Havens, Walters - Hypnotherapy Scripts

When you interview a client, you interact primarily with that person's conscious mind.

This dominant minimind in such interactions usually is the verbal analytic mind. It has the specialized function of providing linguistic labels, verbal differentiations, and categorizations. The conscious mind uses these various labels and categories to derive rules, values, beliefs, and desires about the way things should be or ought not be. From these concepts about how things should be, the conscious mind then constructs a frame of reference, schema, or model of the world. This schema or model of the world, in turn, guides or directs awareness, understanding, and behavior in ways that “should be” useful, correct, and personally productive. Anything that does not fit this schema is ignored or denied. Thus, people are able to perceive, comprehend, discuss, and respond to the world only in ways that are consistent with their conscious frames of reference or schema.

One of the typical components of the conscious mind's fictionalized view of reality is the mistaken belief that it is responsible for all thoughts and behaviors of the individual. In fact, the primary role of the conscious mind is to invent a story that places itself in the role of the person in charge of everything that the mind/body does. Oddly enough, however, the conscious mind possesses very few skills and is responsible for relatively few actions or creative insights. Its primary activity is creating rationalizations to explain why it did what the unconscious minds actually did. The unconscious aspects of the mind play the major role in the events of everyday life. As Erickson told one of his students, “What you don't realize, Sid, is that most of your life is unconsciously determined” (Rosen, 1982, p. 25). The conscious mind may be able to force attention toward or away from a particular path or stimulus at times, but most decisions and actions appear to be carried out by the unconscious. Nonetheless, the verbal conscious mind usually believes that it is the only source of the decisions, emotional reactions, and responses of that person. A wise therapist recognizes that this conscious sense of being in charge is a delusion and that the explanations of patients for their behavior are myths. The unconscious systems, not the verbal conscious mind, are in charge of most things.

Recent research has supported this observation that a majority of our behavior is carried out by involuntary, nonconscious systems within the brain. After summarizing years of research on subliminal cues, unconscious priming effects, and intentions, Bargh and Chartrand (1999) concluded that “. . . the ability to exercise such conscious, intentional control is actually quite limited.” They also concluded that unconsciously activated goals and expectations are often more potent than conscious ones and that most activities of everyday life are determined by unconscious mental processes. Similarly, Wegner and Wheatley (1999) indicated that “the real causes of human action are unconscious” and suggested that conscious “will” is a fiction. Finally, Kirsch and Lynn (1997, 1999) reviewed the research on placebo effects, response expectancies, hypnotic suggestions, and response sets, and concluded that most of what we do is automatic, without any conscious thought or intention. They even proposed that there is some degree of automaticity to all human behavior.

Unconscious automaticity is quite apparent whenever we drive a car or engage in any routine activity. Such behaviors can become so automatic that we go on “autopilot” and end up somewhere other than where we intended, such as when we end up in our driveway instead of at the grocery store where we meant to stop on the way home. But even many of our supposedly conscious or intentional decisions appear to be made for us by the “unconscious” parts of our minds. Libet (1985), for example, determined that supposedly voluntary acts are initiated 350 to 400 milliseconds before we are aware of our “intention” to perform those acts. In other words, there is now a considerable body of evidence leading to the conclusion that the sense we have that we are in charge and making decisions that lead to particular actions appears to be an after-the-fact invention, an illusion. In order to maintain its delusion of self-importance the conscious mind must account for all internal events and behaviors in ways that make them seem to be coherent or logical results of its activity. Thus, the conscious mind constantly takes credit for and finds explanations for the activities of the various miniminds over which it actually has no control at all and of which it is largely unaware. After years of practice, it becomes very good at this. In fact, the conscious mind is able to offer such impressive rationalizations and explanations that even the most skilled therapist may be “taken in” by them.