some of them had high-level positions in
companies. No surprise that many of them felt a need to test me
a little. I remember one CEO who droned on and on about
punctuality and self-discipline as important qualities in a

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human being and how busy he was. He did extreme anger
whenever someone didn't respect his time. You might not be too
surprised to learn that he was thirty minutes late for our first
appointment, and guess who wasn't there? He had had a two
hour drive to reach my office. When he called wondering where
I was, I just told him nonchalantly that our appointment was for
two o'clock, not two thirty. Another hot shot, a lawyer, who
loved abusing people verbally suddenly screamed at me: "No
one talks to me like that." I responded by saying: "I know that, but
for the rate you are paying me, I certainly will." He cracked up
laughing and suddenly we were best of friends.

Mindfulness Meditation

So, there you are in the office with your client who has shut
down, and you sense that the fear of being overwhelmed by
emotion is stopping him from responding.
From time to time I will guide these clients through a very
simple meditation were they very gently learn to orient
attention inward. I have them just focus on breathing or scan
their bodies and just letting attention flow from body part to
body part. Whenever some other thought appears, the
instruction is to reorient attention back to the body. After a
while some emotion usually appears. When emotion comes up
the goal is to stay present with it, to have a full experience of the
emotion without repressing, fixating or obsessing. The client is
instructed to notice the location, where the emotion wants to
spread, temperature, shape, if it's contracting inward or
expanding outwards and so on. Clients begin to notice that
whenever they allow themselves to have a full experience of the
emotion, it has a tendency to release. If pictures or internal
dialogue appears they are to just notice it, and then put attention

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back to the emotion. After going through this exercise, the client
is instructed to go home and practice this for a couple of weeks.
Sometimes this is enough to help them resolve things on their
own. Most of the time they come back and then do well. Clients
like this often just need to get to know you a bit better so they
can learn to orient inward in a safe way.

The Surprise Handshake Induction

If you have read some of the early NLP books like

Tranceformations, which is one of my favorites, then you are
familiar with the handshake induction. It's a rapid induction
that I have found great use for with some of my "skeptical" and
resistant clients, especially the ones with a lot of performance
anxiety.
Last year I worked with a woman for an issue that we needed
to resolve quickly. She was very afraid that she would be
resistant and that she would fail. In addition to this I sensed that
she had some trance capacity, but not much. I let her fail time
and time again sitting in the chair. The idea was to use up all her
resistance and link it to sitting in that chair. I used a lot of
sentences like: "You have been sitting in that chair for some time ...
and you have resisted everything in that chair ... and it's clear that
you haven't responded at all ... I can't help you ... It's time to end this
work and send you home ... I am not willing to work with you in that
chair anymore ... "
She started crying and begged me to keep trying, but I
congruently told her that she had failed and that her resistance
HAD been to strong in that chair. Once I could see that she had
given up and accepted the fact that I wasn't going to work with
her, I escorted her to the door with the following words: "Well,
it's sad that I wasn't able to help you, but that's life sometimes. I wish

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you the best of luck and it was nice meeting you ... "I then moved to
shake her hand goodbye, but to her surprise I went straight into
the handshake induction. (Go back to chapter one and read
about the guy I met at the door with this induction for a
description on how to do it.) The client responded beautifully
and went into a workable state of hypnosis. By doing a surprise
induction like this as she thought the session was over she was
able to respond. There was no performance anxiety, her
defenses were down and the resistance was used up.

How About Control Freaks?

The key to success is to somehow be able to utilize the need for

control. Learn to listen intently and take what your clients say
literally, especially if they lean on a sentence and repeat that
sentence several times. One client kept asking: "BUT people in
trance can't resist suggestions. No matter how hard I tried to
II

convince her that all hypnosis really is self-hypnosis, she just

wasn't buying it. If you have read Erickson's Tomato Plant
Induction, which is detailed in many of his books, you know
how powerful an indirect induction can be. I did something
similar. I spoke about hypnosis in a general way to fixate her
attention while giving embedded commands about going inside.
I kept talking about: " ... how everyone could use a HAND from time
to time and it didn't matter if it was THE RIGHT HAND or the left
because at times in life ... We have been sinking for a while but that we
have abilities deep inside ... That helps us LIFT UPWARDS ... so that
we can feel LIGHT AND EFFORTLESS ... "
After a few minutes of this nonsense talk her right hand
started lifting involuntarily. I could see that she was going into
hypnosis and at the same time expressions of worry and concern
showed in her facial expression. I sensed that she was holding

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back slightly because of the belief that she would be powerless
to resist a suggestion if she really went deep. It was time to
utilize her model of the world.
I gave her the following double bind: "If you know that YOU
ARE IN A TRANCE ... nod your head up and down ... if you don't
know that you are in a trance ... move it from side to side." She
started nodding hear head up and down confirming that she
knew that she was in a trance. I sensed that she needed to know
that she could resist a suggestion, so I gave her the eye lock
challenge, knowing very well that she would resist it. As soon as
she opened her eyes she was told: "That's right ... Now that you
know that you are in a trance ... and you know that you can resist a
suggestion while in trance ... how long until those EYES CLOSE and
you drop all the way into a deep state NOW... "
She did just that and had no problems going into hypnosis
thereafter.

What About Those Who Repress Feelings

Sometimes you will get clients who just aren't able to

voluntarily access the state that is driving the issue they are
seeing you for. Sometimes people go into hypnosis, but then,
when I attempt to bring up the emotion using a strong one-to-
five count ... the answer I get is NOTHING ... I just don't feel
anything.
If the client is reporting feeling nothing and I sense that he is
shutting down, I use the same parts reframe that I use when
someone doesn't go into hypnosis. See "Harald the Asthmatic"
for an example.
If I sense that the client is in hypnosis and leans on the word
"NOTHING" as if they are a bit numb, like the pissing in public
client, I will utilize it by saying: ... That's great ... Sometimes

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nothing is something ... and as you continue to focus on that feeling of
nothing I am going to count from ten to one ... and when I reach the
number one you're going to be back at the first event that has
everything to do with this issue ... "
Often the client will just be an analytical that has a tough
time bringing up feelings and getting absorbed. My favorite
tactics for dealing with this is to have the client hyperventilate
on purpose (explained later). Another choice is to use a New
Code Game to activate emotions. Before I give you specific
instructions on how to do New Code Games, let's look at some
New Code Case stories as well as the principles involved.

When the Client is Totally Emotionally Repressed

Sometimes I get these clients from hell and absolutely nothing

works. Some people are so emotionally repressed and so into
the illusion of control that hypnotic approaches and new coded
interventions will be very hard to pull off. If you have read this
far you have discovered the wonderful world of Ordeal Therapy
and read about examples where ordeals have worked when
nothing else has.
I would like to introduce another choice for these super-
repressed clients. Before I do that, I'll ask if you have you ever
noticed that a lot of people seem to begin hyperventilating when
they really seem to be "losing it"? I have noticed this a lot with
my martial arts students when they do heavy sparring or full
contact simulations. When people start hyperventilating,
doctors usually give them a bag to breathe into to help them get
back into a "normal" breathing rhythm. What if hyper-
ventilating is a natural way for the mind-body system to deal
with some issue? Another fascinating phenomenon is if you
watch certain animals that have been traumatized (and

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survived), notice how they will shake a little as if they are
shaking the experience out of their system. Many years ago one
of my early-day NLP instructors, a guy by the name of Mike
Chechanowich, taught me a very interesting technique where
you get the client to hyperventilate on purpose. I think that
Mike got this technique from the Rebirthing method.
I have combined this breathing technique with mindfulness
meditation techniques I have picked up by studying the
materials of a meditation teacher by the name of 5hinzen Young.
Here are the steps:
1. Have the client lie down on the floor on his back. Put one
of your hands on his lower back and one hand on his
stomach. The reason for doing this is so that you can help
the client establish a good breathing rhythm.
2. Have the client start breathing very deeply using both
the stomach and the chest. Also make sure that they
have the mouth open. The whole idea here is to breathe
very deeply and at the same time in a fast and rhythmic
way.
Your job is to be a combination of a cheerleader and a
provocateur. You can use whatever hypnotic language skills
you might have to provoke emotions, or you can just make sure
that they keep breathing and then help them deal with whatever
comes up. Often intense pain will come up and more often than
not the deep repressed emotions will surface. Often you will see
the client start shaking, just like the animals do. You want to
encourage them to just let it happen. Don't try to stop them.
These sessions have usually lasted somewhere between thirty
minutes and an hour. It's hard for a client to keep analyzing
while doing this.

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When strong emotions come up I invite the client to have a full
experience of the emotion and to observe it. If it's very
overwhelming I will help the client break the emotion down
into small components. Here are some examples:
A. Is the feeling stable or is it changing? If we use this
distinction I will ask the client about every five seconds if
the emotion is stable or changing. If they answer stable, I
will have them notice the stability. If they answer that the
emotion is changing I will have them observe how the
emotion is changing.
B. Does the feeling pressure inward or outwards (contracting
or expanding) or is it doing both?
C. Is the feeling local or global? By local I mean located in one
specific location or is it in different places?
If the emotion is very intense I might use just one of these
categories. Usually I combine them by asking the client
questions from several of these categories every few seconds.
The whole idea is for the person to both feel the emotion and
just observe it with precision. This is a great way of releasing old
pent-up emotions.
Another thing I often do once the feeling is beginning to
diminish is to have them notice their thoughts as well. The
categories I use here are "pictures", "dialogue" or "subtle" if
they can't quite grasp if it's a picture or voice or maybe both.
Here the client is instructed to just say out loud whatever comes
up. There is no need for any content here. If the client sees a
picture the client just says" PICTURE" out loud. If he is talking
to himself he will say the word "DIALOGUE" out loud. If there
is picture and dialogue he will say "PICTURE and DIALOGUE".
After a while I might combine observing with precision both
thoughts and emotions by having the client do both and just

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describe in detail what's happening without going into any
content. Again, this is a great way to release old repressed
emotions as long as they consciously do not try to let go of the
emotions. While they do this exercise I don't have them
hyperventilating. They hyperventilate to bring up emotion.
Then we do the mindfulness meditation. Once they seem clear
and report that they are, we stop. We might do as little as thirty
minutes or we might go beyond an hour. Another option is to
go straight in to J0rgen's favorite format. WARNING! Don't use
this hyperventilating technique on people with heart problems,
epilepsy or with the pregnant!

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 CHAPTER 11
SOME PURE NEW CODE CASES

I spent about six months only using the New Code Change
format on pretty much every client I saw whether the client
needed it or not. How is that for a client centered approach?
There were a few exceptions. Actually, the approach is VERY
client centered since we are not imposing anything on the client.
The client chooses the context and generates the state and
resources without the agent of change needing to know any
content.

A Case of Heavy Grief

A couple of years ago I saw a woman in her forties named Vicky

who had struggled with intense grief for the last thirteen years.
Her thirteen year old daughter had suddenly collapsed and died
in her arms during a walk in the woods. If my memory serves
me correctly, the daughter had some sort of heart defect that
they didn't know about. Since that time the mother had suffered
with intense grief and several times a day whenever something
reminded her of her dead daughter, the picture of her dead
daughter in her arms would torment her.
Vicky and I created a one session miracle on a cold and rainy
October day. First we had her choose a context (which wasn't
hard). The context she chose was the one where her daughter
died in her arms. Vicky was instructed to see herself over there,
on a hallucinated place on the floor, in that context.

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Next she was instructed to physically step into the imagined
context and be there with all her senses. As she did this a strong
emotion of grief came up. Since she stood on a piece of paper
while having the grief experience, the experience became
spatially anchored to that particular place on the floor. That's
what I mean by the term "spatial anchor." After a few seconds I
pulled her out of the context and had her jump up and down for
some time to get her out of the grief state.
We then spent about fifteen minutes playing the Alphabet
Game before she went into a strong flow state. Suddenly, I had
her reenter the context while still in the flow state and a life-
transforming change followed. After stepping out of the context
she joyfully told me that the picture had changed by itself. Her
daughter had suddenly smiled at her in the image.
When I later heard from her, she told me that when she
thought about her daughter she felt joy and that she
spontaneously had started reliving a lot of pleasant memories
she had experienced with her daughter.

Some Loving Sex for You

Another client, a woman in her late thirties came in with the

inability to really enjoy sex. Even though she loved her husband
very much and was attracted to him, her body would go numb
when they had sex. Even friendly hugs would create a feeling of
numbness and often a feeling of wanting to get away. Sara had
been sexually abused as a child by her father and requested that
we didn't go into her past memories. I was curious to see what
would happen if we dealt with this without working directly
with her past memories, but instead used the New Code Change
format.

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I asked her which context she felt the numbness the most. When
doing this format I always prefer getting the biggie, the worst
context, in the hope that if we change that, the change will
generalize to all similar contexts. Sara selected a context, and
then proceeded to step into it. We knew that the unconscious
approved of the context since her whole body went numb
instantly. Then, after breaking state we used the NASA game to
create a flow state followed immediately by having her reenter
the context. I saw a pretty strong nonverbal state shift, which
she verbalized by saying: "That was certainly different."
When Sara came back a week later, she told me with tears in
her eyes that she had had loving sex for the first time in her life.
She jokingly described herself as a thirty seven year old woman
who had just lost her virginity. A most welcome bonus was that
hugs also felt comfortable.
Both of these client stories about how much things had
changed their lives brought tears to my eyes then and there. I
am a sucker for emotional stuff like that with happy endings.
Experiences like these certainly make this job the very best in
the world.

A Severe Snake Phobia

Anita wanted relief from a severe snake phobia. "Just" thinking

about it was enough to send her into panic. If she saw one on TV
or saw a picture of a snake in a magazine she would freak out.
To help Anita I borrowed a book from the local library, which
was full of snake pictures. We started out by using a picture of a
snake from the book as context. Then we did the NASA game
for about fifteen minutes to get a great flow state. While in the
flow state I showed her the picture again, but this time she went
into a state she described as neutral. We tested several times and

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each time she went into the neutral state. However, when I
showed her a picture of a snake with different colors she would
once again go into a phobic state. In the end we had to re-do the
game three times for her unconscious to generalize the change
to snakes of different colors and sizes.
Be prepared to repeat the game using a slightly different
context. Some people will, if you choose the most severe context,
generalize that change to all contexts that are somewhat similar.
However, people vary a lot in how widely they will generalize
the change. This is one reason why I prefer the approach I have
presented numerous times so far in this book.

A Group of Fighters

I teach self-defense in addition to doing changework. From time

to time I will teach my students self-hypnosis and various NLP
and meditation techniques. I have also had the pleasure of
working with a couple of professional mixed martial arts
fighters using the format described above. In my experience, a
great strength in using the New Code change format is that even
though different athletes might play the exact same game, the
unconscious of the individual athlete might produce VERY
different states based on what is most appropriate in the context
selected. Also, as the context changes, the state might spon-
taneously change into a more appropriate one. One pro fighter
told me that he simply felt that he had more choice and better
perspective in his selected context. Another time I worked with
three fighters simultaneously. They all chose contexts related to
fighting and they all used the Alphabet Game. One guy felt a
surge of adrenalin after completing Step Four. The next guy
broke into laughter and the last guy went into a state of relaxed
confidence.

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The main challenge is that a lot of people won't generalize the
changes very easily, meaning that if the context changes
somewhat the new state won't fire off. In other words, the
bridge between the context, the state and the ability to
generalize the change to similar contexts is the main challenge.

Grinders New Code Change Format

The New Code Change format is an elegant format developed
by John Grinder to correct a flaw in the "old classical" NLP.
In the old days the clients conscious mind would be asked
something to the effect of: "What do you want to achieve?"
Grinder points out that the client's conscious mind is the part of
the client least qualified to decide what the end state should be.
That this: the decision should be left to the unconscious. Further,
the conscious mind would then often be asked to identify some
resource. A common example would be the different anchoring
formats where the client is asked to consciously select some
resource, and then go back and re-experience it.
Again, Grinders perspective is that which end state and
resources to be used are decisions best left to the unconscious.
Another big distinction in the New Code Format is the focus on
state instead of behavior. Instead of generating new behaviors as
in Six Steps Reframing, the emphasis is on generating a flow
state and then linking that state to the context where the client is
stuck.

STEP ONE
From third position (observer position) select some context
where you find yourself stuck. See yourself over there in the
context where you experience X the most. Remember the
woman with grief? I had her use the memory of her son dying in

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her arms as context. I had her see that experience on a specific
place on the floor on a piece of paper (spatial anchoring). There
is no attempt to find out about the problem or what the client
wants to do instead. The goal is to identify a context where the
client is stuck. To create the greatest change possible I like to
probe for which context the client is the most stuck.
Generally, the more emotion the client feels when they step
into the context (Step Two) the more appropriate the context.
Have the client consciously select the context where she is
most stucki reacting most inappropriately from the third
position. You will skyrocket your results in changework if you
focus on context and state instead of attempting to understand
the problem or work on what the client wants to achieve
consciously.

STEP TWO
Have the client physically walk over to the hallucinated context
on the floor. Most people will benefit from closing their eyes to
really associate into the context. Going back to the grief client I
had her physically walk over to the imagined context and
associate into it.

STEP THREE
Have the client step out of the context. Then have the client play
a New Code Game. The Alphabet Game and NASA game are
excellent choices. The intent here is for the client to play the
game until she is in a flow state and has maintained that state
for a little bit of time. If you see that the client loses his state
during the game (and you will), just stop them and have them
take a couple of deep breaths and then go at it again. If the client
is doing something that's getting in the way of achieving a flow
state, then verbally instruct the client how to do things
differently. Here is how you do the games.

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The Alphabet Game
Make a chart and write up all the letters of the alphabet. Under
each letter put an L, R or B in a different color. The task of the
player is to vocalize the different letters, while simultaneously
lifting an arm. So, let's say that you have put an L under (A),
that means that the player is to vocalize A while lifting his left
arm. If there was an R under the letter (B), that would have
meant to lift the right arm while vocalizing B, and if there was a
B under the letter (C), it would be an instruction to lift both arms
while vocalizing C. The player continues to do this until he is
able to do it with rhythm and flow. The next step is to add some
complexity. This time the player not only lifts an arm, but also at
the same time lifts the opposite leg. Therefore, if they lift the
RIGHT arm while vocalizing some letter, the left foot is to be
lifted simultaneously.
The final step is to work the alphabet backwards. So far we
have started with the letter A, and then proceeded to the last
letter in the alphabet. Now, to make it even more complex we
are going to start with the last letter in the alphabet, and when
we reach A, just rotate back to the last letter in the alphabet
again.
The intent here is to create a flow state. A state where the
person is absorbed in the experience, flowing with rhythm, with
just the right amount of effortless "tension." Most people will
need something between ten and fifteen minutes to reach a good
flow state.
The NASA Game
This is another variation of a New Code Game, which along
with the Alphabet Game I have gotten from John Grinder. The
intent is the same: to produce a flow state.

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1. Have the client find a spot to look at right in front of him
or her.
2. Instruct the client to say the word "LEFT" and then
move his eyes to the left. Then have him say the word
"RIGHT", then move his eyes to the right. Then do the
same thing for "UP" and then "DOWN." Have the
person practice this for a little so that a good rhythm is
established.
3. The next step is to present a math problem (start out
easy) at the beginning of the cycle (when the client says
"LEFT"), and then have the person give the answer to
that math problem at the end of the cycle (after moving
his eyes down).
4. The whole idea here is that the clients keep the same
rhythm and not stop to think.
S. The next add on is for you as a coach to attempt to
distract the client during the cycle. Clap your hands,
jump up and down, and push the client lightly and so
on.
6. An optional step is for the coach the clap the last number
of the math problem
7. As an example, if the math problem is four times four,
you would say: "Four times ... " and then clap your
hands four times.
Keep going until you can see the client steadily in a flow state
over some period of time. Speed is not essential, but rhythm is.
It's not important if the client makes "mistakes" or not, rather
the rhythm and quality of the state is what counts.

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STEP FOUR
When you see that the client is in a flow state that she has
maintained for at least for a couple of minutes, have the client
reenter the context that they stepped into in Step Two. It's
important that the client doesn't attempt to consciously change
or influence anything. Lead the client there for a little while to
make sure that they are in a good state. If they" collapse" then
pull them out of the context, have them take a couple of deep
breaths, and then do the game again.

Tips from an Insider

Remember that it's all about two variables, namely" context and
state." There is no need to attempt to understand the" problem"
or ask the client what she wants instead. Just have the client
select the context where she is most stuck. Once the client steps
into the hallucinated context, then it's all about creating the flow
state. When the state is good have the client re-enter the context
without consciously trying to change or influence anything.
1. Emphasize rhythm. The most common mistake many
clients make is that they think it's all about speed. Get
people to slow down.
2. It's not about content. Clients often worry about doing it
wrong. Emphasize that it's all about the quality of the
state. It doesn't matter if they make "mistakes" or not. If
they are really hung up on content, task them by
requiring them to make a mistake every other line (on
Alphabet Game) as an example.
3. The New Code Games are ideal for creating flow states.
You are activating both hemispheres, using the three

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 most important representational systems (visual,
auditory and kinesthetic). In addition you are creating
rhythm and getting the clients physiology involved.
There is one more important factor involved in creating a flow
state. It's important that the game neither be too difficult nor too
easy. If it's too easy you create boredom, and if it's too difficult
you will only get frustration. Ideally, you will get the client
playing the game at a level at which it's difficult and
challenging, but at the same time doable.
4. Calibrate signals from the unconscious. In Step Two
when the client steps into the chosen context, if the
context is approved of by the unconscious you will
usually see it by the client getting the feeling connected
with the context.
Also, after reentering the context in Step Four, ask the
client how it feels if the change isn't obvious by noticing
the client's nonverbal response. If the change isn't there
you might want to re-do the game. Remember that you
need three things to make this format work.
First of all, the client needs to get in touch with the
feeling state connected to the context when she steps
into it in step two, the stronger the better. If the client is
very "analytical" and doesn't feel anything when she
enters the context, and you know that you have the right
context, then play a game with the intent of getting in
touch with the feeling the next time she enters the
context. Then, once the context feels "real" for the client,
step out, do a new game and then reenter the context.
The second thing you need is a strong flow state. Again,
look for rhythm and synchronized patterns of

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 movement and sound. Another good sign is if the client
makes a "mistake" and doesn't care, but just carries on
in the same state.
The third thing you need is a strong bridge between the
state and the context, since you are linking a flow state
to the visual and auditory triggers used to trigger the
unwanted response.
5. Future pace when done. After reentering the context and
pulling the person out after a while, it's useful to
challenge the client a bit. Questions about how they will
respond when person X does Y or whatever (use
whatever you know about the context if the context is
known to you) and look at the client's nonverbal
responses. Does the client show evidence of the old
response or is she showing the nonverbals of a
resourceful state?
You should know that John Grinder uses the term "High
Performance State." I use the term "Flow State" because
I find that term more accurate and useful. I write this
just so you know that we are referring to the same thing.

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 CHAPTER 12
JI2JRGEN'S FAVORITE FORMAT

The format presented below is my bread and butter technique. It

combines the principles of the New Code, Time Line patterning,
a rapid induction, deep hypnosis, strong emotions and hypnotic
regression. Notice that we don't have the person consciously
select the context (as opposed to Step One in the New Code
Change Format). Instead we have the unconscious select the
emotion/ state and use that as an affect bridge back in time to
create early context. Another strength is that we are aiming for
all context relating to the client's issue.

HOW TO SET IT UP
My goal here is to find out when they do x. It doesn't really
matter if it's a fear, or unresolved grief or some other unwanted
behavior or symptom. The key question to ask yourself is: "In
which context are the symptoms most severe?" The main question I
will ask the client is: "When do you do this, or in which context do
you experience X?"
Once again, feel free to use provocation, confrontation and
humor to find this out. As always the client's nonverbal
response will be far more informative than any story they might
have constructed. If you can find the context where the client is
the most stuck and use that, you have a great opportunity for
generative change. I am also looking for a set of words or a
sentence that will trigger the unwanted state in the client. If the
client fears public speaking the word set might be something
like: "So ... if you were to present yourself in front of highly

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 competent people ... where you have to perform ... and they all focus on
you ... "
The next step for me is usually to elicit a time line. I usually
do some conscious/unconscious disassociation and then present
the organization of time as a job the unconscious has. The
wording might go something like this: At the unconscious level
II

you have a way of knowing something that you have done in the past
... versus something you plan to do in the future ... So if I were to ask
your unconscious in what direction your past is located and in what
direction your future is located ... I have an idea that you would in
two different directions in relationship to your body ... So, if I were to
ask your unconscious where your past is ... where would you point..?
(After they point) .. .and where is your future?"
If the client says that they don't know, just say: "I know you
don't... but if you did where would it be? Take the first thing that
comes up just trusting your unconscious." I don't think I have ever
failed getting a response to that, but if you do, you could just
use the parts reframe I have presented numerous times in this
chapter.
Then I have the client float the time line as preparation for
the changework. It usually goes something like this: Please close
II

your eyes ... and imagine floating above your time line ... higher and
higher until you reach a place where you can just sense the past and
future down there ... NOW... what I want you to do is to start floating
back in time ... further and further in your own unique way ... all the
way back to your younger years to a positive event ... a time you felt
really good ... float down into the event... see what you saw ... hear
what you heard ... until you start to feel that good feeling ... and notice
as you make the image bigger and brighter and turn the volume up ...
that the feeling gets even better ... NOW that you enjoy what you are
experiencing ... I want you to float back up above the time line ... and
float towards your future ... and of course you don't have memories in
your future ... but you might have ideas, hopes and dreams and float

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approximately one month into the future and let me know when you
are there ... OK, float all the way back to now and reorient comfortably
and when you have done so just open your eyes ... "
Make sure that you calibrate the client along the way, making
sure that the client is following you and is responding. Before I
have them do this little exercise I tell them that they have to use
their active imagination. It often helps to give them an example
they can relate to. I often say: "Could you imagine being on top of a
roof looking down?" If they confirm "Yes" (and aren't phobic of
heights) I will tell them: "In the same way I will ask you to imagine
floating up above the timeline just to get the experience of floating,
AND I want you to know that this is just preparation so you don't
have to perform in any way." This usually takes away any
performance anxiety that they might have been doing. I also like
the part of having them re-experience a good memory. That way
the idea of letting go and focusing inwards gets to be a good
thing.
Now it's time for a hypnotic pre-talk designed to alleviate
their fears and to establish a hypnotic contract. I will also
explain different positions regarding the time line. I like to call
the position of being associated with a past memory (like they
just did with the positive event) Position 1.
If they float above the event looking directly down on it then
that's Position Two. When they float further back in time so that
they are above the event and at least fifteen minutes BEFORE
the event, so that they can turn around and look at the event
from the perspective that it hasn't happened yet, that's Position
Three. Position Three is a position where the client will let go of
negative emotions. I am not quite sure why it works so well, but
I know that it really does work that way. Although I do this
stuff, and use the positions a bit differently than what Tad James
does in Time Line TherapyTM, my format is heavily influenced

265
by his teachings. So, I have to give credit where credit is due and
say "Thank You!"
Ok, you have now prepared your client, so here is the actual
format.
1. ACTIVATE THE STATE THAT IS DRIVING THE ISSUE
Remember the hand drop induction into hypnosis. Well,
now is the time for it. Do the hand drop and then
immediately say: "You have a feeling inside that you don't
like ... a feeling that has everything to do with X (Here you
can use whatever word set or sentence you discovered when
you probed for context) ala: The feeling that has everything to
do with you developing migraine headaches when you relax
and feel that you deserve a break ... You have tried to avoid
the feeling, but now is the time for you to feel it and deal with
it ... I am going to count from one to five ... and as I do that
feeling is going to grow as real as eve ... "
Then you do the one-to-five count. When you reach the
count of five have the client identify where in the body
they can feel the feeling the most, and have the client
touch that body part. Ask the client to name the feeling.
This way you will know if it's anger, fear, sadness, guilt
or whatever.
2. USE THE STATE TO LET THE UNCONSCIOUS
CREATE THE CONTEXTS
One thing that I really like with this format is that it's no
longer the conscious mind that selects the context. We
are going to let the unconscious take care of that. It goes
something like this: "Feel that feeling and keep feeling it as I
count from ten to one ... When I reach the count of one you are
going to be back to the very first unresolved memory that has
everything to do with X (of course, don't say X, use whatever

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 they have presented whether its asthma or migraines or
insomnia or premature ejaculation ... ) TEN focusing on that
feeling, NINE - EIGHT - SEVEN ... following that feeling
back in time ... SIX - FIVE - FOUR ... to the very first
memory that has everything to do with this feeling ... THREE
- TWO getting ready now and ONE you are there (I usually
snap my fingers and jerk the clients head a bit from side to
side a bit to disorient them a bit)... First impression ...
INSIDE OR OUTSIDE? .. Are you standing, sitting or
lying down .. ? ALONE OR WITH PEOPLE .. ? What age are
you .. ? What do you feel?"
Make sure that you do this super fast. All you want to do is to
build a context involving all major rep systems. If the client says:
"I don't know" just say: "I know you don't, but if you did ... first
impression INSIDE OR OUTSIDE?" If it still isn't quite going
well, suggest that you're going to count from three to one and at
the count of one they will be aware of more detail.
You can also use the "NOTHING IS SOMETHING" word set.
That's right ... often nothing is something and as you continue
to focus on nothing I am going to count from three to one, and
as I do the something that's behind nothing will appear. If that
doesn't work use the parts reframe that I have presented
previously.
So now you have a context, but it probably isn't the earliest
one. My experience is that the earlier back in time you get the
client the better. Once we have a context I will say: "Keep
focusing on that feeling ... once again I will count from five to one and
when I reach the count of one you will be back to the very earliest
memory this feeling is connected to." If they end up in the same
event twice and the memory is from between age zero and five
at the most, you might be back at the first unresolved memory.

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3. RELEASE OF EMOTION AND RELEARNING
Once the client has built this context I utilize the timeline
to relearn and release emotion. It goes something like
this: "Float above the event up to Position Two ... so that you
are directly above the event looking down on it ... and I want
your unconscious to learn whatever it needs to learn so that
you can let go of x emotion ... NOW while your unconscious
learns, I want you to use your conscious mind as well ... that
kid down there at age X is feeling emotion Y ... and he was
doing the best that he could with the resources he had available
at the time... However, that feeling in that context is
representative of the thinking patterns of a child ... not the
grown man that you are today ... as you look at it from the
perspective of being a grown man you can begin to update the
memory ... you know a lot of things that the kid down there
didn't know and as you view it in light of your current
knowledge and resources ... notice how new choices become
apparent ... and although learnings about other people and the
world is valuable ... make sure that the learning's mostly are
about yourself. .. about what you can do differently ... and that
they are future oriented ... "
If I sense that the client is struggling I will ask the client to
verbalize the learning. In this way I can help the client out a bit
by asking questions, although I really prefer to just work with
process and leave the content to the client. I might offer some
perspectives and reframes if I sense that it's useful. Once the
client confirms that he has learned whatever is needed, it's time
to release the emotion or emotions connected to the memory.
Often that would have already happened if you have done a
good job in the relearning phase.
It's time for the following instructions: "I want you to float to
Position Three ... so that you are above the event and BEFORE the

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event happened ... turn around and look at the event from that
perspective ... NOW what happened to X emotion ... is it GONE
NOW? (If client answers YES and you see a state shift, say) ...
Float down into the event ... and notice if the emotion is GONE
NOW... "
If the emotion is gone I will offer the following instructions:
"I want you to start floating back towards now only as quickly as you
let go of X emotion on all related events back to now ... Here is how I
want you to do it ... As you float towards now your unconscious
knows exactly which memories are related and which have unresolved
emotion on them ... and it knows how to present those memories on
your time line ... All I want you to do is to assume Position Three
before each event and let go of the emotion and preserve whatever
you've learned about how you can do things different in the future ... "

What If The Emotions Don't Release?

Sometimes the client won't release the negative emotion from

the first memory. If that happens I prefer to do the things listed
below and in that order.
A. Usually this means that there is an even earlier memory
related to the issue with umesolved emotion. Say something
like this: "I am curious if there might be something even earlier
that needs to be dealt with first ... Let's find out ... I am going to
count from five to one ... and if there is something even earlier
you're going to be there at the count of one ... If this event is the
very earliest you will just experience this memory even more
vividly ... leave it up to your unconscious." More often than not
there will be an earlier memory and when the client enters
position three on that memory, the emotion will usually
release.

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B. Let's say that the client ends up back in the same memory
they were just in. I will check that the client really enters
Position Three. Instruct the client to: " ... look towards now and
to float as high up in the air as you need '" and as far back in time
as you need until you can feel the emotion release NOWwww ... "
C. If that doesn't work I will educate the client a bit on how
emotions are signals. I will tell the client that so called
"negative" emotions are good as signals, but not good for
the body to hold on to. Also, I will emphasize that it's the
things learned from the memory that protects them and not
the old negative emotion. Depending upon which emotion
the client feels that won't release I will usually use the
following frames.

Anger
Anger is there to signal you that someone has broken your rules
about what's acceptable in the context that you are in. There are
three solutions. You can challenge your own rule. Is your rule
empowering and useful? If it isn't, then what other rule would
be more appropriate? Another solution, if the client feels that the
rule is appropriate, is to ask him how he can enforce his
boundaries better in the future either verbally or by actually
doing something different.
As an example, a client of mine used to invite her sister over
to her place for Sunday dinners with her family. The sister
would often be at least thirty minutes late and the family would
sit there hungry and my client would boil with anger. She felt
that her rule about time was appropriate. She decided to
continue to invite her sister, but at five o'clock sharp the family
would start eating whether the sister was there or not. This
solution enabled her to let go of anger easily.

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Sometimes there isn't much you could have done. So, the
solution will be to "forgive" and let go and figure out how to
prevent it from happening again.

Fear
Fear is there to signal to you that you have picked up something
that might be dangerous. Gavin De Becker, author of the book
The Gift of Fear wrote something that I think is pretty profound:
"The fact that you feel fear is solid evidence that what you are fearing
is not happening. If it was actually happening you would be in the
experience and you would no longer fear it." He uses the example of
being up in the mountains hiking and afraid that you might slip
and get too close to the edge. Well, if you slip and get to close
you will no longer fear that, you will instead be afraid that you
might fall over the edge. Of course, if you actually fall off the
edge you will be afraid of landing and so on.
So, the client needs to evaluate if he really is in danger. If no,
the client can proceed as usual. If "Yes", how can he get to
safety? Or how can the client be better prepared the next time.
Which skills might the client want to develop?

Sadness
Sadness is the perception of loss. What is the client losing, if
anything? Has the client really lost anything, or is it just fuzzy
thinking. If so, then it's time to challenge that. Other solutions
will be to regain what has been lost or establish or do something
else that satisfies the same emotional need. Often it will be about
other people not giving them something that they think they
need to be happy. The idea being that the parents or wife needs

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to show more respect or acceptance and so on. The most useful
solution will usually be about how the client can then develop
more self-acceptance or more self-respect.

Guilt
Guilt is there to signal that you have broken one of your own
rules. The signal is there to inspire you to live your values. The
rules might be terrible, or you might realize that it's time to do
something different or change your values.

Testing
When the client signals that he is done it is time for a test. I
simply instruct the client to test the most significant memories
and notice if those are flat. Instead of me trying to convince the
client that the old negative emotion is gone (if it is), I will have
the client convince me. Even after the client is satisfied that the
emotion is gone, I will have the client test a few more times to
really make sure. If the emotion isn't gone, then it's right back to
Step Two. Once again you amplify the emotion and follow it
back to the earliest memory that's unresolved.

Future Pacing
The last step is to instruct the client to go out into the future and
notice how things are different. I have the client do this for a
little while. As they do this it's important to calibrate and
sometimes challenge them a bit. Challenge them by asking how
they will deal differently with whatever context they were stuck
in. If the client at this point reacts with the same old tired
response that they are paying you to help them change, then it's
right back to step two again.

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 CHAPTER 13
THE HIGHLY HYPNOTIZABLE CLIENT

Before we start exploring this intriguing group of clients I think

it's useful to me to specify what the hell I am talking about.
Specifically, what criteria I use to determine a highly
hypnotizable client and just as important how this labeling is
useful. Obviously, these are the people who go very easily into a
deep hypnotic state. Those people who go really deep and who
seem to respond to just about any hypnotic induction. It's also
the people you will see on stage at a stage hypnosis show, the 10
to 20 percent of the population who seem most receptive to
hypnosis. My criteria are the following:
1. The person will age regress in the present tense. In
others words, when they relive/reconstruct some
memory it's as if it's really happening and just as intense
as when it originally happened. Most other clients will
have at least some awareness that they are not really
there, but they are here and there at the same time. The
most highly hypnotizable clients I have seen seem to be
living life in the present compared to the analyticals that
are less present but live more in the past or the future.
Interestingly, while they have a tendency to live in the
present, these clients are the only ones who will do a
"real" age regression in the present.
2. They are very able and willing to get uncritically
absorbed into a new perspective or experience. These are
the clients who while at the movies get so absorbed into

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 it that they seem to lose awareness of where they are.
They even seem to be surprised to find themselves in the
movie theater right after the movie ends, often a bit
disoriented. When they imagine something it's as
intense as if it was actually happening. Same thing if
you ask them to go back to some memory, they will get
so absorbed that the remembered experience will be as
strong as the real one.
3. This group of clients can easily do positive and negative
hallucinations on cue. While you can make an argument
that we all do positive and negative hallucinations all
the time in everyday life, and I agree that we do, there is
a special and small group of clients who will do these
phenomena on cue as a result of suggestion or post
hypnotic suggestion. To be able to do this the client
needs to be able to accept a high degree of trance logic.
In other words, to be able to tolerate paradox with no
need to resolve it. Remember the example of a deep
trance subject actually experiencing a negative
hallucination versus the subject faking a deep trance.
Let me refresh your memory. The subject was while in deep
trance instructed to negatively hallucinate a person standing
right in front of the object. The subjects who were actually in a
deep trance elegantly walked around the person they negatively
hallucinated while at the same time claiming that there was no
one there. In their world they walked around someone who
wasn't there. This is an example of trance logic. People in deep
hypnosis have a tendency to use BOTH/ AND logic. In this way
the subject can actually be on the operating table having open
heart surgery and at the same time feel like he is swimming in
the Arctic Ocean. The result is an amazing level of pain control

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where they feel the pain at some level, but at the same time they
don't.
This has actually been done in real time. You can read more
about it in the book Trance and Treatment by Herbert and David
Spiegel. Herbert Spiegel is the first person, who to my
knowledge, tested and categorized his patients into low,
medium, and high hypnotic capacity. He also made some
observations about the relationship between hypnotic capacity
and personality. He then designed his interventions based on
what category he had put his patient in. While I don't agree
with all his views, I urge you to check out his work. It will give
you some additional perspectives on this topic of
hypnotizability that are a little different from mine. As I said, I
find some of his conclusions a little troubling, but some of the
stuff he writes about has some value.
4. These clients will, if instructed, develop amnesia for the
whole or parts of the trance experience as a result of
suggestion. Some of the hypnotic virtuosos will even
develop spontaneous amnesia for the entire trance
experience without receiving any suggestions for doing
so.
This chapter is reserved for clients who could do all or most of
the phenomena described above. The ability to go into deep
hypnosis opens the door for accessing skills and developing
results that seem miraculous. No doubt, these are the type of
clients any skilled hypnotherapist hopes to get since getting
results with these clients is usually easy, provided the client is
willing to change. Any skilled or even semi-skilled agent of
change will have a number of former clients they have been able
to perform what most people would consider "miracles" with.
The common denominator will be the client's ability to go into a
deep hypnotic state coupled with a willingness to change. On

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the other hand, the common denominator in the group of clients
they haven't been able to get any results with will be the ones
who don't go into hypnosis and aren't very committed.
My ideal client, if I wanted to maintain my comfort zone, and
to be honest, on days where I would like to be doing something
else, would be a highly hypnotizable client with a strong
willingness to change, little secondary gain and a severe
symptom. The more severe the symptom, the less bullshit you
will get from clients if they are there to change. The toughest
client has always been the uncommitted left brainer. These
clients will push you to get smarter and more competent and for
that reason they" should" be your favorite client.
Before you start to believe that working with highly
hypnotizables will be a walk in the park, you need to know that
there are some traps you can easily fall into. Every resource can
turn into a problem if used in the wrong way in the wrong
context. The case stories below will shed some light on how you
can get better results with these clients.

A Depressed Guy Named Tim

Tim was a guy with a lot of knowledge and resources, but he

struggled with depression, anger and self-sabotaging behavior.
He wanted to start his own company, but claimed that he just
couldn't since he had a mental block that stopped him.
J0rgen: "How do you know that you can't start your own
company and succeed at it?"
Tim: "The way I know is that it feels totally real to me. "
Tim's way of knowing that he couldn't was "because" it felt real
to him, and if it felt real then it was real. I picked up something
funny. Whenever he would talk about his shortcomings in the

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past, he would gesture right in front of him. When he talked
about the stuff he wanted to do in the future, he would gesture
right in front of him again, only a bit further in front of him.
Well, you guessed it! His "timeline" (a useful construct
whether or not we actually have such a thing) was organized in
such a way that his past, with the screw up memories blown up,
was right in front of him. Whenever he imagined the future, he
would filter it through up the screw ups of the past resulting in
a bad feeling. Not the best recipe for getting motivated about the
future, but a marvelous way of doing depression. Got to hand
him that, he was a master at the Art of Depression.
I had him imagine floating above his timeline so that he
could look down on it. Then I had him imagine taking the past
and putting it behind him and the future in front of him. After
this he was instructed to shrink the size of all the bad memories
and screw ups in his past. This simple intervention worked
wonders, and that's no surprise since I gave him exactly what
his unconscious was signaling me to assist him in doing.
We didn't stop there. I helped Tim into a very deep hypnotic
state. Once there I told him that when he opened his eyes he
would see and hear Santa Claus right in front of him. Tim was
deeply hypnotized so this positive hallucination was totally real
to him. Then I suggested that when he next opened his eyes the
table between us would be gone, that there was only space
between us. Once again, he opened his eyes and negatively
hallucinated the table and IT FELT REAL TO HIM.
Tim was convinced that both the positive and the negative
hallucination were real since they FELT REAL. By the way "IT
FEELS REAL" was the sentence he marked out and leaned on
several times during the interview. If something felt real then it
was real. He needed the experience of something FEELING
REAL but not being real, not as an intellectual concept but as a
felt experience, a felt experience where something that feels real

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doesn't need to be "real." After the hallucinations we had a little
chat.
Jargen: "When you saw Santa Claus that was real wasn't it. I
mean, it FELT REAL didn't it?
Tim: You mean ... YEAH ABSOLUTELY!
J0rgen: "When you negatively hallucinated the table, didn't that
feel real as well?
Tim: That was amazing, yes, it still feels totally real. I could
have sworn it wasn't there.
J0rgen: Now, I have a question for you. You used to have a
mental block and the way you knew it was real was because it
felt real. Now, if you can see something that isn't there and it
FEELS TOTALLY REAL, and you can't see something that
actually is there and that feels totally real as well. I wonder how
real those old limitations were after all?
Tim went straight back into deep hypnosis. I told him to keep
exploring the future in light of the deep changes he just made. I
got a letter from Tim a year later thanking me for helping him
produce a miracle. He was no longer depressed and was
running his own company.

Taking Things Literally

Clients will often tell you right off the bat what you need to do
to help them. Remember Tim, he marked out a sentence several
times and his gestures revealed a lot. By noticing these things
and utilizing them, you can design that experience for the clients
in deep hypnosis. You won't get much resistance since you are
feeding back to the unconscious exactly what it communicated
to you. Let' s take a look at couple examples.

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Susy the Insomniac

Susy was a woman in her early forties who had struggled with
insomnia for a long time. She had tried talk therapy and
sleeping pills but nothing had helped her much. Some
biofeedback practitioner had helped her out with her
depression, but the insomnia was still there.
Tingen: How on earth do you manage to not sleep? I mean, if
there is something I am good at it is sleeping. I close my eyes
and I wake up ten hours later.
Susy: I don't know. I just lie down and start to recall how long
it's been since I have slept properly, and I get worried that I
won't sleep tonight. I remember not being able to sleep. The
more I try to sleep the more awake I become.
Susy has just given us the solution to her problem. Amnesia. If
she didn't remember all the sleepless nights then she wouldn't
worry, and if she didn't worry her problem would disappear.
Susy went easily into deep hypnosis. Once there, I tested for
somnambulism by suggesting a number block. I gave Susy the
suggestion that when I snapped my fingers the number four
would be gone. She passed the test when she counted one - two
- three - FIVE and so on. Shortly thereafter, to her surprise, she
discovered that I had eleven fingers.
The reason I did this was both to convince her that she was in
deep hypnosis and also to test for her ability to respond to direct
suggestion in an involuntary manner. I then gave her the post-
hypnotic suggestion that whenever she put her head on the
pillow with the intent to sleep (didn't want to ruin her sex life)
she would develop amnesia for having had a sleep problem.
This suggestion was repeated several times. Then she was
"given" amnesia for the fact that I had given her the suggestion.
I then hurried her out of the office in a state of slight confusion

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to protect the suggestions and the amnesia, since I wanted her
conscious attention as far away from the session as possible.
It worked! I have two years worth of follow-up on that
woman and the insomnia is gone. This is another of those clients
who "should" have been difficult to work with, but it was easy.
All I had to do was to observe, listen intently and literally give
her exactly what she required.

A Cool Weight Loss Solution

Camilla was a woman in her mid thirties who wanted to lose
about twenty pounds. She had tried a bunch of different diets,
but would sabotage herself every time. She told me that she
loved food and hated the idea of someone wanting to take food
away from her. She was super stressed and wanted to learn how
to meditate to reduce her stress levels.
I hope you have your weight loss plan ready based upon the
above description. Think about it, there are a couple of very
important things to pick up.
1. She loves food and fears being told not to eat certain
foods. She is super stressed and eats really fast. How can
we utilize that?
2. She wants to learn how to meditate to reduce her level
of stress.
So, how can we utilize these factors to help her lose weight in a
way that is natural and elegant to her?
Camilla easily went into deep hypnosis and was told the
following: "Camilla, everyone has been telling you that you need to
diet and that you enjoy food too much. Well, those solutions haven't
worked well for you and for good reason. I want you to do something
else entirely ... you see ... I want you to eat only the food you want to

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eat ... Everything is allowed ... and more importantly I want you to
start enjoying food in a way you never have before ... taking the time to
really taste ... smell ... Experience the sensations in your body that let
you know that it feels so very good to enjoy food ... "
The suggestions were repeated many times. She was also
instructed to do time distortion, to eat in slow motion and to
really feel and experience everything. To really enjoy food
meant to only eat when hungry, select the food she wanted, eat
in slow motion time and to stop when satisfied. It was also
suggested to her that eating in a slow motion state would be her
way of not only enjoying food but her way of meditating as
well.
Camilla lost over twenty pounds and she did so by enjoying
herself. She was stunned by how good it felt and how easy it
was. A year and a half later she called and told me that she
wanted a reinforcement session since she had gained four
pounds. She was given one and when last heard from was still
doing great.

Using Hypnotic Capacity to Connect with

Experience

Robert was a business man with an intense fear of flying. When

I saw him it had been close to a decade since he had been on a
plane. This had cost him a lot of time and money since he would
have to drive or take trains and boats instead of flying.
On the phone he told me that he had been to several
psychotherapists, two different fear of flying groups sponsored
by different airlines as well as two different hypnotherapists.
Robert also told me that he was very good hypnotic subject; so
good that the hypnotherapists had been surprised that the
hypnotic work hadn't helped him at all.

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Robert told me exactly how to help him in about ten seconds
before he sat down in my office. What would you do if one of
your clients told you the following: "Hello Jergen, I want you to
know that I have TRIED a lot of different things and I have always told
myself that as soon as I am over this fear I will buy a plane ticket the
same day."
If there are two words I don't like hearing from clients they
are the evil twin sisters called HOPE and TRY.
Jergen: I want you to stand up and TRY to lift that chair over
there.
Robert went straight to my chair and lifted it up. As soon as he
did I gave him a hard time about the instruction, which was not
to lift the chair but to try to lift it.
Robert responded by just standing there. So, I sternly
instructed him that I had not asked him to NOT lift the chair.
Robert went into a state of confusion and it took him a couple of
minutes to figure out how to try to lift the chair. As soon as he
got it (evidenced by him struggling with/ expanding a lot of
energy while the chair stood on the ground) I told him that I
understood that he had been trying a lot of things and that I
don't work with people who try. I only work with people who
do things."
Jergen: To be fair to be both of us, there is no point in working
together if you are going to try again. If we are to work are you
willing to actually do it? Meaning, are you willing to do the
stuff I instruct you to do.
Robert: Yes, I am willing to actually do it this time.
We then shook hands to confirm our agreement.

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 J.argen: Good, there is something else I want you to DO. You
told me that as soon as you are over this fear you would
immediately go buy a plane ticket?
Robert: That's right!
J.argen: True or false, when you saw those two hypnotherapists,
even though you went deeply into hypnosis you never felt any
fear, did you?
Robert: That's right, I never felt any fear. It actually felt good
when I imagined being on the plane.
J.argen: I am going to ask you to do something. If you do it I can
guarantee you that you will solve this problem. I promise you
that it isn't illegal, immoral, or fattening. I need you to confirm
that you will do it before I tell what it is.
Robert: I trust you. Ok, I will do it.
J.argen: As soon as we finish here today, and it doesn't matter
how you feel about flying, I want you to immediately go and
purchase a ticket. I also want you to get on that plane sober and
drug free.
Suddenly, things got very real for Robert and surprise, surprise,
guess which strong emotion suddenly appeared in his body?
That's right, a strong feeling of fear and as soon as he shook my
hand the fear exploded.
J.argen: That's right, close your eyes and go even deeper into
hypnosis ... I am going to count from ten to one and at the count
of one you're going to be back to the very first memory related to
this fear.
He ended up at some reconstructed memory at age three and we
cleared his fear using the same format I have described in detail
earlier in the book. When Robert contacted me a couple of
months later he had been on several flights and the fear was
gone. The key point in making this intervention work was to
make the whole thing real for Robert. As long as he operated

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from the frame that he didn't have to fly before he was
comfortable, it is not much of a surprise that the hypnotic work
he had done earlier didn't do much. No wonder he had never
felt any fear during previous hypnotic work. Quite simple
really, it just wasn't real to him and he hadn't committed to
change.
Robert did what some highly hypnotizable clients do. He
used his hypnotic capacity to escape from the world, to
disassociate so that he didn't have to be present. When these
people choose to use their hypnotic capacity to connect with the
world life tends to get a lot better. When you use hypnotic
interventions with these type of clients, make sure that they stay
present with you and that they are connected with the state that
is driving the symptom they want help in changing.
I have learned this the hard way. Several former clients of
mine have gone deeply into hypnosis, seemingly cooperated
totally, only to suddenly open their eyes and say: "This isn't
working!"
The two hypnotherapists Robert had seen had attempted to
help him using direct suggestion and some imagery. I think that
this is a bad choice. First of all, the chances of direct suggestion
alleviating a strong phobia are very slim in my experience.
Another problem is that these therapists seem to create a conflict
inside the client. They directly suggest that the client be
comfortable on the plane and have the client imagine being
comfortable and so on. The only problem being that the client
has a lot of strong emotionally charged memories of fear based
flying. When these types of therapists are successful they are
often only partially successful, and/ or the changes last a little
while before the fear starts creeping back.
By accessing the fear and updating and reframing those old
memories there is suddenly no internal conflict. The whole
person is congruent about flying with comfortable feelings since

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he has reorganized his own internal experience in such a way
that it supports him flying comfortably. Now the client owns the
change versus just responding to some suggestion, which isn't
congruent with the client's internal experience. So, dear script
reading direct suggestion hypnotist, please do the world a favor
and update your toolbox.

Make Sure the Client Internalizes and Owns the

Change
I am not opposed to giving clients direct suggestions. I often do
for lighter issues like smoking and habit modification work as
well as athletic enhancement work. Direct suggestions can be
great if there are no strong memories with negative emotions
related to the issue. Sometimes I will also use direct suggestion
at the end of the work. At this point you can use direct
suggestions to cement in the changes and learning's that the
clients has discovered. However, especially with heavy issues,
people can seemingly respond greatly, but to your surprise
there is no real world change, or if there is change it can be very
short lived.

Combining Hypnosis and Ordeal Therapy to Keep

It Real
A couple of years ago I saw a young woman named Betty who
did some intense jealousy and depression. During the first
session, using my preferred format, up came some strong fear
and then a lot of fuzzy stuff. When we used the fear as a bridge
back in time we got mostly fuzzy stuff related to what she
perceived as past lives. I need to say a couple of things on this

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topic. Some people, perhaps most notably, Brian Weiss, has
stated in his books that between thirty to forty percent of clients
will need to visit a past life to get results. Based on a decade of
doing hypnotic regressions I know that this is complete and
utter bullshit. Might there be such a thing as a past life? I don't
know.
However, that's not really the issue. If we were to assume
that there is such a thing as past lives (which I don't) it still
makes little sense to assume that what people describe as past
lives really are past lives. I have had many clients spontaneously
regress back to something they report to be a past life. When
they do I treat it as real, thereby utilizing their model of the
world.
What I never do is to impose the idea of past lives. I never
mention the possibility to a client. This is one reason I never use
the question I was originally taught to ask by Tad James when
he taught me Time Line TherapyTM. The question goes like this:
"What is the root cause of this problem, the first event which, when
disconnected, will cause the problem to disappear? If you were to
know, was it before, during, or after your birth?"
BEFORE: In the womb or before?
WOMB: What month?
BEFORE: Was it a past life or passed down to you
genealogically?
PAST LIFE: How many lifetimes ago?
GENEALOGICAL: How many generations ago?
AFTER: If you were to know, what age were you?
Well, I am not going to beat a dead horse. You know how
problematic the whole Cause and Effect thing implied by this
question is by now. There is another problem here as well.
Simply by asking the question in this way you might install the

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idea that their "problem" is "caused" by something that
happened in a supposed past life.
How do I know this, you ask? Quite simply I followed this
script for some time. Then I dropped the past life part of the
question and guess what . .. mentioning past lives and
genealogical influence in the question will trigger a higher
number of clients selecting those options than if you don't
presuppose it.
Tad James and other "new agers" argument for doing this is
that by allowing for past lives you utilize the client's model of
the world. Their argument is that the client's unconscious mind
might believe in past lives even if they consciously find the idea
absurd. My response to this is that you can utilize pretty much
anything, past lives and religion included, but there is no need
for you as an agent of change to presuppose the existence of
these things by your questions. Especially now that you know
that some people who would never bring up the topic will do
just that based on the way YOU framed the question. This is
content imposition of the worst kind.
It gets even worse. Let's say that you don't succeed with a
client who" discovered" that the "root cause" for him being
depressed right now is because he experienced something in a
past life. If the client accepts the presuppositions that YOU as
the agent of change have imposed, then the client probably
won't release the problem unless he is able to "find" the past life
experience.
Trust me when I say that I have experimented massively with
this. That way you won't have to and risk installing fuzzy
thinking like this in your client. Notice that with my preferred
format I just have the person follow the feeling back in time to
their earliest memory that the feeling is connected to.
Oh, I should mention that since I started doing it that way the
past lives thing almost never appears. However, it has

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happened. What might be going on if it appears even though
you haven't brought it up? In my mind there might be three
explanations for this. Some very creative individuals might
come up with many more.
1. The client might have actually regressed back to a past
life. Personally, I have never had a case where this line
of reasoning was compelling for any reason I could
think of. Despite this, since it comes from the client, I
will treat it as real even if it's all B.S. content-wise. Who
needs content if the stuff that comes up is structurally
similar in some way to the clients "real" issue? If you
can resolve it, you might resolve it in real time. So, even
if the client regresses to a "past life" and the intervention
you do help the client resolve the problem, then that is
in no way evidence for the existence for past lives. If you
believe that this is solid evidence for the notion of past
lives, then you might as well start believing that people
actually have a dog inside. Remember the kid I helped
clear allergies by using this metaphor.
2. People create the metaphor of past lives to make it less
traumatic and easier to heal their issue. This is, in my
opinion, a not that uncommon thing that might be going
on when people report past life experiences. Let's say
that someone has experienced something (in this life)
that they perceive as very traumatic and extremely
unsettling. These clients might, to make things easier
and less threatening, create a metaphor that is similar to
the trauma, so that they can experience it as "someone
else" at a different time." By first resolving it in this way,
it's often easier to then confront the "real" trauma.

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3. In my not always so humble opinion, the majority of the
experiences people label past lives is not only BS and not
useful, but is actually a distraction created by the
unconscious to avoid having to deal with something.
Given the choice between "reliving" something traumatic from
their past and fabricating a fuzzy or even intriguing past life
experience, the client's unconscious, especially if they're not
quite committed or ambivalent about change, will often choose
the latter.
In my opinion this is what Betty did initially when we started
working together. After I presented my usual reframes things
got a bit better. She did a little bit better but hadn't improved
much after two lengthy sessions of this stuff. This, to me, was
another example of how some clients can use their capacity for
hypnosis to escape from life and experience rather than
connecting.
Betty had gotten together with a guy who had a daughter
from a previous marriage, and the main context where Betty did
her depression and jealousy were related to being around the
kid, especially when the boyfriend was around. After not having
made much improvement with her using my usual format I
decided to combine the notion of a social panorama with the
New Code Change format. I had Betty close her eyes and
imagine that she was in the middle and that around her were all
the significant people in her life. Then I asked her to point to
where these different characters were located spatially. The kid
was represented as clawing her nails into her skirt, and the
boyfriend's ex wife was represented as right behind her right
ear jabbing away with an unpleasant voice. We used this
representation as a context, did a New Code Game, and then we
had her reenter the context without consciously attempting to
influence anything. This intervention made the representations

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spontaneously change, as well as created some very useful shifts
that generalized to many real world contexts.
When she came in for the next session she reported these
exciting changes as well as her general feeling of depression
having lifted. However, there was one context that remained
and it seemed totally stuck. She would still start crying and
depressing in front of the child. Three sessions and absolutely
no progress whatsoever related to this particular context. My
gut told me that it was time for an ordeal. We needed to make it
a lot more painful to do that crappy behavior than keep it up. I
called in her boyfriend as well, framed it as a team effort and got
both people's commitment that they were willing to play full
out and do whatever it takes.
Interestingly enough, she absolutely HATES this one rock
band. Few things surprise me anymore in doing changework,
but this did. I have never ever seen someone react with such
strong emotion at the thought of having to listen to this
particular rock band's CD. She started crying at the thought of
having to do so.
The ordeal was simple. If she ever were to start crying and
depressing in front of the kid again, she was to instantly go into
a room and listen to a whole CD of this music. It would be up to
the boyfriend to determine if she was depressing in front of the
child or not. I got his word that he wouldn't abuse this little
privilege.
Case closed! I have two-year follow-up and can happily
report that the CD hasn't been played once and she has never
started crying and sobbing in front of the kid since that last
session. Just the threat of having to do the ordeal has effectively
resolved this issue. I am also happy to report that the
relationship improved as a result of this, and that she has gotten
a lot closer to the kid as well.

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To me, this case is another example of the fact that sometimes
it's important to combine hypnotic interventions with real world
stuff. If people use their hypnotic capacity to escape and
disconnect, then ordeals are often perfect to help them reconnect
and to make the change real to them.

Suggestibility and Compulsive Compliance

A few years ago I saw a young teenager named Richard who

wanted to get rid of an allergy. We did the usual stuff and it
seemed to work just fine evidenced by the fact that when he
entered my office he was heavily symptomatic, and when he left
there were no symptoms after heavy testing. I might add that
pollen season was in full swing, so this was a very good test.
A few days later his mother called and claimed that his
allergies were back. Oh, by the way, when other people call to
report that someone else's symptom is back that's never a good
sign. Richard came back a couple of days later. His uncle was
driving him and the uncle told me that the allergies were back.
When asked how he knew this he told me that the mother had
told him so. When Richard was asked the same question he also
referred to his mother. When I asked him how he knew if the
allergy was back or not he still referred to his mother. This was
more than a little intriguing since he was outside of my office
during pollen season and didn't have any symptoms at alL
I proceeded to have a little chat with him and a after a little
while, two things became very obvious. His mother was
struggling with the same type of allergy and had talked a lot
about how the allergy was a family thing. He was also
extremely uncritical of his mother's suggestions. A suggestion
from his mother could easily override his own actual
experience. He could be free of all symptoms, but if his mother

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"asked": "Can you feel the allergy Richard?" he would take that as
a command and generate the symptoms as a response.
I asked Richard the following question: "What if your mother
was here right now and she said ... HOW is that Christmas tree over
there decorated?" Well, Richard went right ahead and
hallucinated a Christmas three right then and there in my office
in June. I did a Six-Step Reframe with Richard regarding the
compulsive need to respond to his mother in that way and then,
as soon as he had left my office, I called his mother and
explained the whole situation to her. She wasn't easy to
convince, but I got her to agree to not bring up the allergy unless
he brought it up himself.
He successfully stayed free of the symptoms for a couple of
years but then started recreating the allergy from time to time.
The change never really held up and to this day I am pretty sure
that he is not totally free of the allergy. Neither is he free of the
compulsive suggestibility regarding his mother. In this case, I
was never quite able to get the mother to communicate clearly
that Richard's job was to be allergy free and that it was OK. I
think that's the main reason the intervention never held up long
term.
Some of these highly hypnotizables have this pattern. When
life becomes stressful they develop this compulsive need to
comply with the suggestions of some authority figure in their
lives.

Easy Come Easy Go

Most of the highly hypnotizables have an easy time stepping

into a new perspective or model of the world, but as soon as the
context changes they might just as easily step into a totally
different perspective. They seem to do this uncritically and

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without much personal ownership of their own experience. This
is in stark contrast" the lows" who will often be more skeptical
and conservative before entering a "new world." When they
choose to do so, they seem to own it to a much larger degree.
The lows seem to take more personal responsibility and
therefore not be quite so vulnerable regarding having the home
team in their corner. The highs seem to have more response-
ability despite often being less responsible, and if that isn't
paradoxical then I don't know what is. In my experience, the
notion of secondary gain and vulnerability towards how others
respond to them having changed is a much larger issue for the
high's than the lows.
I have had people make dramatic changes in my office only
to have a quick meeting with the doctor undo everything we
have done together. In my office the client uncritically accepted
a new reality and changed dramatically, but then they met the
doctor. For some of these clients the doctor would be at the top
of the hierarchy and the doctor disapproving of the change
would be enough to get many of these clients to change right
back. This pattern is highly unlikely with a low, since when they
change they have a tendency to own it and rationalize the
changes afterwards. A closed minded doctor isn't nearly as
dangerous for these clients.
I am reminded of a client I saw close to a decade ago. She was
severely depressed, did panic attacks, hallucinated voices that
told her to hurt herself, which she did. She cut herself with
razors and had attempted suicide. She had spent a lot of time in
psychiatry and done the usual cocktails of drugs. The
psychiatric treatments and group treatments hadn't helped her
change at all. She was a totally changed woman after we had
done just one session together. Her family was totally stunned
and called me and thanked me for giving them their daughter
back. We did time line work to clear old negative emotions and

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limiting decisions, anchored resource states and did parts
negotiation with the bad voices and she responded beautifully.
After three sessions all her problems seemed to be totally gone
and she even did some dramatic changes in her personal life.
She even started to do some public speaking, which she had
never done before.
The changes held up for a couple of months. She suddenly
started depressing again and came in for another session and
once again she changed. She seemed to take personal
responsibility and showed no indication of believing in the
disease model of biological psychiatry at all. I know for a fact
that she did well for another month or two, but then she went
straight back into her old ways. If my memory serves me
correctly she had started hanging out with her old friends again,
and when I spontaneously bumped into her in the street she
looked and felt horrible. She was back in psychiatry, on
medication, doing group therapy with the other screw-ups and
the old psychiatry victimology world view was back into place.
It was as if she had never set foot into my office. She talked
about being sick, chemical imbalances and all that other crap. I
confronted her about it and also busted on her for being back
into the group therapy, which she admitted had never helped
her at all. I told her that if she wanted to play that game I
wanted nothing to do with her, but if she wanted to get over this
to call me. Guess what, she never did, and since then she has
gained at least 100 pounds and had at least one more suicide
attempt. Honestly, I don't know if she is still alive.
This case and other similar ones have always puzzled me.
People go back into the system, which was never able to help
them in the first place and discard the stuff that actually
worked. The common denominator has been, more often than
not, that the client is highly hypnotizable.

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The Client Needs to Own the Change

Stephen Gilligan is fond of saying that therapy only begins

when the client pushes back. When the client pushes back it's
their way of choosing their own solution. Of course, the more
you attempt to impose content on your clients the more relevant
this issue is.
Last year I saw a young woman who was doing severe panic
attacks and anxiety. She was highly hypnotizable and had let
her mother use her as a doormat for way to long. This client
didn't have the ability to say no. She also blamed other people
for making her feel the way she did. She had started her first
panic attack while watching the movie Brokeback Mountain with
her boyfriend. I used this as an opportunity to accuse her of
being a repressed lesbian and that she had created a panic attack
to repress her lesbian impulses. Of course, I was pretty sure that
this was hogwash, but I continued to accuse her of the most
outrageous things. I put my feet in her lap after smearing my
shoes with mud, telling her how right it felt for me to do so.
I continued to treat her like crap until she revolted and then,
and only then, did we do any hypnotic or other interventions.
As horrible as this sound for those of you who might be stuck in
content, or the "I sacrifice myself to get acceptance from my peer
group right now" mind set. If I hadn't done this she would have
done compulsive compliance and then undo everything as soon
as she met her mother. I am happy to report that this woman
has made a powerful long-term change. I also rehearsed with
her again and again how she would deal with her mother, and I
played devil's advocate while she continued to come up with
reasons for why she had actually changed. Everything we did in
the office was followed up with tasks in the real world to insure
that she actually did the stuff she claimed she would do.

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Whenever you get a high, make sure that you find out who the
players are related to the clients issue and make sure that you
prepare, rehearse with, and task the client until they are totally
congruent about the change. If possible, you might want to
involve these significant others in the changework and make
sure that they are onboard. Sometimes with some of these
clients this will be a make or break.
A lot of the "highs" are of course able to change long term
without doing this. I once worked with a woman who had done
intense migraine headaches every week for thirty plus years.
She literally exploded at a seminar I did when I suggested that
we often unconsciously create or choose different symptoms
and diseases. I challenged her to work with me and she
accepted. As you might guess I treated her migraine as a choice
and, in hypnosis, enquired as to when she had chosen to create
the migraine.
Her father was super skeptical and I had her rehearse a
zillion times to tell him straight that she didn't choose to do
migraines anymore. He liked to ask her how disappointed she
would be when the migraines came back. Nice presupposition,
huh? Not long after we had completed the work together she
met her father who predictably asked exactly that question.
She felt the first sensations of a migraine come on, but then
congruently told herself and her father that she had made a
decision and that she wasn't that person anymore. The
sensations stopped immediately and in the two-and-a-half years
I had follow-up info she never had another migraine.

Respect the Unconscious Need for Amnesia

Many years ago I worked with a guy for some minor issue. I
can't even remember what it was, but it was successful. During

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our last session he told me that he struggled with epilepsy and
that he had regular bouts of epilepsy. I don't know if it was
"real epilepsy" or pseudo seizures.
I offered to take a shot at working with him to solve the
epilepsy, and I told him that I would do it for free. I have done a
lot of free work just out of curiosity. Tom went into very deep
hypnosis. He was the first client I had had who went that deep
so just for the hell of it I let him enjoy a strip-show right there is
my office. He enjoyed it tremendously. I then treated the
epilepsy as a limiting decision, cleared the decision and the
negative emotions around it, and the unconscious agreed to stop
the epilepsy.
I didn't hear anything until I bumped into him at a restaurant
close to a year later. He told me that the minor issue we had
worked on had been successful. When I enquired about his
epilepsy he became very strange and went into a state I don't
know how to describe in any useful way. He congruently asked
me if he had told me about the epilepsy. It didn't take me long
to discover that he had total amnesia for us having worked on it,
as well as the hypnotic session as well. He further told me that
the epilepsy had disappeared on its own for some mysterious
reason around a year ago. I didn't press the issue any further.
In case you are wondering I was not foolish enough to tell
him of what we did. I sometimes speculate if this is why Milton
Erickson seemed to use hypnotic amnesia so much. Perhaps the
changes he helped people make were so "out there" that to
protect the client and the change he would induce amnesia to
ensure that the change be left alone, without the ridicule many
would face if they attempted to defend or explain having healed
themselves or used hypnosis to accomplish the healing.
This is pure speculation on my part. Erickson might have had
another reason for doing so. I must say that in the few cases
were clients have developed spontaneous amnesia for parts of

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the session or the whole session, or like in this case, developed
amnesia for having worked on an issue, the amnesia has seemed
to have served them well. I think it's important to add that some
of these clients have worked with me for other issues and they
haven't necessarily developed amnesia when working on those
issues. This makes it likely that the unconscious decided to
choose to produce the amnesia to protect the change. In the
cases I have seen it seems to have been a good decision. Do your
clients a favor and don't mess with it.

A Critical Modification when Working with the

Highly Hypnotizable
It's very tempting to attempt to just suggest symptoms away
when doing work with the highs. After all, they are so
responsive to suggestion. Remember Richard (the allergic) who
would easily change in the office, but as soon as his mother was
around, her suggestions would change him right back.
When using the New Coded Regression format, it is
important to keep the clients suggestibility level in mind. Let's
say you do the format and ask: "What happened to the old negative
emotion? Is it GONE NOW.. ? (Let's assume you get a YES
response) ... Float down into the event and try as hard as you can to
find that old emotion ... or maybe you can find that it's GONE
NOW?"
The client might claim to have released the emotion and his
nonverbal signals might even confirm the change. However,
there is a good chance that the client hasn't actually released
anything, but is merely responding to your suggestion. The
emotion is still there, but the client represses it when testing as a
result of responding to the suggestion. Then the client goes back
into the real world, the suggestion wears of, and since there is

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no reorganization of internal experience to support the
attempted change, the client discovers that he is still stuck. Or,
someone else (high in the clients hierarchy) suggests that the
symptoms will come back and often they do.
So, when enquiring if stuck emotions are gone, use a neutral
voice tone AND get the client to both verbalize what they
learned and convince YOU that the old emotion is gone. Just ask
the client how he feels when entering the event, and do so with
a neutral voice tone.
Be extremely careful when using suggestion with the highs.
When working with medium trance subjects, suggestions can
often be very helpful. The lows will often not respond to direct
suggestions, so no worries there. Use the format as described
with the lows and mediums. When working with the highs,
don't suggest that the emotions be gone. Let the client
reorganize his own experience and discover for himself that the
old emotions are gone. Remember Gilligans quote: "The therapy
starts when the client pushes back." Keep this in mind when
working with the highs and you will help these clients create
kick ass changes.
Well, that's it for this book. I hope you have enjoyed it and
that it turns into a different book each time you read it, as well
as being useful in new ways as a result of doing so. The world
could use some more people who work at this level of intensity,
so if you are going to be an agent of change, don't pussyfoot
around. Don't be a wuss! Go out there and do it! Then write an
even better book than this one so that you can return the favor
and I can learn from your experiences... the miraculous, the
good, the bad and the downright ugly.

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 TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

ANCHORING
The pairing of a neurological response with a stimulus. Let's say
a comedian tells several funny jokes and every time the
audience laughs, he makes a unique gesture or uses a unique
tone of voice. If he later in the show fires of the same gesture
again, it is a good chance that the audience will start laughing
without him saying anything.

AUDITORY
Relating to hearing or a sense of hearing.

BEHAVIOR
The specific actions and reactions through which we interact
with the people and environment around us.

BEHAVIORAL FLEXIBILITY
The ability to vary and adjust one's own behavior to elicit
responses from another person or persons.

CALIBRATION
The process of learning to observe and utilize another person's
unconscious nonverbal responses.

CONGRUENCE
All aspects of a person being aligned.

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CONTEXT
The framework surrounding a particular event. This framework
will often determine how an experience is interpreted.

FRACTIONATION
The process of inducing hypnosis, then bringing the clients out
of it, and then back in. When you do this, they have tendency to
go deeper.

FUTURE PACING
The process of rehearsing new responses in future contexts.

HIGH PERFORMANCE STATE I FLOW STATE

A state that is categorized as high performance relative to the
context where the state is utilized. These states usually have
minimal or no internal dialogue.

HYPNOSIS
There is no definition that can do this phenomenon justice. I
look at it as a state (and the state versus no state is a big
controversy) where the person can more easily access and
amplify unconscious processes to reorganize ones experience. I
frame hypnosis depending on which responses I want to elicit.

HYPNOSIS HIJACKING
The ability to include oneself in a clients hypnotic experience
and utilize it to create change.

KINESTHETIC
Relating to bodily sensations. In NLP the term kinesthetics is
used to encompass all kinds of feelings including tactile, visceral
and emotional.

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META MODEL
A model developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. The
model is designed to question the deletions, generalizations and
distortions present in natural language. When used skillfully, it
will enable the agent of change to hallucinate less and help the
client reconnect language to concrete experience.

MILTON MODEL
The set of patterns coded through the modeling project the co-
creators of NLP conducted on Milton Erickson. When skillfully
applied these patterns can influence the clients unconscious in a
useful way.

MODEL
The work product of an NLP modeling project is a set of
patterns. Models are to be sharply differentiated from two other
associated notions, replicas and theories.

MODELING
The process of imitating someone is a "know-nothing state"
until you can perform in roughly the same way given the same
set of circumstances.

METAPHORS
Stories, parables and analogies.

NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING

The study of subjective experience and what can be calculated
from that. The study of how people do what they do.

NEW CODE GAMES

Games that include activities to assist the player enter a high
performance state.

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NEW CODE NLP
The set of patterns coded by John Grinder originally with
assistance from Judith Delozier and more recently Carmen
Bostic St. Clair to present new patterns and correct flaws in
"classic code NLP."

PARTS
A metaphorical way of talking about different aspects of a
person's subjective experience. Parts work is often indicated
when different aspects of a person's experience are in conflict
with each other.

PATTERN
Any aggregate of events that if can be divided in any way by a
"slash mark" such that an observer perceiving only what is on
one side of the slash mark can guess with better than random
success, what is on the other side of the slash mark.

PERCEPTUAL POSITIONS
The position you view and experience from. There are three
common ones that we often use.
1. First Position. Experiencing a situation while looking
through your own eyes, hearing with your own ears,
and feeling the feelings in your own body.
2. Second Position. Imagining that you float in to the body
of another person present. Seeing through that person's
eyes, hearing through that person's ears, and feeling
what that person is feeling.
3. Third Position. An observer position viewing both
yourself/the persons involved in the experience.

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RAPPORT
The attention of the other persons unconscious. The degree of
responsiveness between two or more people.

REGRESSION
When done hypnotically the client can to some extent relieve
past events by reconstructing and reframing old memories.

REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEMS
The five senses: seeing hearing, touching (feeling), smelling and
tasting.

SECONDARY GAIN
The benefits of having or keeping a problem, symptom or disease.

SIX STEP REFRAMING

A pattern designed to both create new choices and also verify
these new choices by involuntary signals with the unconscious.

SOMNAMBULISM
The level of hypnosis required to do direct suggestion work.

SPATIAL ANCHORING
Associating a particular experience with a specific place on the
floor. For example a public speaker might intentionally use
place on the stage for problems and another place for solutions.

STALKING
An intervention for when behavior shifts at a speed faster than
conscious awareness or at a speed so slow that the client doesn't
notice the change until it's" too late."

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STATE The total ongoing "mental" and "physical" conditions
from which a person is acting.

STRATEGY
A set of neurological and behavioral steps a person takes to
achieve a specific outcome.

SUB-MODALITIES
The finer distinctions of the modalities, i.e. the size of an image,
or the volume of an internal dialogue, or the direction where a
feeling is spinning.

SYMPTOM
A signal that has been ignored for too long.

SYNESTHESIA
The process of overlap between representational systems,
characterized by phenomena like see-feel circuits, where a
person derives feelings from what they see, and hear -feel
circuits, where a person gets feelings from what they hear. Any
two sensory modalities may be linked together.

TIME LINE
A construct which has proven to be quite useful in helping
people update old memories with new resources. Where the
persons past and future is spatially located in relationship to
their body. For example, some people's future is in the front of
them while the past is behind, while others might have the
future to the left and the past to the right.

VISUAL
Relating to sight or the sense of sight.

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 DEDICATION

To John Grinder, for your generosity in sharing your wisdom

with me and for being the only teacher I have had who could
deal with my questions while remaining in a playful state.
Thank you buddy for writing the foreword and for inspiring me
to put my madness on paper to begin with. You walk the walk.

To Marit for triggering a wider range of emotion in me than I

could ever anticipate, and for being so unreasonably lovable.
You are the love of my life.

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SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND
THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE:

My mother for giving me unconditional love and support.

My father for always doing things his own way.

My sister Karine for selling her new radio so that I could attend
my first NLP course, and for assisting me on numerous
occasions as an actor with difficult clients.

My grandmother for understanding me in her own special way

at an age when I felt that no one else did (now I know that no
one ever can, but it's no longer an issue)

Brian Mahoney for being my hypnosis sparring partner for the

last couple of years and for helping me out with valuable
suggestions for the book and for editing it.

Richard Bandler for being the genius that he is and for teaching
me more than he ever intended to do.

Tad James for teaching me Time Line TherapyTM.

Tony Blauer for sharing so much of his brilliance with me and

for sharpening my bullshit detector.

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 Christian Renskoug for helping me take my business to a new
level, for his help with editing this book, and for his infectious
enthusiasm for life.

Ross Jeffries for taking the time to read the book and for giving
it a strong recommendation. He is one of the sharpest minds in
the field and to have such a sharp mind recommend the book is
an honor.

Steve Andreas for giving editing advice and offering feedback to

a total stranger. Your kindness and generosity are appreciated.

Tormod Steinsholt for helping me get started on this book.

Odda for" forcing" me to get better.

For all the clients I have had, especially those screwballs that did
their best to drive me nuts. You guys taught me the most.

Nathaniel Branden for writing "The Six Pillars of Self Esteem."

Having read hundreds of books on related topics, this is the one
which has impacted me the most.

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