International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

HYPNOSIS AND DEPRESSION 141
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APPENDIX
A HYPNOTIC INDUCTION FOR THE MODIFICATION OF
HOPELESSNESS
Individuals experiencing depression express a pervasive sense of hopelessness. The present
is seen as negative and joyless and the future is just more of the same. It is important, in
order to do any useful work, to attempt to modify this stable negative attribution that
characterizes depressed thinking. Ideally the clinician will utilize material from the client to
facilitate a trance induction aimed at the modi®cation of hopelessness. Sometimes, in order
to access a client's involvement in the process of change, it will be necessary to begin by
working with little information other than the client's sense of hopelessness. The following
script is one possible approach.
I wonder ... whether you can allow yourself to notice ... the heaviness of the
depression ...like a heavy blanket of dark smoke ...Allow yourself ...to let go, not
struggle ... to simply experience the weight of the depression that ties you down ...
And as you look around in your mind's eye, it is as if a ®re has been through the
landscape and left nothing untouched ... it seems as if the blackness, the barrenness,
reaches all the way to the end of your vision ... without change ... and there is no
way ... to be less tired ... weighed down ... by the heavy dark cloud of depression
...There is such stillness that ...it seems as if ...no change is possible ...that there
will always be ... the endless wait ... to be ... always tied. And you know ... that
this heaviness has been with you for some time ... and you have come to believe ...
that this is the pattern of your life ... that the future will be ... more of the same ...
and there will be no way out.
And perhaps ... as you notice the heaviness of your body ... I wonder if you can
discover ... that some of that heaviness that weighs you down ... is a sense of
increasing relaxation ... and your wait ... can feel like an untying. Let yourself ...
become aware ... of the point where the wait becomes ... the burden of curiosity ...