Tips for effective metaphors

When I first started out as a therapist, one of the most amazing discoveries that I made was the use of metaphor and its effect on the unconscious mind. Milton Erickson, the father of hypnosis used the most amazing techniques with his clients to elicit trance and reprogramme old ways of thinking, allowing the unconscious mind to make new choices and discoveries. Utilising everything the client brings with them into the therapy room both good and bad, Erickson was able to weave the most elaborate and multi-layered metaphors to make lasting and dramatic changes.

I quite often use metaphors along with hypnotic language patterns to help the client in making major life changes whether it might be to lose weight, blow boundary conditions, control stress and many other issues. One of my recent metaphors was helping a client to gain control over her ability to control stress and lead a healthier lifestyle. The lady in question had a very stressful job, quite often skipped lunch and snacked on unhealthy foods in the evening.

The metaphor suggested how good it would be to enjoy nature and take stock of all the natural beauty of the world around us, how we can become so absorbed and fascinated by other people and how when we pause to enjoy the moment whether its staring at a flower about to bloom, listening to a bird song, we regain that connection to the universe. I also incorporated how easy it would be to spend time to enjoy breaks such a this throughout the day, along with suggestions for ego strengthening and stress reduction. I recorded the metaphor on to a CD and also did the session on the lady's next visit and asked her to listen to that CD every night for about a week.

A week later she came back and reported that she had now made these changes, taking her little dog for longer walks, taking regular lunch breaks and no longer felt tempted to buy unhealthy foods from her local shop and how good she now felt and how it easy it has been to make these changes. She appeared brighter, happier, confident and much more relaxed.

I have used metaphor many times with clients and consistently received great results. If you would like to use metaphor in your practice, I would recommend the following:

Utilise what the client brings (ie , interests, favourite characters, holiday destinations, colours, nature, favourite things)

Clear construction - you are telling a story, you must have an induction to set the scene, a middle and an end where you can support the client in making their own discoveries and choices

Use VAKOG to fully awaken all the senses but try and be artfully vague (ie you can see the vivid colour of the sky above and feel at peace just looking at the rich textures and vivid colours of the trees and flowers)


The magic 3 - always repeat a suggestion using a language pattern but you can phrase it slightly differently each time but still relaying the same message (ie you find it so much easier to enter trance, entering trance will be so easy to do, its so easy to enter trance for you...

Post hypnotic - always include a post hypnotic such as suggesting to the client for example that they absorb all the positive suggestions you have given them for their health and well being will be carried out automatically once in the waking state

And finally be creative...dont be afraid to use your imagination - the unconscious mind likes a good story!

Some people ask me why I record my metaphors, the reason is simply the aid of repitition and ambiguity of language patterns means that each time a client listens to the recording they gain new and deeper understandings, which can not always be gained in just one session of hypnosis.