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Metaphor as change-work
19/6/09 08:56I went to Bev Martin the other day for help with my terribly slow writing. Bev's a hypnotherapist--one of my teachers--and a writer herself. I was sure she could help, and she did.
She used Clean Language, a questioning technique designed to guide the client to her own metaphor of change, completely uninfluenced by the practitioner. It's the inverse of standard hypnotherapy, which explicitly seeks to influence.
All the questions start with "And..." Each question feeds the client's own words back, and never makes assumptions, so the questions are odd and ungrammatical, and your rational mind gives up and hides.
( It went something like this: )
Change work without change is just self-indulgence. Any change so far? Well, I got up an hour early yesterday and wrote a missing character in a pivotal scene that I've been avoiding for a month. I think that counts.
She used Clean Language, a questioning technique designed to guide the client to her own metaphor of change, completely uninfluenced by the practitioner. It's the inverse of standard hypnotherapy, which explicitly seeks to influence.
All the questions start with "And..." Each question feeds the client's own words back, and never makes assumptions, so the questions are odd and ungrammatical, and your rational mind gives up and hides.
( It went something like this: )
Change work without change is just self-indulgence. Any change so far? Well, I got up an hour early yesterday and wrote a missing character in a pivotal scene that I've been avoiding for a month. I think that counts.