Treating Nightmares with Ericksonian Hypnosis

Robert Kupferman, LCSW

Over the years I have treated many patients suffering with trauma related nightmares. Some have been treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan where I was staff hypnotherapist for eight years specializing in trauma while others have been treated in my private practice where I continue to treat nightmares using hypnosis.  The treatment I describe here is effective for symptom relief allowing an uninterrupted sleep. Further treatment then occurs in the context of the therapeutic session(s).

Bypassing the sleep interruption of nightmares:

A nightmare is how the unconscious mind processes, files and makes meaning of distressing material usually the product of a past or current trauma. It occurs during REM cycles when the unconscious mind is most active. Typically the patient awakens at the moment of a life threatening crisis. Sometimes the embedded nightmare is repeated for years.

I use the following Ericksonian methods to achieve a high degree of success: metaphor, pacing and leading, utilization of patient resources, and post-hypnotic suggestion.

The nightmare is the first act of an unfinished play. The awakening is the intermission and the unwritten final act is where resolution occurs. (metaphor). The existing first act exists and the newly created final act of resolution is added (pacing and leading). I invite the patient to create a plot for the final act. (utilization of patient resource). I explain that logic is a minimized component of the unconscious mind’s process. Discard logic. In dreams pigs fly, flowers sing and there are pots of gold at the end of rainbows. We will splice a more pleasant, more tolerable final act (without the awakening intermission) to the play. And we will play with this. In the conscious state where logic prevails, we discuss familiar parallel experiences to enhance the expectancy that this is plausible. For example: We click the remote control to change the channel from an unpleasant program to one that is more enjoyable. We jump to a more desirable music track on our audio players. (metaphor). For example: Just as the fire eating dragon is about to gobble up the patient, the patient suddenly finds herself on a mountain side singing the title song to The Sound of Music. (Change the channel). Once the patient has described the plot, colors, characters, sound track of the final act in session, I embed it into their unconscious mind through trance. I record the trance and provide the patient with a CD in the next session. I invite them to rehearse the second act with or without the assistance of the CD recording at bedtime (post-hypnotic suggestion). Repetition is an effective way to embed material into the unconscious mind. The splice is made, the play is completed and the tragedy of act one smoothly transitions to the desired fantasy of the final act. It works!

See testimonial on my website (www.RKHypnotherapy.com) and should you use and improve on this effective protocol please let me know.

Robert Kupferman, LCSW