U-procedure and Theory U

Theory U proposes that the quality of the results that we create in any kind of social system is a function of the quality of awareness, attention, or consciousness that the participants in the system operate from.

Reframing from reframing? Unlikely.

 “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.” ~ Aristotle

Words can both reflect and shape mental processes.

Virginia Satir was one of the pioneers of family therapy.

Virgina Satir Video - 1985 NLP Keynote

The Virginia Satir Global Network consists of individuals, institutes and organizations dedicated to furthering the creation of healthy and just relationships with self and others based on the teachings of Virginia Satir.

Rare Virginia Satir Meditation Video @ http://satirglobal.org/virginia-satir-meditation-video/

Virginia Satir Forgiving Parents Family Therapy

Self Hypnosis: "THE BETTY ERICKSON SPECIAL"

Sit in a comfortable chair with your feet flat on the floor.
Find a spot above eye level upon which to rest your eyes.
Soft focus and take in the whole room. Try to keep your eyes open for a while anyway. At some point your eyes will naturally close. Just let it happen when it does.
Complete the sentence with observations in each of the three prime modalities, Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic (tactile sensations. e.g.: air temperature, textures, etc.)
Note: While it's optimal to observe different things, in the audio realm it is OK to repeat items if necessary - like if you are in a very quiet room and all you hear is one or two things. Remember that silence can be heard too.

1. "I am now aware that I see _________." (Repeat 4 times, 4 different
                                                                       visual observations)
2. "I am now aware that I hear _________." (Repeat with 4 different
                                                                       auditory observations)
3. "I am now aware that I feel _________." (Repeat with 4 different
                                                                       kinesthetic observations)

1. "I am now aware that I see _________." (Repeat 3x, visual)
2. "I am now aware that I hear _________."(Repeat 3x, auditory)
3. "I am now aware that I feel _________." (Repeat 3x, kinesthetic)

1. "I am now aware that I see _________." (2x's)
2. "I am now aware that I hear _________." (2x's)
3. "I am now aware that I feel _________." (2x's)

1. "I am now aware that I see _________." (1x)
2. "I am now aware that I hear _________." (1x)
3. "I am now aware that I feel _________." (1x)

Repeat as needed until trance is satisfactory. And, even if you don't make it through the set once, when your eyes close take yourself (in your mind's eye) to a body of water. Enjoy some R & R there until you're ready to return.

To utilize this trance you can add your own suggestions once in the trance, or you can ask your unconscious mind before you begin, that while you are in trance it can go through and retrieve all useful and constructive references and resources pertinent to your issue at hand and have them available to you when you come out of trance. Then just trust that that will happen and enjoy your time by the water.

Self Hypnosis: "The Betty Erickson Special"
Transcript of Doug O'Brien demonstrating the method of Self-Hypnosis called "The Betty Erickson Special" and utilizing it to facilitate learning integration. From a class in 2002.
Listen to this live recording: Doug O'Brien demonstrating the method of Self-Hypnosis called "The Betty Erickson Special" and utilizing it to facilitate learning integration. From a class in 2002. (15 minutes)
MP3 - Self Hypnosis: "The Betty Erickson Special"

Patients become patients because they're out of rapport with their own unconscious mind. - Milton Erickson

The largest, free anxiety self-help site on the Internet. http://www.anxieties.com/

Signs of hypnosis.

Here are 17 signs of hypnotic trance a subject will demonstrate:
1. Expansion of Eyelids;
2. Fixation of Glance;
3. Tearing of Eyes;
4. Eyes are Closing (but not always);
5. Blinking Movements Slow;
6. Reddening of the Eyes;
7. Color of Face Changes;
8. Swallowing Movements Slow;
9. Pose of the Subject Becomes Fixed;
10. Muscles of the Body Relax Slightly;
11. Breathing Slows Down and Becomes more Rhythmic and Typhoid;
12. Heart Rate Decreases;
13. Facial Muscles Relax, the Face is flattened, especially the Cheeks, Forehead, Lips;
14. Reaction to External Noise Reduces;
15. Delayed Motor Reaction;
16. Appearance of Spontaneous Reactions, such as Vibration of Hands and Eyelids, a Slight Jerk of the Body, the Lips;
17. Body Temperature Changes.

I took a stress test on the street last week. I was curious about the machine. The operator had me hold two paddles and to think of someone who caused me grief (leading or pacing). And followed with a barrage of questions. I didn’t mention I did hypnosis. He mentioned buying a book and talked about their program and used the phrase “auditing” so I looked it up on WIKI.

The procedure of auditing is a two-person activity. One person, the "auditor", guides the other person, the "preclear". The preclear's job is to look at the mind and talk to the auditor. The auditor acknowledges what the preclear says and controls the process so the preclear may put his full attention on his work.
The auditor and preclear sit down in chairs facing each other. The process then follows in eleven distinct steps:
1. The auditor assures the preclear that he will be fully aware of everything that happens during the session.
2. The preclear is instructed to close his eyes for the session, entering a state of "dianetic reverie", signified by "a tremble of the lashes". During the session, the preclear remains in full possession of his will and retains full recall thereafter.
3. The auditor installs a "canceller", an instruction intended to absolutely cancel any form of positive suggestion that could accidentally occur. This is done by saying "In the future, when I utter the word 'cancelled,' everything I have said to you while you are in a therapy session will be cancelled and will have no force with you. Any suggestion I may have made to you will be without force when I say the word 'cancelled.' Do you understand?"
4. The auditor then asks the preclear to locate an exact record of something that happened to the preclear in his past: "Locate an incident that you feel you can comfortably face."
5. The preclear is invited by the auditor to "Go through the incident and say what is happening as you go along."
6a. The auditor instructs the preclear to recall as much as possible of the incident, going over it several times "until the preclear is cheerful about it".
6b. When the preclear is cheerful about an incident, the auditor instructs the preclear to locate another incident: "Let's find another incident that you feel you can comfortably face." The process outlined at steps 5 and 6a then repeats until the auditing session's time limit (usually two hours or so) is reached.
7. The preclear is instructed to "return to present time".
8. The auditor checks to make sure that the preclear feels himself to be in "present time", i.e. not still recalling a past incident.
9. The auditor gives the preclear the canceller word: "Very good. Cancelled."
10. The auditor tells the preclear to feel alert and return to full awareness of his surroundings: "When I count from five to one and snap my fingers you will feel alert. Five, four, three, two, one." (snaps fingers)

Yes, it’s Dianetics. The above is remarkably very similar to a hypnosis session. Notice the “trembling eyelashes” and the various embedded commands. Even the count down and snapping of the fingers to return them to a waking state.

Various New Age authors also use a form of hypnosis or “Power of Suggestion” on various CD’s and tapes I’ve had over the years, especially Past Life regression ones. Use a little discernment over what you buy and who you talk to. It’s always a matter of choice.

The late, great Milton Erickson often used embedded commands or simply metaphors without inducing a hypnotic state. He also said some of the best work is accomplished in a light trance.

Judge Thomas Troward did write of this in the early 1900’s.

André Muller Weitzenhoffer (1921 - 2004) was one of the most prolific researchers in the field of hypnosis in the latter half of the 20th century, having authored over 100 publications between 1949 and 2004. He was the recipient of several professional and academic awards, including the Distinguished Contributions to Scientific Hypnosis Award of the American Psychological Association in 1992.
Weitzenhoffer claimed that he became interested in hypnosis at age 12 after seeing a demonstration by a summer camp counselor and subsequently witnessing a stage hypnosis show.
Weitzenhoffer and Milton Erickson were friends and at times collaborators, with a mutual respect for each other's work.
At Stanford University, Weitzenhoffer collaborated with Ernest R. Hilgard in developing the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale and the Stanford Profile Scales of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Forms I and II which are the most widely-referenced research tools in the field of hypnosis.

Joseph Wolpe (1915 - 1997) was one of the most influential figures in behavior therapy. Wolpe is most well known for his reciprocal inhibition techniques and systematic desensitization which revolutionized behavioral therapy.


Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) works on changing your negative thoughts, (or cognitions) about yourself or your circumstances into positive thoughts, which will allow you to approach life more positively.
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH) is where CBT is combined with hypnotherapy to produce a more effective form of therapy which often can produce more rapid results than standard CBT alone.
It helps people with negative, destructive or unhelpful thoughts to start creating only positive thoughts . This helps clients to deal with depression, self esteem issues, low confidence issues and self destructive behaviour. It is also is used in treating the other areas such as smoking cessation, weight loss, dealing with phobias etc.

We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us.

Virginia Satir (1916 - 1988) was an American author and psychotherapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy and her work with Systemic Constellations. She is widely regarded as the "Mother of Family Therapy". She is also known for creating the Virginia Satir Change Process Model, a psychological model (how change impacts organizations) which was developed through clinical studies.

“Life is not what it's supposed to be. It is what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”

Virginia came from a farming family with an alcoholic father.

When she was five years old, Satir suffered from appendicitis. Her mother, a devout Christian Scientist, refused to take her to a doctor. By the time Satir's father decided to overrule his wife, the young girl's appendix had ruptured. Doctors were able to save her life, but Satir was forced to stay in the hospital for several months.

A curious child, Satir taught herself to read by age three, and by nine had read all of the books in the library of her small one-room school.

When she was six, she became very observant of human interactions when she developed deafness for two years following mastoiditis. She noticed that people appeared to communicate in very different ways from each other and decided then that she was going to be a detective of adults when she grew up. Unable to hear what they were saying, she learned to detect when they were blaming, placating, doing “super reasonable” (or computer), or distracting. She later explained that "I didn't quite know what I would look for, but I realized a lot went on in families that didn't meet the eye."

"The family is a microcosm. By knowing how to heal the family, I know how to heal the world."

Once she was an adult, she developed these defensive Communication Stances that she then recognized as defending low self-esteem. She taught people how to communicate congruently (sincerely but with consideration for the other's feelings); in other words, to be the same on the outside as they were on the inside and to be fully in touch with their whole Self.

When congruent, one can freely express one's own thoughts, feelings and opinions, and also acknowledge the thoughts, feelings and opinions of the other, and acknowledge the context of the relationship. She also taught that being congruent would raise self-esteem.

Virginia was internationally recognized for her creativity in the practice of family therapy. Based on conviction that people are capable of continued growth, change and new understanding, her goal was to improve relationships and communication within the family unit.

“Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible - the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family”

She was one of the three sources of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which was developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. These two videotaped her, Fritz Perls, and Milton Erickson, the famous hypnotherapist. Richard Bandler and John Grinder discovered that these three magical therapists were using non-verbal cues and communication at a non-verbal level that can, in fact, be taught. NLP can be a potent tool for change, but asked what she thought of it, she said, “They have the mind of the matter, but not the heart of it.”

“We can learn something new anytime we believe we can”

Virginia Satir developed what she called "survival stances" that demonstrated how problems were dealt with. These four are:
• blaming,
• placating,
• being irrelevant and
• being super-reasonable.
These four stances were, she felt, developed throughout one's life; developed for survival which were used to protect themselves from perceived and presumed, verbal and nonverbal threats.
The four stances were used in therapy sessions as tools to determine her clients' issues and what the best avenue of productive therapy was needed. In addition, the therapy techniques were altered accordingly to help the client change their survival stances. By providing the client knowledge, awareness, experience and manifestation the therapies were enhanced and provided a positive outcome for the patient's.

Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.

There are five points of philosophy that drove her work; she referred to them as the "Five Freedoms" which are as follows:
• The freedom to see and hear what is in the present instead of what was, should be or will be
• The freedom to say what one thinks and feels rather than what one should
• The freedom to feel what one feels rather than what one ought
• The freedom to ask for what one wants rather than waiting for permission
• The freedom to take risk's on one's own behalf rather than choosing to "rocking the boat"

“If I can have the same from you then we can truly meet and enrich each other.”

One of Satir's most novel ideas at the time, was the "presenting issue" or surface problem – that the presenting issue itself was seldom the real problem; rather, how people coped with the issue created the problem." Satir also offered insights into the particular problems that low self-esteem could cause in relationships.

Long interested in the idea of networking, Satir founded two groups to help individuals find mental health workers or other people who were suffering from similar issues to their own. In 1970, she organized Beautiful People, which later became known as the International Human Learning Resources Network. In 1977 she founded the Avanta Network.

Two years later, Satir was appointed to the Steering Committee of the International Family Therapy Association and became a member of the Advisory Board for the National Council for Self-Esteem.

“Over the years I have developed a picture of what a human being living humanely is like. She is a person who understand, values and develops her body, finding it beautiful and useful; a person who is real and is willing to take risks, to be creative, to manifest competence, to change when the situation calls for it, and to find ways to accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.”

Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.

Some one mentioned hypnosis a while ago and seemed a little apprehensive. That’s not a good idea to do around a hypnotist so today I’ll talk a little bit about hypnosis.

Hypnosis is self hypnosis. It’s a relaxation state. You’re not forced, you don’t spill you guts and give out private information and you can’t be programmed to rob a bank. Unless you already do that. It’s also the power of suggestion working on the subconscious.

Stage hypnosis is different. People volunteer and they do what they’d do normally anyway.
I became interested in the 80‘s I had some pretty good tapes. Around that time NLP neuro linguistic programming was introduced. Developed by Bandler and Grinder it modeled the syntax of hypnosis methods of 3 hypnotherapists (Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls).

Milton Erickson could hypnotize someone with 2 words. “That’s right”. “That’s right”. He could also use hand gestures and body language to get someone under.

He didn’t necessarily use hypnosis. He sent one alcoholic to a nursery and told him to look at cactus plants for 3 hours. After 2 hours he got the message, went home and never drank again. A cactus plant can survive for days without water.

Hypnosis was first called mesmerism. And it was because of my interest in ancient history that I never watched the DVD the SECRET. Too hokey. But I did buy the book . The authors in the appendix intrigued me because I like to know the originator of something.

Of the 5 from the early 1900’s 3 were in it for the money. One Charles Hannel sold a course for $1500, that’s a first class ticket on the Titanic. Wallace Wattles may not have ever made any money. But two were legit. And they were part of the then self help movement called New Thought, Mental science or Mental Healing.

The father of that movement was Phineas P. Quimby . Inventor, clockmaker, daguerreotypist (the daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process) and mesmerist.

In 1840 he saw a demonstration and decided to try it. It took 10 minutes to succeed , then he didn’t know to do next so he shook his friend out of it and bought a book. After that he found a 15 year old assistant who was a great subject and they toured New England doing demonstrations for 10 years.

From his work in mesmerism Quimby discovered the power of the mind, the power of suggestion and the power of one’ s belief system and the ego. This was all around 50 years before Freud.

Quimby had a great line , he said the “The more outrageous the notion the mind will go to extremes to prove it”.

He lived until 1865 healing 16000 people by changing their beliefs.

Thomas Troward warned of the misuse of power of suggestion in 1907, shop keepers were trained to prey on unsuspecting customers to sell what they didn’t really want and there were dubious ads with wild claims running in the newspapers.

Today we can ad the internet and infomercials to the list.

Quimby’s outrageous notion is still applicable today. The are groups that believe there’s a planetary alignment and the Mayan calendar running out in 2012 so the world will end. NASA hasn’t confirmed any alignment and the Mayan calendar starts a new cycle in 2012, the same as it does every 395 years.

Egypt has similar wild claims.

Power of Suggestion may also apply to theReconnection as the eyes flutter there in a similar manner to hypnosis. As Quimby said “The More Outrageous the notion the mind will go to extremes to prove it”.


One famous hoax was perpetuated before the American Spanish war by a newspaper man in Chicago. People still believe it today. Penn and Teller staged it years ago. Although a retraction was printed it went unnoticed and the legend still survives.

Quimby said there was nothing or no one that could affect you unless you let it.

Your own beliefs use the power of suggestion on you and no one else. You alone.

Your own beliefs, operating on your subconscious.

As Byron Katie has said: “Our concepts are based on a life time of uninvestigated beliefs”.

So change your mind and you change your life.

Be yourself.

Everyone else is taken.
From a speech I gave July 7th 2011

MILTONisms

The poetic style of Milton Erickson

“Marry an ugly woman, and she’ll always be grateful.”

The implied message, “Marry a beautiful woman, and she won’t always be grateful.”
Be realistic; no member of a couple is always going to be grateful. Couples often have unrealistic expectations about each other, and often feel that the other partner will provide what each feels to be missing in themselves.

Pay more attention to your own needs, rather than looking outside yourself for approval from others.

Trances in Bali

"In the Balinese culture, you could be going to a market. On the way to the market the Balinese can go into a deep trance, do their shopping, turn around, and come out of the trance when they get home -- or stay in the trance and visit with a neighbor who is not in a trance, while they are in a trance. Autohypnosis is a part of their daily life. Mead, Bateson and Belo studied their behaviour and brought back movies..."
~ "My Voice Will Go With You ~ The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson"

Miss Jane Belo spent seven years in Bali, two of them in close collaboration with Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.
Trance in Bali: By Jane Belo. Preface by Margaret Mead. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. 283 pp.

What you don't realize,

is that most of your life is subconsciously determined.

Milton Erickson

My Voice Will Go With You

Milton H. Erickson (1901– 1980 ) was an American psychiatrist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy.

He was noted for his ability to "utilize" anything about a patient to help them change, including their beliefs, favorite words, cultural background, personal history, or even their neurotic habits.
Through conceptualizing the unconscious as highly separate from the conscious mind, with its own awareness, interests, responses, and learnings, he taught that the unconscious mind was creative, solution-generating, and often positive.

Erickson frequently drew upon his own experiences to provide examples of the power of the unconscious mind. He was largely self-taught and a great many of his anecdotal and autobiographical teaching stories are collected by Sidney Rosen in the book My Voice Will Go With You.

Erickson believed that the unconscious mind was always listening, and that, whether or not the patient was in trance, suggestions could be made which would have a hypnotic influence, as long as those suggestions found some resonance at the unconscious level.

Erickson was an irrepressible practical joker, and it was not uncommon for him to slip indirect suggestions into all kinds of situations, including in his own books, papers, lectures and seminars.

Erickson also believed that it was even appropriate for the therapist to go into trance.
"I go into trances so that I will be more sensitive to the intonations and inflections of my patients' speech. And to enable me to hear better, see better.".

Erickson maintained that trance is a common, everyday occurrence. For example, when waiting for buses and trains, reading or listening, or even being involved in strenuous physical exercise, it's quite normal to become immersed in the activity and go into a trance state, removed from any other irrelevant stimuli. These states are so common and familiar that most people do not consciously recognise them as hypnotic phenomena.

Where a classical hypnotist might say "You are going into a trance", an Ericksonian hypnotist would be more likely to say "you can comfortably learn how to go into a trance".