Hypnosis in treatment: An ecosystemic approach

MISCELLANEA SPECIALIA 16 

This book was originally published in German as Hypnose: Ein ökostemischer Ansatz by Quintessenz, Munich, 1994. The English publication by permission of Psychologie Verlags Union, Weinheim, Federal Republic of Germany. First edition, first impression.

ISBN 0 86981 996 8

CONTENTS

Foreword 1
Chapter 1 Introduction: from traditional to ecosystemic thinking 3
Chapter 2 The development of ecosystemic thinking 9
Chapter 3 The Newtonian nature of current hypnosis theories 21
Chapter 4 The influence of Newtonian thinking on the practice of hypnosis 33
Chapter 5 An ecosystemic approach to hypnosis 49
Chapter 6 Application of an ecosystemic view in treatment 65
Chapter 7 Differential effectiveness - an ecosystemic view 97
Chapter 8 Ecosystemic hypnosis: past, present and future 109
References 121
Index 131

FOREWORD

There are thousands of books about hypnosis. They range from popularly written treatises on how to use the supposed 'power' of hypnosis to become rich and cure all your illnesses to scientific tomes debating obscure points of theory and research. What can any new book on hypnosis then say that has not been said many times before?
That is exactly what this book is meant to do. It aims to introduce to the field of hypnosis a completely new and radically different way of thinking about our subject - and not only a new way of thinking, but also a new way of doing. This is so because this new, ecosystemic approach to hypnosis has profound implications for the practice of hypnosis.
Yet another theory of hypnosis! There are too many of these already (Kirsch, 1991a). What is to be introduced here, however, is not a theory, but an epistemology, a way of thinking as it could be applied to hypnosis. What is new is not the epistemology - it has been around in family therapy for some time - but its application to hypnosis. In this sense then, the book is meant to bring hypnosis into the realm of current developments in thinking about human behaviour and not to propound yet another theory of hypnosis.
The themes to be covered in this book revolve around a contrast between Newtonian and ecosystemic thinking.  ...