Two Level Communication and the Microdynamics of Trance and Suggestion

Abstract

The authors provide the transcript and commentaries of an hypnotic induction and an effort to achieve automatic writing. An unusual blend of Erickson's approaches to two level communication, dissociation, voice dynamics and indirect suggestion are made explicit in the commentaries. The junior author offers a “context theory of two level communication” that conceptualizes Erickson's clinical approaches in terms consonant with Jenkins' (1974) recent contextual approach to verbal associations and memory. A summary of the microdynamics of Erickson's approach to trance induction and suggestion is outlined together with a utilization theory of hypnotic suggestion.