Generative Trance: Third Generation Trance Work

Product Description This book describes an entirely new way of conducting hypnotherapeutic interventions through the use of Stephen Gilligan's concept of generative trance. The first generation of trance work, that is, traditional hypnosis that still holds sway in most places, considers that both the conscious mind and the unconscious mind of the client are, to put it bluntly, idiots. So trance work involves first knocking out the conscious mind and then talking to the unconscious mind like a 2-year old that needs to be told how to behave. Milton Erickson created the second generation of trance work. He approached the unconscious as having creative wisdom and each person as extraordinarily unique. Thus, rather than trying to program the unconscious with new instructions, Erickson saw trance as an experiential learning state where a person s own creative unconscious could generate healing and transformation. At the same time Erickson, for the most part, carried the same low opinion of the conscious mind. Thus, Ericksonian hypnosis looks to bypass the conscious mind with indirect suggestions and dissociation and de-potentiate it with confusion techniques. Stephen Gilligan's third generation of trance work sees this negative attitude toward the conscious mind as unnecessary and ultimately unhelpful. Creative action requires a skillful conscious mind to realize the potential of the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is needed to set and maintain intention, to sense and evaluate multiple pathways of possibility, to properly name and represent experience, and to organize actions in a sequential and linear way. Review There is a revolution taking place in psychotherapy that sheds the limitations of naive models of therapy and change. Stephen Gilligan is one of the most important leaders in this transformation of practice, particularly as it applies to hypnosis. His publication marks a major advance in helping us resourcefully relate to all that clients and therapists bring to a session. I enthusiastically recommend it to both your conscious and unconscious mind! --Bradford Keeney, Ph.D. & Hillary Keeney, Ph.D., co-authors, Circular Therapeutics: Giving Therapy a Healing Heart and A Master Class in the Art of Performing Change Steve Gilligan is the closest I've ever experienced to being with Milton Erickson since Erickson's death in 1980. His new book Generative Trance delivers a tour-de-force of the latest thinking of third-generation hypnosis in a charming and organized way. This is the definitive overview of a new approach in psychotherapy and change work. I continue to learn from Gilligan and look forward to returning to this book again and again to gain even deeper insights. --BIll O'Hanlon, author of Taproots, An Uncommon Casebook, A Guide to Trance Land and Solution-Oriented Hypnosis About the Author Stephen Gilligan, PhD, has become a leading figure in Ericksonian hypnotherapy. He is the developer of the Generative Self approach to personal growth. A licensed Psychologist, Stephen maintains a private practice in Encinitas, California. He has published numerous books, the latest being The Hero's Journey, A Voyage of Self-Discovery(9781845902865) co-authored with Robert Dilts.