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Every client is unique—this philosophy is foundational to the practice of hypnosis and, really, to so many postmodern therapies. This attitude toward psychotherapy and people in general heavily originated from and was cultivated by a man who many consider to be the greatest hypnotist of all time: Milton Erickson.

Wilk (1985) addresses this unique viewpoint in his writing on Erickson:

“What is most fundamental in Ericksonian psychotherapy is the conviction that individuals already have the learnings, the know-how they need to solve their problems. The psychotherapist needs only to provide a context in which they can utilize that know-how” (p. 231)

Essentially, Erickson believed that nothing new needed to be introduced into therapy. The client already has the strengths and resources necessary to bring about change; the therapeutic relationship simply provides a new context for those strengths and resources to emerge.

Now, the fun part about this perspective/approach is that each client has different strengths and resources that can be called upon for use in therapy. This is where the uniqueness of each individual person comes in. Erickson even had a name for this uniqueness- and strength-based technique in therapy: utilization.

This aptly-named technique focuses on utilizing anything and everything that can be helpful for change to occur. In some cases, this might involve incorporating distractions going on during a hypnosis session. For example, if a door opens and closes in the background, the therapist might utilize this and say, “And as you visualize some doors closing and other new, exciting doors and opportunities opening...”

In many other cases, utilization involves utilizing the client’s internal, unique strengths and resources.

One of my favorite examples of utilizing a client’s strengths is a case that Bill O’Hanlon and Michael Martin (1992)—two students of Erickson and master hypnotists themselves—talk about in their book Solution-Oriented Hypnosis: An Ericksonian Approach. (Once again, even the name of this book itself highlights the use of client’s strengths and resources to help unfold solutions in therapy.)

A young boy had a problem with wetting the bet pretty consistently. Erickson met with the boy and didn’t even mention bed-wetting once during the session. Instead, he focused on the boy being a baseball player, which he had found out during their conversation.

Erickson then used a good bulk of the session to talk about the boy’s skills in baseball and how he needed fine muscle control in order to be good at the sport. Specifically, Erickson talked about the skill of positioning the glove in the exact right spot and then clamping one’s hand down at the exact right time in order to catch the ball. Erickson noted how this is a really automatic skill that good baseball players, like the boy, innately have. After other bits of conversation, the boy then went home and stopped wetting the bed.

This may seem like a mysterious way of getting change to happen (and it doesn’t always result in a complete end to a problem), but it is really about the uniqueness- and strength-based approach that Erickson used in therapy that allowed for new avenues of change with his clients. In this case, the boy transferred his skill of fine muscle control from baseball to holding his bladder. And there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach; Erickson wouldn’t immediately know if one way of utilization would make a difference or not. He would simply experiment with the various resources that his clients had and see which one stuck.

This underlying logic that forms the basis of Ericksonian hypnosis/therapy is present in other hypnotists’/therapists’ work as well. For example, Douglas Flemons—professor emeritus at Nova Southeastern University—discusses his use of utilization:

“In identifying and refining the characterization of clients’ skills and resources, I am looking for ways that the heart of localized mastery in one area can be abductively carried to and implemented with other, analogous, areas of challenging experience.” (2022, p. 107)

Again, all he is really talking about is identifying and harnessing strengths, skills, or resources from one area of a person’s life and then applying them to another area where that person is hoping for change.

Douglas even helped me embrace this approach during my own hypnosis session with him. My presenting problem was that I had a really hard time sleeping—I would tense up during the night and wake up physically tired the next day. While he guided me into trance, he mainly talked about my background as a yoga instructor and my ability (that I had told him about) to relax despite being an on-the-go person. He talked about this really nice skill I had to be able to be productive but still have the intuition to slow down. The next day after the session, I relaxed more while I slept and woke up feeling better.

The fundamental appreciation for and use of the uniqueness and strengths of each client greatly influenced the field of psychotherapy as a whole. We already saw the presence of this thinking in Solution-Oriented Hypnosis. Solution-focused brief therapy—a specific therapy model—also stems from the idea that clients can initiate solutions in their life simply from the strengths they already have.

Perhaps it might be fun for you to play with this idea as well. Pay attention to the skills and resources that are unique to you that you might not have even noticed before. See where else in life you can apply them while keeping an open mindset about how they will work. They might not do anything at all, or they might do something cool that you didn’t expect. That is the fun and uniqueness of it.

References
Flemons, D. (2022). The heart and mind of hypnotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

O’Hanlon, W. H., & Martin, M. (1992). Solution-oriented hypnosis: An Ericksonian approach. W. W. Norton & Company.

Wilk, J. (1985). Ericksonian therapeutic patterns: A pattern which connects. In J. K. Zeig (Ed.), Ericksonian psychotherapy: Vol. 2. Clinical applications (pp. 210-233). Brunner/Mazel.

Article by: Kayleigh Sabo, M.S.

Mindfulness—a practice originating in Eastern cultures—has been increasingly adopted and used in the Western world. This is a wonderful thing because mindfulness is a beautiful way to get in tune with the self more easily and more fully.

Now, a lot of people have differing definitions of what mindfulness really is: presence, connection, awareness, etc. These are all certainly elements of/results of mindfulness; but, there are really two foundational components to mindfulness: (1) nonjudgmental (2) awareness.

This is what mindfulness is at its core—nonjudgmental awareness. The practice of being aware of the self and our surroundings (e.g., thoughts, physical sensations, feelings, behaviors, dynamics with others, etc.) in a way in which we don’t beat ourselves up about these experiences. It is not quite helpful to be aware if we berate ourselves for not liking what we become aware of.

For example, it isn’t really mindfulness if we notice that our back is starting to hurt during a meditation and we get mad at ourselves for it.

“Ugh, my back hurts again. Why can’t I just meditate correctly? My back has to ruin everything.”

Instead, mindfulness allows us to keep aware of our back pain while meditating but then be curious about and accepting of it instead of judging ourselves.

“Gee, my back is starting to hurt again. That’s okay, it is going to happen sometimes even if it’s frustrating. I wonder if I can notice how the pain is different this time than it was last time.”

In the above quote, we are not only aware of our experience (“my back is starting to hurt,” “it’s frustrating”), but we are also nonjudgmental about our experience (“That’s okay, it is going to happen sometimes,” “I wonder if I can notice how the pain is different”). We can still acknowledge that the pain is there and it is frustrating (that is a beautiful awareness of our experience) without getting mad at ourselves for feeling this way (i.e., “Why can’t I just meditate correctly?”).

When we get these two basics of mindfulness down, we create a lot of opportunities for ourselves—opportunities to tap into new things we didn’t know about ourselves, to be able to recognize what we need in order to heal or grow, to find ways to sit in the rough waters.

Another thing that can result from mindfulness is the ability to tune into your strengths.

Everyone has strengths and resources within them—this is indisputable. Sometimes, though, when we are dealing with tough situations in life and are not in the best place, it can be really hard to tap into those strengths.

The previous example of a mindful thought is a great illustration of how mindfulness allows you to access these strengths. Look at the thought more closely:

“Gee, my back is starting to hurt again. That’s okay, it is going to happen sometimes even if it’s frustrating. I wonder if I can notice how the pain is different this time than it was last time.”

What do you notice? Firstly, you might notice that the mindfulness (the ability to not judge the back pain/your ability to meditate) is a strength in and of itself. You are now able to let go of the judgement and negative energy that you would have manifested if you had not been mindful (that might have resulted in a “Why can’t I just meditate correctly?” sort of thought).

Secondly, you might notice that your ability to leave the judgment behind opened up a new opportunity to explore your pain in a different way (i.e., “I wonder if I can notice how the pain is different this time than it was last time”).

During this curious exploration of your pain, you might notice that your lower back is actually not hurting nearly as intensely as it usually is. Maybe it moved to the mid-back, but boy did you need that relief in your lower back!

This ability—this strength—to play with your pain and notice the difference in it, for example, might just make it a little more bearable. It might allow you to focus on something else entirely: While being curious about your back pain, you might come across a funny tingling in your fingers or an itch on your shoulder. And it might be a strength you didn’t even notice you had until you found it through mindfulness.

Ryan Niemiec, a psychologist and professor focusing on positive psychology, also addresses the connection between mindfulness and strengths in his book Mindfulness and Character Strengths: A Practical Guide to Flourishing:

“The practice of mindfulness is strengths and the practice of strengths is mindfulness. ... To deploy strengths in a mindful way is to strengthen mindfulness, and a strong mindfulness is a recipe for more balanced and mindful strengths use.” (p. 104)

So, the next time you are practicing mindfulness, see what strengths come up for you that you didn’t realize were there before. Go play with using those strengths throughout the rest of your day and see what happens!

Article by: Kayleigh Sabo, M.S.

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire

For many, dealing with uncertainty leads to high levels of anxiety, and one reason why is our need for control and decision making. The kind of decision making that allows us to predict what our day looks like or schedule a dinner date a month out.