Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy

by Michele Ritterman

"In this new book, Michele Ritterman forges a new approach to therapy from the complementary perspectives and techniques of family therapy and hypnotherapy.

Most family therapists, especially those influenced by structural and strategic approaches, have intentionally sought to bypass the inner workings of the individual to deal directly with interactions among family members. On the other hand, hypnotherapists have directed their efforts toward reorganizing the inner reality of the individual symptom bearer-on the assumption that changes within the individual would promote new behavioral and interactional patterns. Until now, there has been no comprehensive guide on bridging the gap between the two approaches and combining their special strengths.

Michele Ritterman, who has studied with such noted therapists as Milton Erickson, Jay Haley, Salvador Minuchin, and Braulio Montalvo, shows how hypnosis and family therapy can be combined to intervene simultaneously into the multiple levels of a symptom structure, working with both the inner worlds of family members and their outer interactional processes.

Ritterman presents detailed case examples from clinical practice to illustrate how her approach has been used in treating a wide range of problems-including suicidal tendencies, psychosomatic illness, alcoholism, extreme anxiety, claustrophobia, and excessive She explains a variety of hypnotic techniques, details each therapeutic stage from preinductive to postinductive, and describes the structuring of sessions to suit particularies and problems. Revealing that is themselves can induce trance-like states and make ""suggestions"" that activate symptoms in individual family members, she shows how to intervene using counterinductive techniques to the negative behavior patterns.

The new diagnostic formulations and therapeutic innovations that Ritterman presents will be of use to every practitioner."