Combat bad habits with the help of multiple embedded metaphors

We all have undesirable behaviours that we wish we could more effectively combat. Let’s imagine, for example, that you’re struggling to stop smoking. If this applies to you, then you might feel helpless as a result of your apparent inability to change. You know that smoking is not socially acceptable and that it damages your health. But you just can’t make the breakthrough – unless you consider a certain element of Opt2xl’s (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) hypnotherapy seminar in Birmingham.

Multiple embedded metaphors is a metaphor therapy technique that forces the listener to simultaneously listen to several metaphor stories. As embedded metaphors and stories work directly on the subconscious mind, they are suitable for addressing most psychological problems. The technique involves one metaphoric story being wrapped inside another, usually to a depth of three levels. It involves a hypnotherapist starting a story before getting distracted into another one. This is followed by the start of another story, only for this one not to be finished, either. The listener is then left hanging on as the hypnotherapist finishes all of the metaphor stories in the reverse order.

The idea of this technique, as emphasised by our hypnotherapy course in Birmingham, is that the listener is forced to keep the incomplete metaphoric stories in their mind for a protracted period of time. The embedded metaphor remains active in the mind for longer, increasing the likelihood that it will have a therapeutic effect. So to return to our example of the struggling-to-quit smoker, the person may realise all of the aforementioned problems of smoking but be apparently unable to access the resources for change. Analysis of the situation may reveal that there are four areas in need of attention: helplessness, isolation, becoming ill and an inability to change.

This may lead the alumnus of hypnotherapy training in Birmingham to create a therapeutic metaphor for each issue, with each one being embedded into a multiple metaphor story. The first metaphor, then, may be about helplessness, the second metaphor about social isolation and the third one about becoming ill, followed by a direct suggestion relating to the confidence to change. Then, a solution for the third metaphor could be revealed, followed by solutions for the second and then first metaphors. Metaphoric stories are told and allowed to reach a crisis, but left unresolved before they are brought to an end later in the process, with a resource being suggested for removing that crisis in each story.

The embedding of metaphors in this way makes them more powerful than if they had been told as three separate metaphor stories. Once the metaphor therapy is concluded, the client will have greater confidence to resolve their problems, with their subconscious minds making the metaphoric connection to the events in the story. Such a technique helps to bring real improvements for a client over weeks and months, and alongside such techniques as suggestibility tests, convincers and post hypnotic suggestions, is a key part of hypnosis training in Birmingham at Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk).

Editor’s Note: Opt2xl (http://www.opt2xl.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.