ABSTRACT
This chapter describes psychotherapy employing hypnosis can be improved by avoiding an immersion in unnecessary details while keeping an eye on the bigger picture. Process-oriented hypnosis aims to do this, but in a less direct way than straightforwardly challenging the client or providing facts. Process-oriented hypnosis is a means of addressing the client’s issues with ideas, perspectives, and possibilities that the client can absorb; these will address how he or she is generating problems while simultaneously encouraging new and more effective ways of doing things. When clients feel helpless, beaten down by hurtful life experiences, or simply not up to the task in some important area of their lives, it can be an especially important time for the therapist to provide a reassuring session of hypnosis that can associate the client to the possibility for growth. Using hypnosis to encourage these processes to unfold over time in adaptive ways can be one of the best possible broad therapeutic applications.
