therapeutic transference
useful for therapists in encouraging therapeutic transference (Gill & Brenman, 1961), understanding countertransference as an potential empathic device (Tansey & Burke, 1989), building a strong therapeutic alliance with convergent psychophysiogical mirror- ing (Banyai, 1998; Rossi & Rossi, 2006), and helping therapists time their interventions with patients’ cognitions toward moments when their self-structure might be more open for feedback/interpretation. I hope that this article might serve as an encouragement for therapists to consider that empathy is perhaps a much more powerful clinical tool than they ever realized and that strong empathic experiences are very naturally hypnotic. Furthermore, all therapists should be encouraged to practice mindfulness meditation to further develop their capacity to kindle and enact their patients psychophysiology and to activate their social engagement system (Porges, 2011; Tansey & Burke, 1989). Finally, it is hoped that many practitioners of hypnosis will become interested in the psychol- ogy of mindfulness, Dzogchen, and other forms of meditation that have been associated with the transcendence of self. It is hoped that more writings such as these will appear in the literature of psychotherapy to build a mutually beneficial bridge of understanding (Wickramasekera II, 2004b) between the Bon-Buddhist/Dzogchen schools of medita- tion and the hypnosis community that will allow us to help ever-increasing numbers of people to further develop their wisdom and compassion.
References
Banyai, E. (1998). The interactive nature of hypnosis: Research evidence for a social psychobiological model. Contemporary Hypnosis, 15, 52–63. doi:10.1002/ch.116
Barabasz, A., & Barabasz, M. (2008). Hypnosis and the brain. In M. Nash & A. Barnier (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of hypnosis: Theory, research, and practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Barabasz, A. F., & Barabasz, M. (1992). Research designs and considerations. In E. Fromm & M. R. Nash (Eds.), Contemporary hypnosis research (pp. 173–200). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Barnier, A. J., Cox, R., Connors, M., Langdon, R., & Coltheart, M. (2010). A stranger in the looking glass: Developing and challenging a hypnotic mirrored-self misidentification delusion. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 59, 1–26. doi:10.1080/00207144.2011.522863
Bernheim, H. (1891). New studies in hypnotism. New York, NY: International University Press. Brewer, J. A., Worhunsky, P. D., Gray, J. R., Tang, Y.-Y., Weber, J., & Kober, H. (2011). Meditation expe-
rience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 20254–20259. doi:10.1073/pnas.1112029108
Bryant, R. A., Hung, L., Guastella, A. J., & Mitchell, P. B. (2012). Oxytocin as a moderator of hypnotizability. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 37, 162–166. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.05.010
