ABSTRACT
One of the main objectives of the utilization of the metaphor in hypnosis is to stimulate perceptual, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, identity, relational, and contextual flexibility according to the patient's needs. This objective is in full agreement with the theory that recognizes the brain as a constituent element of the embodied mind, and with the definition of trance as neurobiological plasticity.
The flexibility that the metaphor intends to evoke in the patient must first be experienced by the therapist: they must be able to calibrate the direct or indirect style of communication to the recipients of the metaphor, combining science and art, contemplation, speculation, theory, and research with magical thinking, vivid experiences, and nature's laws.
To stimulate the flexibility of the patient, the therapist must access their creativity, drawing on their specialized technical knowledge belonging to their specific therapeutic approach and to the universal wisdom coming from archetypes, myths, legends, and anecdotes. The therapists’ aim of enhancing patients’ neurobiological plasticity is achieved with the careful selection of words based on their semantic and pragmatic implications and on multiple suggestions based on process-oriented hypnosis. The author supports her theoretical explanations with clinical cases.
