MINDFULNESS AND HYPNOSIS
The Power of Suggestion to Transform Experience
Michael D. Yapko
W.W. Norton & Co., 2011
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES The reader will be able to:
• Understand focus
• Learn to deconstruct experiential processes
• Describe shared structures and functions
• Learn about paradoxes in practice
• Understand acceptance vs. change
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.
Editorial Reviews
“This book is both provocative and practical…Readers unfamiliar with this topic may finish this book eager to apply ‘guided mindfulness meditation’ to imagination, memory, and other human potentials that clinicians attempt to foster…Recommended.” (CHOICE )
“[A] call to those in the field of mindfulness to recognize that the wealth of knowledge gleaned from decades of hypnosis research can provide practitioners the ability to improve the efficacy of guided mindfulness meditation…. [A]n important book as well as an informative one. It is an essential read for clinical practitioners and for anyone with an interest in mindfulness.” (PsycCritiques)
“[I]nsightfully describes the vital and inevitable role of suggestion and goal orientation.” (Human Givens Journal (UK) )
“[A] treasure chest of inspiration and a must read for every aspiring Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist…. In his usual style he goes straight to the point and explains his rationale simply and clearly, without obfuscating and without over reaching…. There is much here to inspire, and a wealth of practical material for those already practicing and for those just starting out.” (The Hypnotherapy Team blog )
“Michael Yapko has created a classic. Not only does this latest book discuss the similarities and differences between hypnosis and mindfulness, it does so in such a knowledgeable, insightful, and well-documented manner that it is likely to become a reference book for years to come.... [O]ne of his best works yet.” (The Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter )
“Attune to the lively way in which Michael Yapko eases guided mindfulness meditation (GMM) and hypnosis into the 21st Century, elucidating fundamental structures and interpersonal processes. Become ever mindful of entrancing ways to apply GMM and hypnosis in clinical practice. For the tyro; for the expert.” (Jeffrey K. Zeig, Ph.D., Director Milton Erickson Foundation )
“My best recommendation for Mindfulness and Hypnosis is that while reading it, I felt as if I were in a master class with Michael Yapko. A class not to be missed.” (New York Milton H. Erickson Society for Psychotherapy and Hypnosis (NYSEPH) )