Ideo Motor Response Demonstration

The Utilization of Ideo-motor Response in Accessing Unconscious Information, Memories and Resources as a Primary Treatment Modality in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy

Stephen H Brooks_____________________________________

Introduction

This is an edited transcript of an Ericksonian hypnotherapy session demonstrating the use of ideo-motor signaling. The session is taken from a practitioner diploma course I was teaching for the British Hypnosis Research & Training Institute at St Anne’s Psychiatric Hospital in London in the early 1990’s. In 2012 the session was transcribed and I edited the transcript to simplify the text. The demonstration is in front of a group of seventy doctors, psychologists and other health professionals and as will be seen from the transcript I teach the class what I am doing as the session progresses. The demonstration subject is Elizabeth, who is one of the students and she has volunteered to be a demonstration subject for the therapy demonstration.

In Ericksonian hypnotherapy, ideo-motor signaling is the name given to a technique whereby a movement of the client’s finger is used to signal an unconscious communication – typically a yes or no response.

I often use ideo-motor signaling with my clients in therapy, just as Milton Erickson did. I find it invaluable in uncovering the source of early learning experiences that have contributed to problems and the patterns that have maintained them. I frequently do therapy using only ideo-motor response as a communication tool, because in this way the client has no conscious realization of what therapy is occurring. It's a confidential therapeutic encounter between the client's unconscious and the therapist. The client just gets better without knowing how they did it.

The technique is quite simple but does require some skill at observation and timing. Once in hypnosis, the therapist asks the client’s unconscious mind to lift one finger for a “yes" answer, and another for a "no" answer. Sometimes the therapist will indicate on which hands the yes and no fingers will be, I prefer to leave it up to the client’s unconscious to decide. The responses can either be on the same hand or on different hands. It is most common to use both hands – maybe a yes response from a finger on the left hand and a no response from a finger on the right hand (as happens in this demonstration).

Ideo-motor Response Demonstration - Stephen H Brooks - Copyright 2013

It is usually easy to tell when a client is faking, because an unconscious finger signal is slow with minimal movement at first and often a little shaky. A conscious response is a direct, conscious, and a more or less immediate lifting of the finger. Ideally there should be no conscious participation on the part of the client so you get a true honest unconscious response. When genuine, clients are sometimes unaware of the finger movements as they happen.

Ideo-motor movement can also be an unconscious movement of the head, foot or other part of the body and sometimes when a client has been asked to allow their unconscious mind to move their finger, they also nod or shake their head without realizing it. Because head nodding and shaking is a part of our everyday non-verbal behavior it can happen quite naturally and unconsciously.

In hypnosis the unconscious head nods are different from conscious everyday head nods. In trance they are usually very slow and barely noticeable. If a client nods their head in a very enthusiastic and conscious way then the response is consciously generated and should not be relied upon, it is just the client answering consciously and the responses are based on the clients usual conscious understanding. Sometimes there may be an unconscious movement of the foot or hand as well, or a twitch in a face muscle. These are usually unconscious. It is rare for these to be consciously generated as most people do not deliberately use these other parts of the body to communicate consciously.

There is usually quite a delay between the therapist’s question and the client lifting the finger, especially at the start. This is because the client has to process the question unconsciously, search for an answer unconsciously, and then move the finger unconsciously. This process gets faster as the client answers more questions and the process becomes more familiar. The therapist can encourage the finger to lift with indirect suggestions and notice the initial slight twitch of the muscles in the back of the hand that usually happen prior to a finger actually lifting.

With some clients you may only see a twitching of the muscles in the back of the hand or a finger shifting from side to side and a full lift may not happen or take much longer to happen. This is of no concern. The twitch in the muscle is hard to fake and so is a very good indicator of a genuine unconscious response. It can be used as an alternative to a full finger lift. I often will only need that small twitch as a response as this saves time in therapy when one has a lot of questions. However beware, sometimes a movement may occur in one place during one session and during another session occur in another part of the hand. So you need to develop your observation skills to notice these subtle minimal movements.

The whole purpose of using Ideo-motor responses is to communicate with the part of the client that knows more about the problem than they do. By communicating directly with the unconscious mind the therapist is able to call upon the client’s unconscious resources


for problem solving. A certain amount of negotiation can be done between the therapist and the client's unconscious mind in this way although the answers are limited to yes and no. The client need not have any conscious awareness of the communication as it is happening and he will often forget that it did happen. Usually clients can remember that the fingers moved but can’t remember all of the answers.

There are however limitations when using finger signaling. Any attempt at evoking direct answers, especially detailed answers via finger signaling, is severely limited because the fingers can only answer "yes" or "no". Often keeping track of the answers obtained with ideo-motor responses can be challenging for the therapist. So when getting answers with finger signaling the therapist should write down both the questions and answers on a sheet of paper. Sometimes the responses can be quite confusing and contradictory because the unconscious mind has its own sense of logic and a written record of the session will help sort out this often contradictory unconscious logic.

There is also the issue of unconscious confidentiality to consider. Keeping a clear written record of the responses as the session progresses will definitely help you to keep track of the unconscious communication, but it may not be advisable to show the client the written record afterwards, as it will often contain confidential information shared about the client by his/her unconscious.


Ideo-motor Response Demonstration

Hypnotherapist: Stephen H BrooksClient: Elizabeth

Brooks: OK, do you know anything about deep trance work?

Elizabeth: A little, I used to do it sometimes, but it’s rather hit and miss.

Brooks: Tell me a little bit about how you use it.

Elizabeth: Well when I’m inducing hypnosis people sometimes... they go into a deep trance, and sometimes they seem to sort of...

(Elizabeth pauses and starts to go into trance while moving both arms left and right simulating a wave movement)

Brooks: Do you know what you do differently when you work with people in deep trance?

Elizabeth: What I do differently?...

(Pauses for a several moments)

... you mean am I getting?...

(Pauses for longer as she goes deeper into trance)

I think I am... just responding to that person more completely, probably...

Brooks: Umm...

Elizabeth: (Smiles)

Brooks: Umm. Are you aware that you also go into a trance when you hypnotise your clients?

Elizabeth: (Smiles and nods her head) Oh yes, yes, yes.

Brooks: How did I know that you do that?

Elizabeth: (Laughs) I was going into a trance just then.


Brooks: Yes, we were accessing the state you go into when you’re helping clients.

Elizabeth: (Smiles) Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Brooks: Umm yes. (Talks to the students) OK let me explain a little about deep trance work and the role of indirect and direct suggestion in deep trance work.

You’ve been learning a lot about indirect suggestion on this course and we often use indirect suggestion to help people overcome any fears they may have about going into hypnosis.

When a person is actually in a deep trance, or already going into a deep trance, there is less of a need to use indirect suggestion, because they are already in hypnosis. You can still use indirect suggestion when doing therapy in hypnosis, if you want to only address the unconscious mind, and don’t wish the conscious mind to eavesdrop, but when you just want to deepen trance, or evoke hypnotic phenomena, you can be quite direct if you want, once the client is in hypnosis. Milton Erickson was often very direct once his subject was in trance.

My video called “Training In Indirect Hypnosis”, which was about inducing and deepening trance while evoking hypnotic phenomena using only indirect suggestion, was based on the sole use of hypnotic implication. There was very little direct suggestion in that session, because I wanted to demonstrate how powerful indirect suggestion is on its own. But you don’t have to do it that way every time you work with a client, although admittedly, that is my personal preference. You can be direct as well, once the client is in trance.

So at this point in your training I’m going to encourage you to utilize direct suggestion as well as indirect suggestion, but not until your hypnotic subject is actually in a trance. Don’t use the direct approach as a way of putting the person into hypnosis, use the indirect approach for the first part of the session. We don’t want you sounding like a stage hypnotist. We’re here to help the client feel that the hypnotic experience, and their ability to heal, comes from within them, not that it is being done to them by someone who claims to have some kind of hypnotic power over them. We want to empower our clients, not dis-empower them. So use indirect suggestion for the induction and then use caring and encouraging direct suggestion for the trance deepening and therapy. I will demonstrate how you can do this using ideo-motor signaling. You will need to watch closely to see the indirect induction as a lot of it will be non-verbal. The direct suggestions will be obvious.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) So what I’d like to do, is ask you to think about how you feel at this moment?


Elizabeth: (Closes her eyes)

Brooks: How secure do you feel at this moment? (security was something the client had mentioned previously)

Elizabeth: Fairly, not completely.

Brooks: Umm, how do your hands feel right now? How secure do your hands feel at this moment?

Elizabeth: Umm... fairly all right.

Brooks: Fairly all right? Please tell me what position you would have to put your hands in for them to not feel so secure?

Elizabeth: (Elizabeth tightens her hands) They feel sort of... (Elizabeth tightens her hands again)

Brooks: Yes OK. Can you do that even more? Can you make your hands feel even less secure?.. That’s it!

Elizabeth: (Smiles)

Brooks: And how does it feel when you make your hands fell less secure like that?

Elizabeth: Tight all the way across my shoulders and my legs.

Brooks: Not very comfortable?

Elizabeth: No.

Brooks: So does that mean... (pause) if I lift your arm like this (Brooks lifts Elizabeth’s arm as part of the hypnotic induction), and then I ask you to relax it... just to relax your fingers, that’s it... just relax them nice and comfortably like that, so they feel the opposite of how they felt... that’s it... the opposite from how they were... (series of implied questions)

And then you relax that one... (Brooks lifts her other hand)

Does that then feel more secure?

Elizabeth: Yes


Brooks: (Brooks gives a short analogy) I realized something some time ago. I was stuck somewhere, I can’t remember where it was now, but I needed something to eat but there wasn’t anything to eat. I knew I had to wait a long time to eat and I felt very hungry. But as time passed I started to appreciate the waiting and the hungry feeling. I realized how important it is to feel hungry in order to enjoy food. And the more I looked forward to eating, the more I knew I would enjoy the food when it came.

Now you know, that when you wake up in the morning, there’s usually daylight, and when you go to sleep at night it’s dark. But with hypnosis you can go to sleep any time, (Whispers) if you wish... and you know that I can use the word sleep yet don’t mean sleep. When I use the word sleep it can mean something entirely different. But you don’t need to know what it means consciously.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) I’m going to ask Elizabeth some questions here... questions about what she feels like, and about what is happening for her.

There are three ways to deepen trance initially. One way is to suggest it, the other way is to wait and let her go deeper, this means, you don’t say anything, and the other way is to utilize the physiological and psychological changes that occur and the hypnotic phenomena that develops, to deepen trance. So I will use a combination of all three.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) OK Elizabeth, I just noticed that you moved your hands just then. How do they feel right now?

Elizabeth: They feel OK.

Brooks: OK? and how do your fingers feel?

Elizabeth: Tingly.

Brooks: Tingly?... which hand feels the most tingly?

Elizabeth: The left.

Brooks: The left hand feels more tingly than the right... OK, and how do your eyelids feel right now?

Elizabeth: Heavy.

Brooks: Heavy? Do you think that you can still open them?

Elizabeth: (Elizabeth opens her eyes)


Brooks: So they are not that heavy, not yet.

OK, what would you have to do in order to make them so heavy that you couldn’t open them?

Elizabeth: Just let myself breath deeply and slip deeper into... (Elizabeth goes into hypnosis)

Brooks: Umm, that’s right, that’s it.

Now I can ask you questions, but of course you don’t have to answer verbally.

You know that there are many ways you can communicate.

Just allow that tingling to develop in your hand as that heaviness develops in your eyelids as you breathe.

Just going as deep as you need to go in order to accomplish what we’re going to do here today.

I’d like your unconscious mind to let you go even deeper into a hypnotic state.

You can think, you can hear, you can see in your minds eye. You can feel. Every thought that you have can help you go deeper into hypnosis. Every image can help you go deeper into a hypnotic state.

Every sound can help you go deeper and deeper into trance.

Every feeling can help you go deeper and deeper into hypnosis.

Now I wonder what’s happening to the thumb on your left hand. That’s right. How is the feeling in that thumb different from the felling in the thumb on your right hand?

I’m going to talk about your fingers and thumb’s because we can all be fingers and thumbs.

I wonder what it would feel like to not know how to pick up something with those fingers.

Almost as if that hand isn’t yours.

Yet somehow unconsciously your hand can move to pick things up but without you knowing how it’s happening.


Now your hand knows how to hold a pencil or a pen, or a knife and fork.

But you don’t have to think about how to hold a knife and fork.

Because your unconscious mind knows how to hold things without you having to think about it.

Now you can go into a deep deep hypnotic state as you breath.

Going deeper with every time you exhale, or maybe your unconscious mind would prefer you to go deeper as you inhale. You can be curious about that.

Maybe you’ve spoken on the telephone and written something down without knowing what you were writing.

Maybe you were doodling and didn’t notice what you were doodling until afterwards.

You know how to wave at someone in the street. You don’t have to think about how to move your hand, it waves all by itself.

A friend comes towards you with their arm outstretched and they raise their hand to shake your hand, and your hand lifts all by itself. You don’t have to think about how to do that.

I’d like you to go deeper and deeper into hypnosis now.

Deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper. Notice what it’s like to go deeper and deeper.

Experience it in your body, as you breath and as I talk to you.

Going deeper and deeper each time you breath. That’s right, deeper and deeper.

I’d like you to count numbers to yourself as you go deeper. I don’t know if your unconscious will ask you to count yourself into hypnosis by counting forwards or by counting backwards.

Wait for a moment to find out...

Then just count to yourself and let each number fade into the distance as you go deeper and deeper. Just deeper and deeper, each number fading into the distance. Each number as you count, as you go deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.

As you go deeper and deeper, so you start to alter the sensations in your body, how are


you doing that?

You really don’t know, do you?

That’s right, going deeper and deeper and deeper.

Starting to recall the experience of being somewhere very comfortable.

Deeper and deeper. Starting to recall the experience of being somewhere very comfortable.

That heaviness in your eyelids. Heaviness in your eyelids getting more and more heavy. As if those muscles are so tired in those eyelids. So tired, so relaxed. So tired in those eyelids now. In those eyelids, so relaxed.

That’s right. And you feel a gentle touch on your shoulder. (Brooks touches her gently on the shoulder)

Now I want you to go deeper and deeper.

Heaviness in those eyelids now. That’s right, deeper and deeper all the way down. That’s right, now deeper and deeper and you can be aware of the heaviness in your eyelids.

Even as you breath, have you almost lost the sensation of some part of your body? Is there some part of your body you can’t feel? Where in you body is that?

(Elizabeth nods)

That’s right, you can’t feel that part of your body... you can’t feel that part of your body.

Heaviness in your eyelids, so heavy as you go deeper now. All the way down. Now that’s right, that’s it. You can’t feel that part of your body. Really can’t feel it. You can wonder where it is but you can’t feel that part of your body.

It’s such an interesting learning experience as you go deeper and deeper, as you continue to count.

Remember to continue to count as you go deeper and deeper. Just deeper and deeper.

You really can’t feel that part of your body. As your eyelids are so heavy now, all the way down.

Deeper and deeper, now just deeper and deeper and deeper.


And your unconscious mind can listen to every single word that I say. Every suggestion, your unconscious mind can hear, every single suggestion, every word and implication. Your unconscious mind can tune into my voice and hear every word and suggestion as you go deeper and deeper.

And you conscious mind can hear the sound of my voice, the sound, only the sound.

Now going deeper now, that’s right, all the way down as you experience the sensation of a gentle touch on your shoulder.

I am touching you on your shoulder. As you breath, as you exhale, feel my gentle touch on your shoulder. Just feel that slight pressure on your shoulder, that slight pressure. Deeper and deeper now.

In that very comfortable place, that very comfortable place. And what can you see in this comfortable place? What can you hear? What can you feel in this comfortable place?

In this comfortable place you can look around this comfortable place, hear the sounds and the feelings of being in this comfortable place. Just enjoy the experience of being in this comfortable place. What can you see, hear and feel? What experiences.

Have those experiences now. Have those experiences. Have those experiences in every way now. Have those experiences. Have those experiences and when I ask you to talk, you can reply.

When I ask you to talk, you can speak to me. You can allow your mouth to move, your lips to move, and you can talk to me. Easily comfortably and stay in that relaxing place.

Going deeper and deeper now. All the way down, deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper now.

When I ask you any questions you can talk to me.

Deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper. Eyelids getting heavier and heavy, heavier and heavier as you go deeper and deeper and experience being in this place.

Experience being in this comfortable place. Experience it fully now, experience it in every way, every way experience it.

Now Elizabeth, now I want you to answer some questions for me. What is this place you’re in, where is this special place? Tell me where this place is?


Elizabeth: An orchard

Brooks: An orchard, are there trees in this orchard with fruit on?

Elizabeth: All sorts... a plum tree.

Brooks: Do you like plums?

Elizabeth: Umm.

Brooks: Are you going to pick one? Which one are you going to pick? Can you see one that you would like to pick? Which one are you going to pick? A big one or small one? Pick that plum now. Can you reach and get that plum? Pick that plum.

(Elizabeth nods)

OK put it to your mouth and bite into it. Taste that plum. Taste the texture of the skin on the plum, the fruit inside. The taste is so nice, sort of firm but sweet. You can taste the fruit around the stone, the stone inside the plum. Taste the dryness of the stone. Spit that out or take it out.

(Elizabeth spits out the hallucinated plum stone)

Umm that salvia flows, as you taste that plum. Maybe it’s the best plum you’ve ever tasted or maybe the next one will be the best plum you’ve ever tasted. On a scale of one to ten how do you rate the taste of this plum?

Elizabeth: About eight.

Brooks: About eight, pick another one now. Pick a number ten. Pick a number ten plum. There are some more plums up there.

Which one do you think is a number ten plum? Have you seen one yet? Do you want to feel it, to test how soft it is? Just test it to see how soft it is. Can you feel it?

Elizabeth: Umm.

Brooks: Do you think that’s going to be a number ten plum?

Elizabeth: (Nods her head)

Brooks: Taste that plum, put that to your mouth and bite into that plum. Bite into that plum now. Bite into it, taste that one. Taste that lovely taste. It’s probably the best plum


you’ve ever tasted. The best plum you’ve ever tasted. Just so perfect, perfect. Nothing wrong with that. Exactly, exactly as you like it to be. Perfect, perfect.

How do you rate this one on the scale of one to ten?

Elizabeth: (Mumbles the word ten)

When I touch you gently on the shoulder you can go all the way into a nice deep hypnotic trance. Go now deeper and deeper, deeper deep and deeper, all the way down. Just deeper and deeper, deeper.

Anytime I touch you on the shoulder like that you can go deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.

That’s it just allow your head to get very very heavy. Head gets very very heavy as you go deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper.

Notice how your hands feel at this moment (lifts her hands). Now I’m just going to bend your fingers slightly just to loosen them up. They became a little bit stiff didn’t they (her hand became spontaneously cataleptic). Just loosening those fingers up a little bit.

Now I’d like your unconscious mind to allow you to go deeper and deeper. Allow your unconscious mind to let movements and feelings return to your fingers but only to the extent that they can move to answer my questions. Only to the extent that they can move to answer my questions.

Deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.

Allow your fingers to move to answer my questions. Deeper and deeper.

So your conscious mind can go anywhere it chooses. It doesn’t have to pay any attention. Just your unconscious mind to answer questions.

Now I’d like your unconscious mind to show me what a “yes” is like. To allow one finger on one hand to lift as a “yes” signal from your unconscious mind.

One finger to be a “yes” signal and another finger to be a “no” signal. So first of all I’d like your unconscious mind to allow one finger to move. Will it be on your left hand or right hand? I don’t really know. Show me what a “yes” is like... I’d like the unconscious mind to show me what a “yes” is like.

Elizabeth: (Slowly lifts a finger on her left hand)


Brooks: And continue to let that “yes” signal happen so I can see it clearly (her finger lifts higher on her left hand).

That’s right, and let that finger return to normal. Let that finger rest back where it was.

(Elizabeth lowers the finger on her left hand)

Now I’d like your unconscious mind to show me what a “no” signal is like. What a “no” signal is like.

That’s right allow that signal to continue in that way, in it’s own way.Umm more and more, let that “no” signal continue.

(Elizabeth lifts a finger on her right hand)

Now just let that finger return to normal (Brooks helps move her “no” finger back to normal as it is slow in returning)

Now I’m just going to ask some questions of your unconscious mind.

Just go deeper and deeper and deeper (Brooks places his hand gently on her shoulder) deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper deep.

(Brooks starts talking to Elizabeth’s unconscious by referring to it while talking to Elizabeth) Is your unconscious mind willing to communicate with me, with these ideo-motor signals?

Elizabeth: (Lifts the finger on her left hand as a “yes” response)

Brooks: Thank you, Just let that finger return to normal, return to normal. That’s right, thank you very much. Just allow yourself to go deeper and deeper and deeper. That’s it all the way down. All the way down. All the way down.

Does your unconscious mind want you to come out of a trance in a minute?

Elizabeth: (Lifts the finger on her right hand as a “no” response)

Brooks: Just let that signal develop even more, even more. Even more.

That’s it, now let it return to normal. That’s it all the way down deeper, that’s it. Even deeper and deeper than before. I’d like you to count, continue to count to go deeper.


Only listen to the sound of those numbers in your head. As you count those numbers, I’m going to talk to your unconscious mind and what ever I say to your unconscious mind is only for your unconscious mind.

Just give your conscious attention to the counting of those numbers.

And if you miss a number you can continue counting, but remember what numbers you have missed, and make a list of all of those numbers you missed while you continue to count. And each number that you count, you go deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper and deeper as I talk to your unconscious mind.

Continue to count as I talk to your unconscious mind. Just allow your unconscious mind to hear me, your unconscious mind to hear me and respond without you having to listen.

And deeper and deeper and deeper now. I’m talking to your unconscious mind now. Keep going deeper and deeper in your own way... in your own time.

(Brooks talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) I’m going to talk “about” Elizabeth. I’m going to talk about her and what she can achieve for herself today. I would like to talk about Elizabeth and how we can help her achieve things for herself.

Has Elizabeth got a particular problem that she wants to work on, at an unconscious level?

Elizabeth: (Lifts the finger on her left hand as a “yes” response)

Brooks: (Brooks talks to Elizabeth) Keep counting and go deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper.

Thank you, just allow that movement to return to normal. That’s it thank you very much, thank you very much. Now you keep going deeper as I talk to the students. Just keep on going deeper.

Brooks: (talking to the students) Let me tell you what’s been happening so far. Now we’ve got our ideo-motor responses here, and it will be very interesting to pay attention to the answers that we get from her unconscious, it might also seem quite confusing, because you might discover that the unconscious has its own sense of logic.

So if you want to keep a note of the questions I’m asking and then the answers we get, it will be very interesting when we look back and analyze what we’ve got.

I’m going to do this as a content free therapy session because I don’t know what her actual problem is. I have deliberately structured the session in this way so we are limited


to only the yes and no signals as a therapeutic tool, because with ideo-motor signaling you are limited to only yes and no signals. So I’m showing you exactly what you can and can’t do with ideo-motor signaling.

Let’s suppose that someone comes in to therapy and they have a problem where they feel anxious but can’t define why they feel anxious. In other words, there would be a symptom without any consciously identifiable cause. We would be in the same situation we are in now. We would have a lack of information. But we would have a communication channel to the unconscious part of the person that knows about the cause.

So first of all, we have to ask if that part of her unconscious is willing to help her resolve the problem by allowing us access to the cause. Why do we need this willingness to help? Because the unconscious has so far kept this cause out of the client’s conscious awareness, usually as a protective measure, and having a therapist digging around may jeopardize that protection. So this is very much a matter of building trust between the therapist and the client’s unconscious.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) Now are you willing to help me help Elizabeth with this problem? If you are willing to help me help Elizabeth with this problem your unconscious can give me a yes signal. If your unconscious is not willing it can give me a no signal.

Elizabeth: (Moves the finger on her left hand as a yes response)

Brooks: Thank you, thank you. Now let that finger relax back to where it was.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now let me tell you what’s been happening so far with regards to setting up the ideo-motor signaling itself.

Notice that I gave her a task of counting numbers to herself. Then I gave her the task again but to also keep track of any numbers she had left out. This is a difficult task at the best of times, so it ties up her conscious attention nicely. And I told her that she needn’t pay attention to me, she only has to count. By giving her the task of counting, I make it very difficult for her to pay attention to me consciously and respond consciously, because she has to keep track of her counting. This allows me to get through to the unconscious and get a more reliable ideo-motor signal.

Now earlier, her initial ideo-motor signal was genuine, but it happened too quick for my liking. Which means that there was a percentage of conscious communication there as well. I still feel it was an unconscious response but it was a kind of compromise. In other words I feel that she was consciously assisting her unconscious and we don’t need that, we need an honest purely unconscious response.


Now we are getting much more reliable unconscious communication because there is a definite delay in the response. Did you notice that? The movement doesn’t seem so conscious, it’s more like it’s happening all by itself, it’s not consciously controlled. (Brooks shows the students how her fingers have now been moving) And that’s the communication we want to get. It has to be as unconscious as possible to be genuine.

You can have a signal which is a combination of the two (conscious and unconscious responses) and you can still work that way, but I prefer to work on a totally unconscious level. I don’t like to have the client in the room with me, only her unconscious mind.

Let’s find how much Elizabeth knows consciously about the cause of her problem.

Brooks: (Brooks talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Does Elizabeth know the cause of this problem at a conscious level?

Elizabeth: (Moves the finger on her left hand as a yes response and moves the finger on her right hand as a no response)

Brooks: (talks to the students) You see! there is the strange sense of logic that I was talking about, we get a “yes” and a “no”. So now we know that she knows part of the cause consciously but is unaware of another part of the cause.

Brooks: (Brooks talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind through Elizabeth) Now does your unconscious mind have a full knowledge or awareness of that cause at this moment?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand as a yes response)

Brooks: Thank you. (Talks to the students) Right so the unconscious knows what the cause is. It has full awareness of what the cause is. Let’s find out if it’s willing to share it with her. Because obviously sometimes the unconscious mind protects the person by holding stuff back. Lets find out if it’s willing to share, and if it is, how much it’s willing to share.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Are you willing to share with Elizabeth the cause of the problem?

Elizabeth: (Moves the finger on her left hand as a “yes” response and also the finger on her right hand as a “no” response)

Brooks: OK OK, thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) So now we have a “yes” and a “no” signal again from her unconscious. It’s willing to share, and yet it’s also not willing to share!


So does this mean that it’s willing to share a part but not all? Or does it mean that it’s willing to share all but only under certain conditions. These are the two ways of looking at her response, and we have to check both of these out. I’m going to suggest this to her in a very specific way.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind through Elizabeth) I’m going to ask your unconscious a question and I’d like you to answer yes or no but I don’t want you to answer until I give you the signal.

(Talks to Elizabeth) So go deeper and deeper, keep on counting deeper and deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper.

(Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind through Elizabeth) I don’t want you to answer the question until I tell you that you can answer. Now there are two alternatives as I see them here - two ways that your unconscious may be willing to share with Elizabeth.

Number one, is that you’re unconscious is willing to share part of the cause but hold another part back?

Number two is it that your unconscious is willing to share all of the information about the cause, but only in a way where Elizabeth won’t recognize consciously what the unconscious is sharing.

(Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) If it’s number one answer yes.


Brooks: OK OK , thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) As she has answered “yes” to choice number one, we shouldn’t assume that she would have answered “no” to choice number two, she might answer yes to both questions. So let’s find out.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) If you’re willing to share all of it, but in a way that she won’t be aware of, please let me know by giving a yes response.

Elizabeth: (Moves the finger on her left hand as a yes response and also the finger on her right hand to indicate no)

Brooks: Thank you, thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now isn’t this fascinating. Lets think of how she could be


answering this question. So she has already agreed to share a part but also hold part back. So is she now willing to share all of it but in a way that won’t be recognized by Elizabeth consciously?

Is she going to share the part that she was going to share, in a way that’s not going be recognized? And is she going to share the part that she wasn’t going to share in a way that’s not going to be recognized? Can you see how complex ideo-motor responses can become. Our conscious limited ways of understanding are really challenged when we enter into a conversation with the unconscious. Of course I am deliberately phrasing my questions so as to evoke these kind of unconscious responses for the purposes of the demonstration.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Just go deeper and deeper. Keep on counting as you go deeper, that’s it.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Because we are talking about how this sharing will occur she may even get some conscious recognition now. In other words, by talking about the possibility of sharing, we may have initiated the sharing.

Elizabeth: (Elizabeth has a slight smile on her face)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) See the smile? her smile is her recognition of our recognition that sharing has been initiated. It’s not an unconscious smile, it is a conscious response to our comments on what she is possibly experiencing consciously.

If we get deeper and deeper into this kind of questioning we’ll probably get very confused, but let’s continue. I’m not writing down her answers, but you need to in order to understand. For now I am going to keep her answers up here (Pointing to his head).

Let’s see what happens if we ask Elizabeth’s unconscious mind a direct question.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Do you want to keep something back from Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand slightly as a yes response and also her finger on her right hand to indicate no)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now we’ve got a no here but we also got a tiny little yes movement at the beginning.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now I’m confused about the signals I’ve just seen now. I


saw a little yes then, I saw a no then I saw a yes again. So I’m going to ask for her to give me a clearer response.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Do you want to keep something back from Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand as a yes response and also her finger on her right hand to indicate no)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Yes and no. We’ve got a yes and no OK.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Just relax that’s fine, fine. Continue to count Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: (Smiles)

Brooks: (Talks to the students and to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Now she is smiling and I want to know what the smile is about, because I am not inside her head. I want to find out if she is smiling because she is having a wonderful trance. Is she smiling because she is amused by what her fingers are doing or is she smiling because she is getting some of the recognition from her unconscious. I’m very curious to find out.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) We will number these different responses one, two and three.

Number one is because Elizabeth is having a good trance.

Number two is because she is amused by her fingers.

Number three is because she is getting some recognition of the cause.

If it’s number one answer yes.

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand for a yes response but then moves her finger down)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) It’s going down quickly, so although the question may be relevant, after all she is having a good trance, it may not be the main reason for her smile. The fact that she doesn’t respond completely with a yes to this first question doesn't mean that she’s not having a good trance of course. It simply means that it is not the main reason for her smile.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) OK is it number two, because you’re amused?



Brooks: Yes, OK thank you, thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) So the smile is coming as a response of the sense of amusement, recognizing what her fingers are doing. I will now ask number three.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Is it also because you’re developing some awareness of what the cause of the problem is?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on right hand as a no response)

Brooks: No, OK.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) So her smile is because she is amused by how her fingers are responding all by themselves. Not because she is understanding things about her problem.

Now let’s summarize. We know that the unconscious is holding something back, we know that she needs to have access to this to overcome her problem and we know that her unconscious is unwilling to share it with her directly.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Will Elizabeth be able to overcome her problem if you share with her the information that you are currently holding back?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand for a yes response)

Brooks: Thank you, Thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) So the unconscious confirms that the information needs to be shared but that it is not willing to share it directly. In other words, it does not want her to experience a sudden realization of what the cause is. So we must create a context where it can share what is needed in a way that will not be harmful to the client. So our next step is to get it to share it with her indirectly.

Now I’m interested to find out how her unconscious mind is going to give her this information. It could be in a dream, it could be as pictures, sounds, feelings, it could be now or could be later. Now the best way to do this is to say that I’d like the unconscious mind to decide how it’s going to give it to her, and to let us know when it’s made the decision.

Another way would be to say, will it be in a dream? Will it be in everyday waking life?


Will it be when you expect it? Will it be when you least expect it? Will it be now? Will it be tomorrow? In other words, giving the unconscious multiple choice questions. But that would take up a lot of time when using only ideo-motor signaling as a communication channel. So we need to integrate these two approaches.

So the best way is to ask the unconscious mind to make the decision when and how while reminding it of the options and choices available. So lets ask the unconscious mind to do this.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) I’d like you to look at the information you are going to share with Elizabeth from every angle and decide in what way Elizabeth can most benefit from the sharing of this information, and how you can share this information with her in a way that is healing and empowering.

To look at sharing this information gently and indirectly with her in her everyday waking life or when she’s asleep or when she’s expecting it to happen or when she’s not expecting it to happen. To find the best and most therapeutic way of sharing this information.

Consider all the different possibilities and ways of sharing this information with Elizabeth so she can help herself overcome her problem. Look at it in every detail, every aspect, from every perspective. Look at it thoroughly and then give me a yes signal when you have decided how you’re going to give Elizabeth that information.

Give me a yes signal when you have decided.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now we are going to wait for this internal unconscious sorting process to occur, and then when her unconscious mind gives me the yes signal I will see if I can find out how long it will be before she receives the information. It could be a part today, or part tomorrow, part next week. It could all come at once, I don’t know. We will see if we can find that out as well.

So let’s look at this as if Elizabeth were a client in your office. First of all there is the rapport, then the conscious questioning and general information gathering, then the induction of hypnosis and then the ideo-motor signaling session.

Now if this were the first or second session of hypnosis with a client and we were now at this point of having established communication with the unconscious, and had also obtained agreement to communicate something therapeutic, I would probably suggest amnesia to avoid any unpicking of the session and then, at the end of the session, send the client away with instructions to wait and see what happens between sessions.

Then on the following session I would spend time asking the client about what insights,


thoughts and changes had happened since the previous session... I’ll tell you a story about that at the end of this session. I’ll give you an example when we finish.


Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Thank you, Thank you

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) That’s right, that’s it. Deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. Your doing very very well, very very well. Deeper and deeper that’s it all the way down, deeper and deeper.

(Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) Now you can either give this information to Elizabeth all at once in one go or you can give it to her a piece at a time. If you’re going to give it to her all in one go give me a “yes” signal. If your not going to give it to her all in one go please give me a “no” signal.

___________________________________________________________________

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now I have asked her unconscious here for a clear yes or no signal, I shouldn’t just ask for a yes. If I just ask for a yes signal and she doesn’t lift her finger, would that mean a no, or would it mean that her unconscious is still processing the question? We have to get either a clear yes or no.

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on right hand as a no response)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) There we are, we have a no, but we would not have gotten that if we had just asked for a yes response and assumed that a “no movement” was a negative response.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank you, Thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) See, her unconscious doesn’t want to give her the information all at once. Maybe the information is too sensitive and so would be overwhelming to her consciously for her to receive it all at once.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious mind) If you’re going to give the information to Elizabeth at a piece at a time, give me a yes signal. If your not, give me a no signal.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) You see, you have a yes signal coming up here and I’m waiting to see if we will get a no with it because previously we had a yes and a no.


Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand again for a yes response as if agreeing with Brooks or confirming her yes response)


Brooks: (Talks to the students) What would happen if we had a yes and no there?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on right hand for a no response)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) There you are, there is the no response as well.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) How can we interpret these answers? Are you keeping up with me because the unconscious works in very strange ways. It seems to contradict itself sometimes if you try and understand it from the point of view of conscious logic. We have to interpret what it says in terms of unconscious logic.

The combined yes and no signal probably means that’s it’s going to share a piece at a time but that there are some pieces it’s not going to share directly or in a way that can be understood or even sabotaged consciously.

Lets summarize so far. We know that the unconscious is going to share some information. Not all, but some information, and we know that this information can be enough to help her get over her problem. It is going to share this information a piece at a time but it may hold back some of the information that it has agreed to share a piece at a time. So how can it simultaneously hold back information and also share it?

From my experience I would say that her unconscious may give her a piece of the information without the conscious recognition that she’s received it. In other words, she can receive information that was previously unconscious in a disguised form so that she can use it to resolve her problems without knowing the true nature of the information. So I’m going to run with that as it is a pattern that I have seen before when the unconscious wants to protect the client but at the same time wants to help the client by sharing information.

Lets find out now over what kind of time scale this will happen.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) I’m going to give you three choices.

Number one, your unconscious mind can share that information with you over this weekend or...


Number two, it can share it with you over the next two weeks or...

Number three, it can share it with you over a period longer than two weeks.

If the answer is number one give me a yes signal, if it’s not, give me a no signal.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve got a yes finger coming up here.

Now we have to be very specific with our questioning. You know when I just said, “if it’s going to share it with you this weekend”, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to say “all of the pieces” or “all of the information” this weekend.

Because if her unconscious wants to share it over two weeks, it has to start sometime, right? and it could start this weekend, in other words this weekend could be the start of that process. But we wouldn’t know that, because my question wasn’t specific enough.

So we have to clarify, is she going to share all of the pieces this weekend, or is this only the beginning of the sharing process. That was my mistake so I need to check again and rephrase my question, because the unconscious responds to literally to questions.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) She gave me a yes there. So what was she answering yes to? I was not addressing her unconscious while talking to the class just then, but her unconscious may have thought I was. Or maybe it is getting impatient with me!

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) I’ll ask that question again. If your unconscious mind is going to share all of that information with Elizabeth over the course of this weekend, give me a yes, if not give me a no.

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left and right hand for a yes and also a no response)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) See we’ve got both a “yes” and “no” here again. So this suggests that her unconscious will share a part of it directly with Elizabeth this weekend and will share the other part of it indirectly. But before we accept that answer let’s check out the other options and see if this sharing will continuing beyond this weekend.


(Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) Is your unconscious mind going to


share all of that information over the next two weeks.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) See we have a yes and a no here. So it seems to suggest it could take longer. Lets find out, always ask the question, don’t assume.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank you,

Brooks: (Talks to the students) We will go for number three now and see what it says.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Deeper and deeper.

(Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) Is your unconscious mind going to share all of that information over a period longer than two weeks? If it’s a yes give me a yes, if it’s no give me a no.

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand as a yes signal)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) We have a yes over here. So we now know that this sharing will take longer than two weeks, will start this weekend, and that some of this information will be shared directly to her conscious mind, and the other information will shared in a disguised form, maybe as a metaphor in a dream for example.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) Will this sharing be enough to help Elizabeth help herself get over her problem?


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve got a yes and no. So the sharing is going to help her but not completely.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) So her unconscious mind is saying that the sharing will help her but she also needs additional resources to fully overcome her problem. So where do we get these resources from?

It could be the that these come from the therapist, or her circumstances, environment, or more likely from her own unconscious mind. But if her unconscious mind already has these resources why hasn’t it applied these to helping her already? Well no one asked it


to. And that is our job as therapists - to negotiate with the unconscious mind and get it fully involved in the healing process.

I’m now going to ask her unconscious if it has the resources to give her.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) Does your unconscious mind have the resources to give to Elizabeth, at the appropriate time so that she can get over this problem?

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on left hand as a yes signal)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve got a yes over here.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We have a definite yes.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) Does your unconscious mind know how to use those resources to help Elizabeth help her get over her problem?


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve got a yes and no. So she knows partially how to use those resources and partially not know how to use them.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank you, thank you.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Ok we are coming towards the end of the therapy now.

So lets find our way out. Let’s find out if Elizabeth has the means to find out how her unconscious can use these resources. Is there anything she can do, people to talk to, things to read, things to learn or work to do on herself. Is there personal work she can do, tasks she can accomplish or a therapist she can see etc.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) So are there other things that Elizabeth can do that will teach her ways of discovering how her unconscious mind can use all of these resources to help herself.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve got a yes.



Brooks: (Talks to the students) So there are things she “can” do. But before we all pack up and go home, we need to get a contract established. We have got a good initial commitment by asking what she “can” do. That was my way of getting her unconscious agreement, I now need to to get a firm commitment that she “will” do what is required of her. “Can” and “will” have different meanings.

So I’m going to find out if her unconscious mind is willing to commit to letting her do these things, because that is where her motivation will come from. We need to establish that the unconscious will motivate her to “do” the things she needs to do.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) Are you willing to let Elizabeth do these things? If you are willing to let Elizabeth do these things you can give me a yes signal. If you are not willing, give me a no signal.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve the yes signal over here.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now there is something you need to be aware of when using ideo-motor signaling, and this is to not “will” the client’s unconscious response. When I first started practicing as a hypnotherapist in the 1970’s I found myself “willing” the client to answer yes to this or that questions because I wanted the session to go well. But by willing the response you are indirectly suggesting the response to your client, so you are not getting a genuine unconscious response. Be aware of that temptation.

If you are mindful of the power of implication in influencing the unconscious mind you do of course use this in therapy. And here in this demonstration my outcome is twofold, to help the client, and to teach the class by demonstrating the complexity of ideo-motor signaling, so I am using questions that can generate ambiguous responses, but this is mainly for teaching purposes.

So let’s summarize again, Elizabeth’s unconscious knows that there are things that she can do and it is willing to let her do these things. So now I’m going to ask her unconscious mind if it’s important for Elizabeth to actually know what these things are going to be.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) Is it important for Elizabeth to know consciously, what these things are going to be?



Brooks: (Talks to the students) Great, we have the yes and no here. Which suggests that some things are important for her to know and some things can be kept back. She’ll just do them anyway.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank you. That’s it, thank you. Deeper, that’s it deeper relaxed.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) So we now know the unconscious mind is willing to let her do these things. But it’s not important for her to know what all of them are. But it’s important for her to know what some of them are. So lets find out if it’s willing to share with her the ones that are important.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) Are you willing to share with Elizabeth the things that are important?



Brooks: (Talks to the students) Isn’t this interesting? Her unconscious mind is saying that it is important for her to know some of those things in order to do them. Yet it’s saying that it’s not willing to share some of those things. Here we have a double bind, her unconscious has put her in a double bind. Now this could be the reason why she can’t get over her problem, you see.

Her unconscious mind is preventing her from learning about the important things that she has to do in order to be able to have the resources to go with the information that she’s going to be given to get over her problem.

So it’s not willing to share. So now we have to negotiate with her unconscious mind because we know it’s important for her to know. But also we know that the unconscious is not willing to share. So we have to do a deal here, we have to do a deal with her unconscious mind. Because if it’s important for her to know and her unconscious is not willing to share, we’re not going to get any further.

So we have to get her unconscious to agree to share information about the important things she has to do, but to do so in a way that protects her. Maybe Elizabeth doesn’t need to know what important things she has to do, but can just have the motivation to do them, without knowing consciously why or from where that motivation came from. So how do we do this?

Well we are taking here about “doing” things. In other words “tasks”. So Maybe we can


get her unconscious mind to give her tasks that have covertly embedded within them the important tasks that she needs to achieve in order to have the resources to combine with the information her unconscious mind is going to share with her over time that will then allow her to overcome her problem.

She has to be motivated to carry out the tasks, so they have to feel important in some way, just enough for her to carry them out, and at the same time without awareness of the embedded covert task that actually is important for her therapy.

Lets look at what other possibilities there could be. How can we get her to know that something is important, without knowing that it’s important?

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) And I am sure you’ve had the experience of feeling compelled to do something without quite knowing why. And then maybe later you’ve discovered why you felt so compelled. In the same way you may have had someone’s name on the tip of your tongue without knowing that person’s name. Or maybe you felt it was very important to do something, check something, write something or ring someone. Yet you couldn’t remember quite why you had to do it, but you knew it was very important.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) Is your unconscious mind willing to let Elizabeth know what is important for her to do in order to gain access to the resources to help herself but without her knowing why it’s important.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve a yes here.


Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) So is your unconscious mind willing to allow Elizabeth to do thoese important things.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve a yes here.


Brooks: (Talks to the students) OK so lets just summarize, where are we? First of all her unconscious mind is going to share with her some information that will help her get over her problem, and it will share it a piece at a time over time. Secondly, it’s going to allow her to do certain things which are important to help her gain access to the resources that


she needs in addition to the knowledge that she gets from her unconscious. One more question now, just to round it off, OK. This is the big one, the question that tells whether we can now close the session or not.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) I would like you to consider if Elizabeth needs anything else to help herself in addition to what you have promised. And if she now has everything she needs, give me a yes signal. And if she doesn't yet have everything she needs, give me a no signal.

(Elizabeth takes her time to respond)

Brooks: (Talks to the students) This is a big decision, a big question isn’t it? So it takes time for the unconscious mind to organize itself while the conscious mind is passive, maybe just as an observer or maybe completely unaware of the unconscious decision making process.


Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Just allow that movement to become more obvious.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) Now this is fascinating because we have a yes there on her finger, plus other affirmative signals that we’ve noticed as well (Her slow head movements).

Brooks: So it looks like a yes, but I’m going to ask the fingers to relax and ask again to be double check. We want to be certain that we’ve covered everything.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank you, relax.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) I’m going to ask the same question again because it’s not enough for me. I’ve seen it but I want confirmation.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious) So now will Elizabeth have everything that she needs in order to help herself get over this problem? If the answer is yes, I would like a yes movement to occur in an obvious way, and if it’s a no response I would like a “no” movement to occur in an obvious way.

Elizabeth: (Moves her finger on her left hand for a yes response)

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank You.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) OK. So let’s assume that you have come to the end of the session with your client but you wish to continue with the ideo-motor signaling on the


next session, maybe a week later. How do you set that up? You could start all over again when you next see your client, but given that you are using a very time consuming therapy technique, you may want to save time on the actual hypnotic induction by setting up a post-hypnotic cue at the end of this session.

OK so let’s put this into the context of a therapy session in your office. You have got this far, but time is running out, and let’s say that you have not managed to finish the ideo-motor session within the one hour you had available. What do you do? Well you really have no choice but to continue with the ideo-motor signaling during the next session a week later. So you need to establish and test a post-hypnotic cue for the client to re-enter trance the next time you see her. In this demonstration I have already established a post-hypnotic cue earlier with the post-hypnotic anchor on her shoulder. So now I need to reinforce it and test it.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Every time you feel me touch you on the shoulder, like this. (Brooks touches her shoulder) You can go into a deep deep hypnotic state. Every time you feel this hand on your shoulder, your head will just fall forward and go into a deep, that’s it, hypnotic state. Every time and anytime, anytime you feel just me, only me, put my hand on your shoulder. Anytime I put my hand on your shoulder like that and when I say the word now, you can go into a deep deep hypnotic trance. Back to the same hypnotic state. Back to the same hypnotic state, and when you go back to the same hypnotic state I can talk to your unconscious mind in the way I have been. And you can respond in that way.

Whenever you feel me touch you on the shoulder with my hand you can go deep into hypnotic trance immediately. Your eyes can close immediately and you can return to this same relaxed way of breathing. The same relaxed way of breathing.

(Talks to Elizabeth’s unconscious through Elizabeth) Does your unconscious mind agree to respond in this way so that I can help you?


Brooks: (Talks to the students) We’ve got a yes response over here.

I’m just checking out if the unconscious mind agrees for me to do this. If the unconscious had said no, there would be no point in me trying to get her into trance again with this re-induction technique.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Thank You, thank You. Thank You.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) So I’ve set up my post hypnotic cue. So the next time your client comes back into the office you can carry on working by putting her back into


the same trance just by touching her on the shoulder. This saves time as ideo-motor signaling is time consuming.

Now if it gets to the point where you can’t get any more information from the unconscious by using yes and no responses, you then need to introduce automatic writing. This can initially take longer to set up because you have to teach the person first to hold the pencil. Then teach them to write a “Y” for yes and a “N” for no, then to write the word yes then to write the word no. Then to start writing their name, then start writing sentences. And that can take maybe one hour or it can take five hours depending on who you’re working with. But if you’re working at this kind of depth, five hours spent setting up the communication channel is time well spent, especially if you want content from the unconscious instead of just yes and no responses.

So I’m now going to get her to come out of trance by clicking my fingers. I generally don’t do this when I work with clients, but as this is a demonstration, I want to create a clear signal for her to come out of trance for her own education and to demonstrate how clients can shift dramatically between the waking state and a trance state.

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Now Elizabeth in a few moments I’m going to click my fingers it will sound like this. (Brooks clicks his fingers) And when you hear that sound you can immediately come out of hypnosis.

(Brooks clicks his fingers).

Elizabeth: (Immediately smiles and comes out of trance)

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth) Ah, how about that. Hi how are you?

Elizabeth: OK.

Brooks: What do your hands feel like at this moment?

Elizabeth: Very heavy. (Elizabeth has a slurred speech)

Brooks: Which one feels the heaviest?

Elizabeth: The left one.

(Just as Elizabeth responds Brooks puts her back into trance my touching her on her shoulder again)

Brooks: Now now all the way down, just deeper and deeper, deeper. That’s right.


(Brooks clicks his fingers and Elizabeth instantly comes out of trance, blinks her eyes a few times with a smile on her face)

Brooks: Now, are you sure it’s the left one or has it changed to the right one?

(As Elizabeth thinks about the question Brooks places his hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder for her to go back in to trance. She smiles and giggles)

Brooks: Now, that’s it, all the way down. Just deeper and deeper and deeper, and deeper. And deeper and deeper and deeper. That’s it you’re doing very, very well. You’re doing very well.

(Brooks places his hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder to deepen her trance)

(Brooks clicks his finger for her to come out of trance) OK hi…

(Elizabeth opens her eyes and smiles)

Brooks: Is that OK? Right OK is there anything you want to share with us?

Elizabeth: Well I’m still sort of half way there. (Meaning that she is still coming out of trance)

Brooks: Can you stand up?

(Elizabeth rolls her eyes and thinks about it)

Elizabeth: I don’t know. (Laughing as she puts on her glasses)

Brooks: You can, yes you can.

(Elizabeth stands up and then takes a seat with the others students in the class)

Brooks: Thank you very much Elizabeth, thank you, thank you very much.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) OK now, it will take time for her to come back. She’s had quite a deep experience.

So let’s just summarize what we did. I did a vague indirect induction to start with by homing in on physiological changes and developing phenomena and how she felt as she went into trance. This utilized non-verbal induction approaches too by lifting her hands and arms. I then gave her a simple counting induction and trance deepener where she counted to herself, this was a way of tying up her conscious mind.


I then moved her fingers so that they were looser, because they were a bit cataleptic. They were actually a little bit ridged. Which would have meant that it would have been difficult for her to respond with the ideo-motor responses.

The first ideo-motor signals where a mixture of conscious and unconscious responses, but they became more and more unconscious as we went along. I’m one hundred percent confident that the latter part of the session was totally unconscious. This was recognizable when she smiled the first time. She said she found her unconscious finger movements amusing. I believe that she was genuinely surprised at how her fingers were answering all by themselves.

Brooks: (Asks Elizabeth to confirm this) Is that true?

(Elizabeth nods and confirms this)

Brooks: (Talks to Elizabeth in the class) Yes you seemed to be genuinely surprised at how your fingers were responding. Is that because they were saying things that you didn’t expect them to? Or because they were just responding…?

Elizabeth: My fingers were just moving all on their own.

Brooks: Doing it by themselves, OK.

Brooks: (Talks to the students) We had a good example of the complexities of ideo-motor signaling, and some insight into the sense of logic used by the unconscious mind, which can often appear confusing if you try and understand it using conscious reasoning.

To understand it you have to think of how the unconscious mind processes information, and how it perceives and makes sense of reality. It exists in various dissociated forms. And it can communicate on many different levels.

So under normal circumstances the client would come back and you would carry on your work with ideo-motor signaling, or you would teach automatic writing. The period between the sessions is when the real therapy happens because that is when the client receives information from the unconscious. They may start to have dreams, or maybe just thoughts. Maybe something happens to trigger a thought and they come back to the therapist and say, it’s funny I’ve had a strange week. I suddenly remembered this person I used to know, or I remembered this, or this happened, and I normally don’t behave like that, it’s very strange.

I promised you that I’d give you an example, so this is one of my case studies.

I girl came to see me, she was one of the clients I had in Basildon some years ago. She


came to see me and she was generally anxious but didn’t know why she was anxious. But she did know that her relationship with her mother, father and sister was very uncomfortable. And she couldn’t stand to be with her mother and father especially for very long when she visited them. Being with her sister was not so bad but she had a lot of problems communicating with her mother and father and there was no affection between members of the family.

This woman was married, but I don’t think she had any children. She was married and was about twenty eight or thirty years old. On the first session she said she didn’t have a clue about what the cause of her problem was, and even after questioning her I too couldn’t identify the cause of her increasing anxiety when around her family. So I decided to use ideo-motor signaling.

After establishing a good trance and reliable ideo-motor communication with the unconscious, it agreed to give the client a little bit of information about the cause of the problem, a week at a time.

So she returned for sessions over a period of a few months and each time would bring in a little bit more information about the cause of her problem. At no time was she overwhelmed or traumatized by what her unconscious told her. It all unfolded slowly and in a way that she could deal with comfortably. All information came to her in the form of dreams.

One of the many things she came back with was a forgotten memory of working with her grandfather (who was no longer alive) on a greengrocers barrow in Romford market. She had forgotten all about this. And she had forgotten how she had been close to her grandfather. Another time her forgotten memory was something to do with her mother being scared of her grandfather. These forgotten memories would surface between sessions in the form of dreams and she would recount them in each therapy session. No further therapeutic intervention was attempted, and no attempt at any kind of interpretation, only encouragement that the unconscious should continue sharing these memories with her. This continued over a number of sessions.

After one particular session she said she wanted to talk to her parents, even though she didn’t know why she wanted to do this. So she went back and she told her parents that she was in therapy with me and her parents were very defensive, incredibly defensive about her coming to see me for therapy. This client must have had about six or eight sessions with me by then.

During the next session she said, “it’s something to do with my mother but it’s not about my mother. I don’t know what it is. It’s something to do with my mother and something to do with a man but it’s not my father. I don’t understand but my mother has something to do with it.”


During the penultimate session she came in, not to have therapy, but to tell me that she was going to confront her mother directly. I tried to stop her as I thought it too early, but she had decided to go ahead as she now believed she had been sexually abused by her grandfather as this information had come to her a piece at a time in her dreams between the therapy sessions.

At the end of all of it, she did confront her mother and it turned out that she had been sexually abused by her grandfather, when she was a child. Her mother had known it was going on but had felt unable to stop it because the mother had also been abused as a child by her father, the same man. This man had abused his daughter and then had gone on to abuse his granddaughters. The sister then came forward and said it had happened to her too. All three were victims. This confrontation towards the end of her therapy was a major turning point for the entire family. Everyone was crying, hugging and holding each other in a way they had never dared before. This family had never touched each other physically or lovingly the whole of their lives. But this coming together in their shared grief and pain healed them and brought the three women together physically and emotionally.

When the client returned for her final session she was radiant and very relaxed. She told me everything that had happened. Of course she hadn’t come for more therapy but only to share with me how good she felt and what she had accomplished. I’ll never forget how good that made me feel too. This healing would never have happened, if I had just treated her with basic hypnosis or NLP. The ideo-motor signaling enabled me to talk directly with her unconscious mind and encourage it to release these forgotten memories to her conscious mind in a gentle and safe way.

So although we may call this great therapy, the therapist doesn’t actually offer guidance or reflect back his observations to the client. The therapist’s job is only that of observer and facilitator. All I did was to set up the communication channels. Neither of us knew what the outcome would be. I had the map, the client took the journey, and her unconscious mind chose the destination, that is how we reached the goal.

And regarding today’s therapy demonstration, neither of us knows how Elizabeth will utilize the learnings she has made from this session. And maybe this is one of the most important points about Ericksonian hypnotherapy; how we achieve the outcome is less important than actually achieving it. It’s all about trust, trust between therapist, client and the unconscious mind and creating a common purpose, to help the client heal themselves.

Transcript Copyright Stephen Brooks 2013

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Ideo Motor Response Demonstration

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Transcript of Ideo Motor Response Demonstration