Rob, I appreciate the way you emphasize the focus on the other person's needs while not forgetting own biases, fears, and limitations when we work with clients. Thank you for the reminders to be conscious of both fronts.
The only time I was in the presence of full on abreaction was, ironically, in a psychotherapeutic training session. I was working with a fellow student in the presence of the rest of the class and our teacher and ventured into an area I had thought was well covered by her with her own therapist, but actually wasn't. She went into a full throttled abreaction. I was able to settle her, but the whole thing unsettled everyone else. I actually felt quite calm myself and, I guess, that is what settled her.
Trigger warning: This post includes mention of physical, sexual, and traumatic themes.
It is interesting to me that sometimes the mere mention of certain themes can evoke a reaction. We don’t need the full experience. We don’t even need imagery. Sometimes a single word ... abuse, confinement, death ... is enough to stir the nervous system.
Even thinking about death can produce what looks very much like an abreaction in some people ... a surge of fear, tightness in the chest, urgency, or dissociation. Nothing has happened externally. And yet something very real has happened internally.
That alone reframes the idea that hypnosis is uniquely “dangerous.” Human imagination itself carries power.
Your reflection on abreaction stirred a memory from before I ever trained with you.
At that time, I had far less structure, far fewer frameworks, and much less of what might be called clinical understanding. What I did have ... though I didn’t recognize it then ... was humility.
A woman approached me with questions about my hypnosis mentor. She assumed I was in a position of authority regarding him. I wasn’t. I was still learning. But in the course of that conversation, she began sharing her own history ... severe physical and sexual abuse within a family system that included ritualized torture, confinement, and profound violation. She also described long stretches of memory loss from roughly ages ten to seventeen.
There was dissociation. There were missing years. There was intensity.
At that stage, I had been exposed to a metaphor sometimes called the “control room,” which I also knew my mentor utilized. So I gently asked: if she were taken through this process, how might she experience these concepts internally?
We did not follow a formal induction. And yet the simple act of focused inquiry seemed to allow absorption from a safe distance.
She said she could visualize moving through different rooms in her mind. Some doors were open. Some were closed.
The first door was open.
Inside was a little girl chained to a bed in terrible conditions.
“That girl is me ... and she is very angry.”
She then described another door farther down the hallway. Locked.
I asked if she could sense what was behind it.
“Uncontrollable rage,” she replied.
In that moment, I felt the edge of something that could easily overwhelm both of us. I didn’t yet have language for abreaction as we discuss it now. I didn’t have your teaching around utilization or co-regulation. What I had was a very clear awareness of my own limitation.
And that limitation became the intervention.
I said simply:
“If something is beyond your control, it’s probably not wise to open it until help is available.”
There was no technique in that. No performance. Just containment.
I told her honestly that I did not have the capacity or expertise to process what had happened to her. It was beyond my understanding. I did not want to open something I could not responsibly help stabilize.
But I also acknowledged something important. She had survived these experiences. She was seeking help. She was able to speak about them with clarity. I shared my deep respect for her resilience. I told her I was not sure I would have managed half as well had I lived what she had lived. Her presence alone spoke of strength.
Looking back now, I realize that humility ... and acceptance of my own limits ... likely prevented an abreaction that neither of us was equipped to manage.
What strikes me through the lens of your teaching is that even before I had formal Ericksonian training with you, something essential was already present ... steadiness.
Not curiosity driven by ego.
Not ambition to “heal.”
Not fascination with trauma.
Just a calm recognition of capacity.
Later, in class, when you said, “Some doors were never meant to be opened,” I felt that experience settle into place.
Months after that conversation, she contacted me again. I asked how she was doing.
She said, “I left the room behind. I don’t carry what was in that experience anymore.”
Not because we opened the locked door.
Not because we forced catharsis.
But because we respected her system.
Your point that mood is infectious resonates deeply here. If I had been anxious, excited, or trying to prove competence, that state would have been shared. Instead, what was shared was calm and boundary.
Before I had your language, I had limitation.
And I am beginning to appreciate that limitation ... owned and acknowledged ... can itself be profoundly therapeutic.
Perhaps abreaction is not something to fear.
Perhaps what matters most is not whether emotion arises ... but whether we are steady enough to help contain it.
Rob, I appreciate the way you emphasize the focus on the other person's needs while not forgetting own biases, fears, and limitations when we work with clients. Thank you for the reminders to be conscious of both fronts.
Irina, we are all in progress, learning together.
The only time I was in the presence of full on abreaction was, ironically, in a psychotherapeutic training session. I was working with a fellow student in the presence of the rest of the class and our teacher and ventured into an area I had thought was well covered by her with her own therapist, but actually wasn't. She went into a full throttled abreaction. I was able to settle her, but the whole thing unsettled everyone else. I actually felt quite calm myself and, I guess, that is what settled her.
Rob,
Trigger warning: This post includes mention of physical, sexual, and traumatic themes.
It is interesting to me that sometimes the mere mention of certain themes can evoke a reaction. We don’t need the full experience. We don’t even need imagery. Sometimes a single word ... abuse, confinement, death ... is enough to stir the nervous system.
Even thinking about death can produce what looks very much like an abreaction in some people ... a surge of fear, tightness in the chest, urgency, or dissociation. Nothing has happened externally. And yet something very real has happened internally.
That alone reframes the idea that hypnosis is uniquely “dangerous.” Human imagination itself carries power.
Your reflection on abreaction stirred a memory from before I ever trained with you.
At that time, I had far less structure, far fewer frameworks, and much less of what might be called clinical understanding. What I did have ... though I didn’t recognize it then ... was humility.
A woman approached me with questions about my hypnosis mentor. She assumed I was in a position of authority regarding him. I wasn’t. I was still learning. But in the course of that conversation, she began sharing her own history ... severe physical and sexual abuse within a family system that included ritualized torture, confinement, and profound violation. She also described long stretches of memory loss from roughly ages ten to seventeen.
There was dissociation. There were missing years. There was intensity.
At that stage, I had been exposed to a metaphor sometimes called the “control room,” which I also knew my mentor utilized. So I gently asked: if she were taken through this process, how might she experience these concepts internally?
We did not follow a formal induction. And yet the simple act of focused inquiry seemed to allow absorption from a safe distance.
She said she could visualize moving through different rooms in her mind. Some doors were open. Some were closed.
The first door was open.
Inside was a little girl chained to a bed in terrible conditions.
“That girl is me ... and she is very angry.”
She then described another door farther down the hallway. Locked.
I asked if she could sense what was behind it.
“Uncontrollable rage,” she replied.
In that moment, I felt the edge of something that could easily overwhelm both of us. I didn’t yet have language for abreaction as we discuss it now. I didn’t have your teaching around utilization or co-regulation. What I had was a very clear awareness of my own limitation.
And that limitation became the intervention.
I said simply:
“If something is beyond your control, it’s probably not wise to open it until help is available.”
There was no technique in that. No performance. Just containment.
I told her honestly that I did not have the capacity or expertise to process what had happened to her. It was beyond my understanding. I did not want to open something I could not responsibly help stabilize.
But I also acknowledged something important. She had survived these experiences. She was seeking help. She was able to speak about them with clarity. I shared my deep respect for her resilience. I told her I was not sure I would have managed half as well had I lived what she had lived. Her presence alone spoke of strength.
Looking back now, I realize that humility ... and acceptance of my own limits ... likely prevented an abreaction that neither of us was equipped to manage.
What strikes me through the lens of your teaching is that even before I had formal Ericksonian training with you, something essential was already present ... steadiness.
Not curiosity driven by ego.
Not ambition to “heal.”
Not fascination with trauma.
Just a calm recognition of capacity.
Later, in class, when you said, “Some doors were never meant to be opened,” I felt that experience settle into place.
Months after that conversation, she contacted me again. I asked how she was doing.
She said, “I left the room behind. I don’t carry what was in that experience anymore.”
Not because we opened the locked door.
Not because we forced catharsis.
But because we respected her system.
Your point that mood is infectious resonates deeply here. If I had been anxious, excited, or trying to prove competence, that state would have been shared. Instead, what was shared was calm and boundary.
Before I had your language, I had limitation.
And I am beginning to appreciate that limitation ... owned and acknowledged ... can itself be profoundly therapeutic.
Perhaps abreaction is not something to fear.
Perhaps what matters most is not whether emotion arises ... but whether we are steady enough to help contain it.
Gratefully,
Steven