Paper to the 14th International Hypnosis Congress

San Diego, U.S.A., 1997

Speech Acts and Hypnotic Protocols

by

Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong ©

( In the paper, all male pronouns will refer to the feminine gender. The nominal pronoun will refer to the first author. The plural pronoun will apply to both authors.)

In the book, Advanced Techniques of Hypnosis and Psychotherapy, Selected Papers of Milton H. Erickson, edited by Jay Haley and published by Grune and Stratton 1969, is documented a fascinating case of pain control by Milton H. Erickson, M.D. The patient had a facial cancer and it was the condition of severe and intractable pain for this patient.

Erickson had to work within certain constraints, the most trying ones were that there was to be no mention of “Hypnosis” and as of the patient’s relatives was a resident in Psychiatry who was singularly opposed to “Hypnosis.”

When Erickson finally works with the man, he utters a hypnotic protocol, It is about the seed of a tomato plant that is put into the earth. The protocol delineates the subsequent growth of this seed. Out of the enunciation of this protocol this man is free of pain from his cancer until the day he dies!

When we first read this paper in Advanced Techniques, our immediate response, was an admixture of astonishment and wonder, shock and utter confusion. There is an attempt by Erickson to explicate what he did. However, as I once shared with him, to do such an explication is impossible unless:

1. he could go meta to yourself

2. he had a metalanguage by which to do so.

If he could have achieved the former, he certainly did not have the latter with which to accomplish such a goal:

To effect change is one thing; to communicate about this change is something else: above all, a problem of correct logical typing and of creating an adequate metalanguage. In psychotherapeutic research, it is very common to find that particularly gifted and intuitive therapists think they know why they are doing what they are doing, but their explanations simply do not hold water. Conversely, many gifted writers are astounded and even annoyed at the deeper meanings that others read into their works. Thus, while the former believe they know, but apparently do not, the latter seem to know more than they are willing to acknowledge - which brings us back to Laing: “If I don’t know I don’t know, I think I know; if I don’t know I know, I think I don’t know.”

Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland and Richard Fisch: CHANGE Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution W. W. Norton & Company Inc. 1974 p79.

It has taken us from 1977 to 1997 to elucidate how Erickson knew to apply the hypnotic protocol that he did in the above case. We propose, in this paper:

1. to demonstrate it

2. to delineate the critical components of what was demonstrated

3. to supervise you in the doing of what is predicated here so that you can satisfy yourself the truth and validity of the epistemic basis of Erickson’s work that we have unravelled here.

DEMONSTRATION

We now know that the critical thing about hypnotic protocols of this threshold of Ericksonian finesse has its foundations in the work of John R. Searle.

The reason for concentrating on the subject of speech acts is simply this: all linguistic communication involves linguistic acts. The unit of linguistic communication is not, as has generally been supposed the symbol, word or sentence, or even the token of the symbol or word or sentence, but rather the production or issuance of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance of the speech act. To take the token as a message is to take it as a produced or issued token. More precisely, the production or the issuance of a sentence token under certain conditions is a speech act, and speech acts (of certain kinds to be explained later) are the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication.

John R. Searle: Speech Acts Cambridge University Press 1969 page 16.

We cite here some examples:

Linguistic Transform Speech Act

Could you please come here? Request

I am not putting up with this any more. Assertion

I shall visit my mother. Claim

You shall sit down and shut up. Demand

What is the time? Question

What we have discovered is that an aggregate of speech acts indexes the logical files of a semantic kernel or domain in which a speaker is in at that moment.

Linguistic Transforms Speech Act

When we were in Kuala Lumpur we were royally entertained. Assertion

It was “dinner” at lunch time and “dinner” at dinner time. Claim

There was not enough time to visit everyone. Assertion

To solve the problem we started to visit people over breakfast and tea. Claim

Two weeks was just not enough. Assertion

Can you wonder how much weight we might have put on. Rhetorical question

So started to do morning walks.

We determined that these walks had to be for at least one hour. Assertion

Except for a trip to Kajang for Satay and a one day to Assertion Malacca we were in Kuala Lumpur for the entire visit

The above series of speech acts deal with a scan of semantic kernels of considerations. They were about:

1. a visit to Kuala Lumpur

2. pattern of eating

3. time problems during the visit

4. applied solution to deal with the time problems

5. possible weight consequences

6. possible solution to weight gain

7. trips out of Kuala Lumpur.

In the creation of such Special Hypnotic Protocols (as opposed to General Hypnotic Protocols), the critical piece is to determine the most valued scan of semantic domain or kernel favoured by an individual. Once it is identified, then all one needs to do is to either:

1. invert it

2. determine an analogous scan of these semantic kernels and then invert them to the subject. To do this, one is to isolate the critical semantic kernel out of the speech acts and infer its hierarchy of semantic sub-kernels and then invert them to the subject.

In doing this, one is creating a coherent syntax of semantic kernels that matches the ontology and epistemology of the subject.

We shall now do the exercise indexed below:

A EXERCISE TO DO AS ERICKSON DID

i. find a partner

ii. ask your partner to tell you about himself

iii. listen and pay attention to his speech acts

iv. determine which semantic kernels his speech acts index

v. satisfy the scan of what his semantic kernels are

vi. determine whether you are going to use his scan of semantic kernels or whether you are going to use an analogous one

vii. ask him to sit comfortably, breathe and relax

viii. invert the scan of semantic kernels

ix. read him as he goes into trance.

This part completes the logical basis of this paper:

The issue of matching and inverting the syntax of semantic kernels is only a part of the what is involved, however, in the communication cybernetic loop between an operator and his subject:

It finds its isomorphism in the diagram below:

Also from the forthcoming publication, HYPNOSIS, The Science & The Art, we abstract for this paper the following:

The above diagram has a natural counterpart in the next diagram. It is taken from the work Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson M.D. by Richard Bandler and John Grinder page 17. It is published by Meta Publications.

At another logical level what we are looking at is:

For the goal of completion, we have extended this paper to briefly cover the domain of consideration about the critical variables necessary to attain rapport.

At one critical level of consideration, rapport is about how to match and phase in with another person. The question is, what is an operator to match and phase in with what in a subject? At another level of consideration, to have the answers to these questions clearly is about how to be a good and effective communicator.

In 1994, our work, The Knife Without Pain, delineated the critical elements for matching and phasing in with a client. This scan of considerations are re-

delineated in our forthcoming publication:, HYPNOSIS, The Science and The Art, Vol. 1. They are:

1. I = Input sensory channel

2. R = Representational system

3. O = Output sensory channel

4. S = Scanning or sorting patterns (the EMPs).

5. S = Satir stances

6. F = Patterns of the semantic ill-Formedness

7. M = violation of Modified Meta Model violations

8. I = Informal logic patterns

9. S = Strategies of calibration

10. s = sentient responses or states (s.r.) by adumbration

11. T = Time strategy patterns.

We abbreviated this list to IROSSFMISsT. Therefore, to truly attain rapport, one has to match or phase in with a subject across the scan of this acronym. To do so is to open the doorway to powerfully creative and innovative hypnotic inductions. It is the answer to WHAT does an operator say that will connect with or phase in with his subject. It is the answer to HOW excellently an operator can be to connect with or phase in with his subject. This, of course will be a function of either his intuitive flair or a function of his training with an accredited competent trainer.

References:

Dennis K. Chong & Jennifer K. Smith Chong: Don’t Ask WHY?! C-Jade Publications 1991

Dennis K. Chong & Jennifer K. Smith Chong: HYPNOSIS, The Science & The Art C-Jade Publications - forthcoming publication 1997

Dennis K. Chong & Jennifer K. Smith Chong: Power and Elegance in Communication C-Jade Publications 1993

Dennis K. Chong & Jennifer K. Smith Chong: The Knife Without Pain C-Jade Publications 1994

Jay Haley (Editor): Advanced Techniques of Hypnosis and Therapy Selected Papers of Milton H. Erickson M.D. Grunne & Stratton 1967

Richard Bandler & John Grinder: Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson M.D. Vol. 1 Meta Publications 1975

Richard Bandler, John Grinder & Judith de Lozier: Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. 2 Meta Publications 1976