ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on stories delivered during hypnosis as a vehicle of therapy. Hypnosis creates a context of meaning. Hypnosis gives the story a gravitas that may not be present in just a casual telling. Hypnosis encourages focus, and the premise for the hypnotic interaction is that the clinician has something to say that’s worth focusing on and absorbing. Throughout the history of psychotherapy, it was postulated that symptoms served a purpose of one sort or another. It was taught, and in many quarters is, that symptoms are symbolic outgrowths of other underlying issues. Learning to tell stories in a hypnotic, engaging manner is a vital skill to develop for doing hypnosis well. The metaphor has to be introduced in some way that invites the person to engage with and learn from it, a technique called “framing the metaphor.”.
