August Book of the Month
Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy
By: Michele Ritterman
Zeig, Tucker, & Theisen, Inc
Updated Review by: Taylor Watson
This is an updated review of a classic that was first reviewed in newsletter issue Vol. 26 No. 1 by Annellen Simpkins Ph.D. & C. Alexander Simpkins Ph.D.
There are certain books that age with history, and there are others that seem to age alongside the clinician. Michele Ritterman’s Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy belongs to the latter. Although first published more than four decades ago, it remains one of those rare texts that invites the reader not merely to learn hypnosis, but to fundamentally rethink the nature of human symptoms, family systems, and unconscious communication. For readers who appreciate discovering where many of today’s most celebrated therapeutic ideas first took root, Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy offers an opportunity to revisit a work that continues to shape clinical thinking decades after its publication. Whether encountering Ritterman’s writing for the first time or returning to it with years of clinical experience, readers may find themselves seeing familiar concepts through an entirely new lens.
Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy has become a classic in the field of hypnotic family therapy since its inception into print more than twenty years ago (Copyright of first edition, 1983). The groundbreaking principles proposed by Michele Ritterman are in keeping with classic Ericksonian therapy, while leading in an innovative direction. This book is a clear, well-described, creative extension of the implications for social systems that she perceived in Erickson’s hypnotic therapy. Ritterman helps her patients to free themselves from symptoms induced by suggestion from contextual messages communicated in family patterns. Analogies to trance suggest alternative explanations for the compelling involuntary quality of problems. Suggestions are not only explicit communications formally extended by a hypnotist. Therefore, other communication patterns such as family interactions offer implicit suggestions as well, even though not deliberately intended, or even consciously thought of as such. Ritterman views symptoms as induced in a confluence of family and social contexts with the mind of the patient, operating unconsciously below the threshold of awareness. Using the symptom state to cue the new state is a key idea. The influence of suggestion can be enhanced or diminished by the emotional relationship of the subject to the person giving the suggestion. Therefore, intense emotional relationships within the family may unwittingly facilitate suggestive processes, trapping the patient and family in an unhealthy pattern of troubling symptoms. This situation offers a unique opportunity for the use of hypnosis to bring about change. Ritterman describes how the hypnotically oriented family therapist can first delineate the family’s induction pattern that leads to the problem, and then discover an appropriate individualized counter-induction. This process helps the patient become free of the symptom, instituting, when possible, positive contextual messages from the family for the patient to thrive, symptom-free. Thus, the family context is not just the negative source of pathology; it can also be a positive milieu for health. The book is divided into eight chapters, with a preface and introduction. The first chapter describes the fundamental concepts to use for treatment in this model. The second chapter delineates the general patterns for the therapist to follow. First Ritterman gives general rules of interviewing. Then she shows a method of graphically rendering patterns of interaction as hierarchical diagrams, in order to clarify the patterns and develop a treatment plan. Outlines of techniques and the proper hypnotherapeutic role for intervention during FAMILY continued from page family trance work are described. The third chapter interprets therapy of the problem in terms of a metaphor of exchange, as a gift to be given and received, with reference to power. Therapy becomes a model for this cooperative exchange. The fourth chapter describes a family interaction and interprets it in terms of the model. Then, four more chapters of case descriptions follow, deepening our understanding of techniques. Finally, a summary puts it all in context, comparing the model to the paradigms of Erickson-Rossi and models of strategic systems therapy. Ritterman’s model is useful and packed with general principles as well as specific types of techniques for change, both for small changes and for a larger pattern of change. Her model has much to incorporate into work with families. Her concepts offer a credible explanation of how problems come about and provide methods for solutions. She outlines many techniques to use, with clarifying examples of application in case descriptions. We highly recommend this book, especially to family therapists who will undoubtedly find it a valuable resource!
Taylor Watson, Licensed Professional Counselor Associate, is Supervised by Malton Cook LPC-S and wrote this article under the support and supervision of Roxanna Erickson-Klein Phd. LPC.
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by Michele Ritterman
Type: Softcover
When a book becomes a classic…
A careful integration of essential hypnotic techniques and family therapy, this innovative perspective can be incorporated into the working paradigm of virtually all practitioners.
From Camilo Loriedo: A classic book filled with seminal ideas that continue to blossom in this always-fertile field.
From Braulio Montalvo: This is the most useful integration of ideas in hypnosis with family therapy; an enduring resource.
From Daniel Araoz: The New Hypnosis…lends itself very well to developing the skill of using ‘family hypnosis’ therapeutically. What the family has been doing ineffectively and counterproductively can be turned around for their benefit. The awareness of this aspect of family communication we owe to Ritterman…Ritterman shows the flexibility and marvelous creative potential of hypnosis with families.
From Contemporary Psychology: Ritterman’s book is an important contribution to both family therapy and clinical hypnosis. Indeed, this is the first book to be devoted to family hypnotherapy. All students of family therapy will benefit greatly from this book, regardless of the general therapeutic model they use. They will realize, with surprise, perhaps, that the hypnotic techniques proposed by Ritterman can be incorporated into their own family therapy model, enriching it and making it more effective. Family therapists owe it to themselves to read this volume.
by Michele Ritterman
Type: eBook
Format: .epub
When a book becomes a classic…
A careful integration of essential hypnotic techniques and family therapy, this innovative perspective can be incorporated into the working paradigm of virtually all practitioners.
From Camilo Loriedo: A classic book filled with seminal ideas that continue to blossom in this always-fertile field.
From Braulio Montalvo: This is the most useful integration of ideas in hypnosis with family therapy; an enduring resource.
From Daniel Araoz: The New Hypnosis…lends itself very well to developing the skill of using ‘family hypnosis’ therapeutically. What the family has been doing ineffectively and counterproductively can be turned around for their benefit. The awareness of this aspect of family communication we owe to Ritterman…Ritterman shows the flexibility and marvelous creative potential of hypnosis with families.
From Contemporary Psychology: Ritterman’s book is an important contribution to both family therapy and clinical hypnosis. Indeed, this is the first book to be devoted to family hypnotherapy. All students of family therapy will benefit greatly from this book, regardless of the general therapeutic model they use. They will realize, with surprise, perhaps, that the hypnotic techniques proposed by Ritterman can be incorporated into their own family therapy model, enriching it and making it more effective. Family therapists owe it to themselves to read this volume.
by Bert Hellinger and Gabriele ten Hovel
Type: Softcover
Considered one of the most innovative psychotherapists in the world today, Bert Hellinger has garnered the attention of the international therapy community, as well as the segment of the lay community interested in recovering sources of healing and wholeness. In Acknowledging What Is, Hellinger sheds light on his unique use of family constellations to reveal hidden – often destructive – family dynamics and to activate healing resources. Hellinger also speaks freely and frankly about his observations of the forces at work in family systems and the controversy that surrounds some of those observations.
In this probing interview, Gabriele ten Hovel brings to her conversations with Bert Hellinger a journalist’s skepticism. In her voice is the sense of wonderment that many may have who do not understand how such an approach can work or who have only heard about statements attributed to Hellinger. And there are times when we hold our breath, poised to be outraged by his answers and explanations. Instead, the tough questions are met by equally tough answers – and in the spaces between question and answer the formidable power of the family constellation begins to unfold.
This book provides an opportunity for Bert Hellinger to lay to rest some misunderstandings, to clarify his thinking on entanglement and resolution, to describe what he means by the “movements of the soul.”
In the end, though, the book also provides an opportunity for readers to open their hearts and minds to the power of the family constellation. Born out of the most humble therapeutic stance, that of respectful observation, this approach makes contact with the deepest levels of family engagement and disengagement.
Sit in as the logical minded journalist and the “caretaker of the soul” consider the human condition together. You may take away little gems or find that your perspective goes through a major shift – either way, these “conversations with Bert Hellinger” will energize your thinking.
Described as the ultimate empiricist, Bert Hellinger acknowledges several important influences on his life and work: his parents, whose faith immunized him against accepting Hitler’s National Socialism; his 25 years as a priest, particularly as a missionary to the Zulu; and his participation in interracial, ecumenical training in group dynamics. However, it was in Hellinger’s later training in family therapy that he first encountered the family constellations that have become the hallmark of his therapeutic work.
A Guide for the Creative Pragmatist
by Rob Fisher
Type: Softcover
Ever read a book or attended a workshop and thought that the ideas were great, but then were lost when you tried to apply them yourself? This phenomenon seems to be particularly common in the field of psychotherapy. The charisma effect: when the words sound convincing and the teacher teaches well, but the concepts disintegrate in practice.
Well, now Rob Fisher steps forward with a new book entitled Experiential Psychotherapy with Couples: A Guide for the Creative Pragmatist, in which he not only describes the approach, he explains step by step how to put it into action. Depth and brevity are the two guideposts of the writing, and ample case material and innovative exercises clarify the experiential techniques presented as well as their underlying principles. Fisher’s approach helps to move clients (and therapists) from insight to impact as it uncovers opportunities to access and then shift the couple’s negative interactive impulses – by engaging them thoughtfully rather than denying their purpose — toward creating a more satisfying and balanced relationship.
For therapists of any discipline, this book offers practical ways both to understand and to intervene with couples across several dimensions simultaneously. Since issues exist on many levels, so too should therapy if it is to be truly effective and enduring. Rob Fisher’s goal? For readers not only to find the book “interesting,” but for them to be able to customize and employ what they learn within their own clinical practice.
Rob Fisher has performed the delicate task of integrating classical theories & techniques of couples psychotherapy with such important innovations as non-violence, mindfulness, and bodymind holism. His advocacy of freeing ourselves from character strategies that cripple our capacity for relatedness rings true. Using lots of clear clinical examples, he guides the reader through experiential methods of assessing couples problems, and shares experiential means to unravel them. Accessible and imminently usable, this book can be used by therapist and couple alike to plumb the depths of relational intimacy. I plan on assigning it to both my students and clients. Christine Caldwell, Ph.D., LPC Director, Somatic Psychology Department Naropa University Boulder, Colorado author of Getting in Touch: The Guide to New Body-Centered Therapies.
