The Art of Therapeutic Dissociation

“You always call it hindsight. Two weeks too late to think of the right retort to make. You lead with your unconscious; you make that retort immediately… Trust your unconscious; it knows more than you do.”

– Milton H. Erickson

Not so long ago I had a question in a live Q&A call about the way I use dissociative language while hypnotizing clients.

The person asking the question had an issue.

She said that although she was on board with the general idea of using dissociative language to hypnotize, she found the language I’d been using “jarring”.

She wanted clarification as to why I used phrases like “those hands” instead of “your hands”. Basically, why don’t I just say “your” instead of “those”?

The questioner seemed to have perhaps some understanding of why hypnotic language should contain dissociative language but wanted to go deeper.

Of course, flexibility is key, so I’m not averse to using whatever language yields the best hypnotic and therapeutic results. It’s foolish to say, “never say this or that!”

All questions are welcome. And that was a good one. The short answer would be “because it works!”

But it’s such a good question because it takes us closer to the heart of how hypnosis works and how we can use it to heal.

A foot in two worlds

The deepest trance state is the REM state of dream sleep. You’re entirely dissociated when you dream. Your body is in bed (hopefully!) and your mind is entirely elsewhere.

But this natural ‘split’ in consciousness can also occur when we are awake, and is actively encouraged by the hypnotherapist. Indeed, dissociation is at the heart of the hypnotic experience.

‘Splitting’, then, is a principle familiar to all hypnotherapists. It might also be used to counter the anti-therapeutic effects of overanalysis.

But once you understand the principle and how to use it, you start to see how it relates to all of psychotherapy.

Extracting the problem from the person

We can extend this ‘splitting principle‘ beyond hypnotic induction to help us separate, say, an addictive pattern from the client’s core identity. When someone no longer overly associates with an addiction or emotional pattern (i.e., they stop seeing it as part of who they essentially are), it becomes much easier to leave behind.

So rather than just a hypnotic language, pattern splitting is a psychotherapeutic principle of the highest importance.

Traditional stories use it when they contain a therapeutic storytelling element. The tyrant (witch, ogre…) in the story may be the part of the person listening to the story that tyrannizes themselves, and so on. So splitting is not new or by any means exclusive to hypnotic therapy.

In my answer to the question, which you can listen to below, I also touch on the ritualistic element of dissociative language and the assumption (perhaps carried beneath the excellent question itself) that “jarring” must equal bad or ineffective.

It strikes me now, as I write, how people may sometimes use dissociative language naturally when seeking to distance themselves from something (“that’s when he was hit” rather than “that’s when I hit him”).

People may even do this to distance themselves from pain. A friend of mine recently told me about his grandmother who would refer to “the back” when talking about her own painful back. I’ve also heard people say things like “the leg’s playing up again!” and so on.

Everything we use in therapy and hypnotic healing can be found in one form or another in everyday life. That is why we call it naturalistic.

Anyway, take a listen now and see what you think. Oh, and I apologize if I sound like an 80-a-day smoker! I had a rather unpleasant virus.

Listen to Mark’s answer

Hear the answer by clicking the play button below:

Or click here to download the clip to play later (you may need to right-click and select ‘Save As…’)

Or, if you prefer, read the question and (a rough transcript) of my answer below:

Question

I notice during the recorded sessions that you say, “close those eyes” or “relax that neck”, for example. This sounds almost jarring, even disembodied to me. I know there is a place for dissociation during hypnotherapy, but please explain why you don’t use “your eyes” or “your neck”, or whether indeed you could use those.

Answer

Thanks for your question.

It’s always interesting and important to examine how we use language, especially when inducing hypnotic trance.

The most obvious aspect of this way of communicating is its dissociative qualities. When communicating hypnotically with someone we need to be able to communicate to both their conscious mind and their unconscious mind.

“That hand may want to become lighter and begin to lift all by itself” is a very different way of communicating than “lift up your arm”.

“That arm there on the chair can begin to feel numb all by itself” again is very different from “now please make your arm go numb so it can be operated on without chemical anesthetic.”

One is an appeal to unconscious responsiveness, the other to the conscious mind – which is not the part of the mind that knows how to produce hypnotic phenomena.

So this dissociative element is important, as you say, during hypnotic communication.

We then might expand the hypnotic linguistic dissociation we use in, say, a simple induction to encompass the universal psychotherapeutic principle of separating the problematic emotional state and behaviour from the person’s core identity, as when we describe an addiction or other emotional pattern as separate from who they fundamentally are so that separation from it starts to feel not only possible but inevitable.

For example, if someone has let smoking embed itself too deeply into their sense of identity then the prospect of stopping smoking will feel like a kind of whole-self annihilation.

In the Rewind technique, for example, I want unconscious as well as conscious participation from the person, so I might say something like:

“And when you’ve noticed what it’s like to observe that out of date time, while feeling so calm and safe… then you can notice that head nod…”

So in that kind of communication we are using both presupposition – which is a confident way of communicating – and dissociation, so the head nodding will more likely be an unconscious response rather than a purely conscious response which, after all, may just be the client wanting to please.

If I ask you to “notice” something about your own response, I am not asking you, the conscious you, to do anything – therefore I am eliciting an unconscious response from you.

Saying something like “… and in a few moments or just a little while you can notice those feet there on that floor… just beginning to really relax…” is a very different way of talking to someone than just saying “relax your feet”, which is a conscious command.

So yes, this splitting of conscious and unconscious communication is highly important as a part of hypnotic communication.

Like any new way of communicating, it may feel jarring at first. But we must remember that something feeling jarring may be a technique itself. Remember that the reorientation response can be triggered by mild as well as extreme surprise or shock.

[The ‘reorientation response’ or ‘startle response’ is what we (and many animals) experience when something shocking or unexpected happens, such as a sudden loud noise. The conscious mind ‘shuts down’ during such moments as it has no way of immediately making sense of the sudden impact. Because of this, the person enters into a state of unconscious readiness in which they are easily ‘led’.]

So the stage hypnotist may tip someone back in order to trigger the electrical PGO spike in the brain [which elicits the reorientation response]. This same spike also fires in the brain before and during dreams when we sleep.

So the slight weirdness and otherness of this kind of communication may facilitate an hypnotic response because of its what you call “jarring” element.

Sometimes we can use jarring as a tool to heal people rather than just see it as a breach of etiquette or something!

Not long ago I saw a man literally jarred back to life when the paramedics applied an electric shock to him after he’d collapsed.

And certainly hypnotic language can seem jarring when analyzed by the conscious mind but, jarring or not, it does seem to be highly effective at inducing and maintaining therapeutic trance states.

Poetry, too, can seem jarring or weird when we try to understand it with an analytical mind. Why doesn’t the poet just write “I was outside on my own” rather than “I wandered lonely as a cloud”?

So, hypnosis often works by narrowing attention and encouraging a dissociative state where the conscious mind steps back and the unconscious mind becomes more receptive. Saying “those eyes” rather than “your eyes” can create a slight linguistic split, helping the client step somewhat outside of themselves and observe their experience from a lighter, more detached perspective. This assists in the hypnotic process by fostering dissociation, or splitting awareness, which is a natural part of trance states.

So, we have the dissociation aspect, the therapeutic jarring aspect. Confusion, as we all know, can be hypnotic as we go inward to try to make sense of something baffling. But there are several reasons for communicating in this way other than the dissociative, or what hypnotherapists call the ‘splitting’, dimension of this kind of communication.

Using phrasing like “close your eyes” or “relax your neck” can also sound jarring in the sense of being overly prescriptive. But if we use more permissive language, it can feel a bit like the hypnotherapist is guiding the client’s focus gently rather than directly commanding it. This subtle distancing can reduce resistance and allow the unconscious mind to accept the suggestion more easily without the conscious mind feeling pressured.

Additionally, ‘splitting language’ phraseology helps create a hypnotic ritual and atmosphere. The language is crafted to flow smoothly, encouraging relaxation and focus. This phrasing complements other techniques like multisensory language and storytelling to deepen the trance experience.

But it’s vital to be flexible, and if you’re not comfortable communicating in that way or your client isn’t – then don’t.

Of course, it’s not that you can’t or shouldn’t use “your eyes” or “your neck”. The choice is more about what feels more natural, effective, or comfortable for the client and therapist. Sometimes, direct possessive phrasing might be preferred, depending on the person and context. The key is subtlety and intention in how suggestions are phrased.

I’ve found that people who have been in the military or police often do respond well to direct hypnotic orders, for example… though again, we can’t assume that they will just because of their professional history.

So it’s not that we should always fear jarringness, but rather that we should learn to distinguish between when it can help and when it might get in the way.

Remember: The dramatic, the unusual, but also the ritualistic or what you call jarring, might all aid the trance experience.

How to make the impossible possible

Do you work with clients whose identity is so fused with their problem – whether an addiction, a phobia, or a trauma response – that change feels impossible to them? The Uncommon Hypnotherapy Course teaches you indirect, conversational hypnosis that separates the problem from the person, making transformation feel not just possible but inevitable. Explore the Uncommon Hypnotherapy Course.