Mindfulness and Hypnosis: The Power of Suggestion to Transform Experience

by Michael D. Yapko

In recent years mindfulness has become integrated into many clinicians' private practices, and become a staple of hospital and university based treatment programs for stress reduction, pain, anxiety management, and a host of other difficulties. Clinicians are now routinely encouraging their clients to focus, be aware, open, and accepting, and thereby derive benefit from the mindfulness experience.


How has mindfulness, a treatment tool that might easily have been dismissed as esoteric only a few short years ago, become so widely accepted and applied? One obvious answer: Because it works. The empirical foundation documenting the therapeutic merits of mindfulness is already substantial and is still growing. This is not a book about documenting the therapeutic merits of mindfulness, however. Rather, this book is the first of its kind to address how and most importantly why guided mindfulness meditations can enhance treatment. The focus in this book is on the structure of guided mindfulness meditations and, especially, the role of suggestion in these processes. Specifically, one of the primary questions addressed in this book is this: When a psychotherapist conducts guided mindfulness meditations (GMMs) for some clinical purpose, how does mindfulness work?


In posing this question other questions arise that are every bit as compelling: Do GMMs contain structural elements that can be identified and amplified and thereby employed more efficiently? How do we determine who is most likely to benefit from such methods? Can GMMs be improved by adapting them to the needs of specific individuals rather than employing scripted "one size fits all" approaches?


Discussing the role of suggestion in experience and offering the author's concrete suggestions for integrating this work into psychotherapy, this book is a practical guide to hypnosis, focusing, and mindfulness for the clinician.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 26, 2011

About the author

Michael D. Yapko, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist residing in Southern California.

Reviews

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Demystifies the crossover between trance and meditation in a rich and practical way.Would widen horizons for a meditator looking for fuel,or an Eriksonian hypnotherapist looking for space. Excellent.

[Sasha]

Got it from the library though it was requested by someone else so couldn't read much. Looks interesting, a comparison of two relevant subjects, and a sensible perspective on both. I have saved a sample and will come around to it one of these days.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yapko rocks, I'd read anything he wrote. Here he finds the common ground between mindfulness and hypnosis as healing techniques, and suggests that both have powerful, though slightly different, therapeutic outcomes.

[Jan Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I read it to help a few friends and family members with medical challenges they are dealing with, but the book has many other positive applications, as well.