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    Straus R.A. - Creative Self-Hypnosis (1989)

    Uploaded by

    kurt_90

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 146
    ROGER A. STRAUS, PH.D. Author of STRATEGIC SELF-HYPNOSIS | TECHNIQUES TO EMPOWER YOUR LIFE, Le WORK, AND RELATIONSHIPS 154.7/S5TR a *1GOX Is ENHANCE YOU vw IMPROVI'E . u Many changes ore possible using the dramatic new approach to self- hypnosis, presented for the first time in this book. Grounded in state-of... the-art clinical sociology, this wide-awake approach to self-hypnosis, written by the method's pioneer, uses your creative imagination to redirect and empower all areas of your life without having to “put yourself into a france.” Teaching you how to act os your own consultant, it shows you , practical techniques you can use anywhere, any time of the day. Including complete, self-fraining instructions and exercises, this exciting manual con ¢ chonge your life. i “This very useful book shows the readers step by step how fo live more fully by combining modern (alert) self-hypnosis with advanced principles of social psychology. | highly recommend it for all who wish to enhance their task performance, their social relationships, and their life enjoyment.” —Theodore X. Barber, Ph.D. Director, Biomedical Research Foundation j Author of Hypnosis, Imagination, and Human Potentioiities ROGER A. StRAUS, PH.D., an internationally renowned clinical sodologist, is currently working os a morket-reseorch consultant in Philadelphia. Dr. Straus is the author of the best-selling guide to self-improvement, ‘Strategic Self-Hypnosis, os well os numerous scientific and professional articles, He hos tought seminars and workshops to business people, mental-health — professionals, students, ond educators on the subject of change through fd personal empowerment. Dr. Straus currently lives in Cherry Hill, N.J., with P his family. : _TS8N O-13-191178-8 LL F “On Ta Cover design by Michael Freeland | 24 wall MNBe! il, & “ CREATIVE SELF-HYPNOSIS New, Wide-Awake, Nontrance Techniques to Empower Your Life, Work, and Relationships ROGER A. STRAUS, Ph.D. PRENTICE HALL PRESS NEWYORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY TOKYO Prentice Hall Press Gulf + Western Building One Gulf + Western Plaza New York, New York 10023 Copyright © 1989 by Roger A. Straus All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. PRENTICE HALL PRESS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Straus, Roger A. (Roger Austin), 1948— Creative self-hypnosis : new, wide-awake, nantrance techniques to empower your life, work, and relationships/Roger A. Straus p. cm. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0-13-191198-8 : $9.95 1. Hypnotism. 2. Conduct of life. L. Title. BF1141.585 1989 88-39951 154.7—de1g CIP Manufactured in the United States of America 18 8 7 6.5 4a 8 4 First Edition To Diane for all the logical reasons, and the rest as well ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to all my friends and colleagues whose work and ideas have influenced my own and, however greatly transmuted, appear in these pages, as well as those whose unstinting support has kept me going and growing over the past several years. In addition to Ted Barber, Theodore Sarbin, Al and Betty Lee, John Glass, and Susan Hillier Parks whose names appear in these pages, many others come to mind: Rass Koppel, Robin and Fernando Roth- Barriero, Ellen Gurian, Sandra and Mike Connolly, Bill and Barb Castle, Jan Fritz, Pam Elizabeth, Al Goldman, Margaret Walker, and Erica and Amber Straus. I would like to thank my editor, P. J. Dempsey, and senior production editor, Alice Fellows, both of Prentice Hall Press, for their enormous help and patience in midwifing this book. CONTENTS Introduction How to Use This Book ONE Self-Management TWO Mind Control THREE Effective Action FOUR Strategic Interaction FIVE Positive Relationships xi xv 41 73 105 143 x CONTENTS SIX Optimal Performance SEVEN Creative Living Notes and References Index 182 259 266 INTRODUCTION In a word, this book is about empowerment. It is more than another book about self-hypnosis (al- though it is that). In these pages you will find a complete training program that will show you how to start taking more active, inner-directed control over your life, work, and rela- tionships. While the core technique you will be learning is called creative self-hypnosis, it is probably very different from what you're accustomed to thinking of as hypnosis. In fact, it may be close to the direct opposite! You will find that there is no need to put yourself into a trance. You don’t have to surrender control; you don’t have to go through any yoga contortions of the mind or spirit in order to liberate your potentials for creative and effective living. Rather, you will learn how to use your entire mind— reason, intuition, will, and imagination—to become an agent of change in your own life, to create new internal and external realities for yourself, and to take control of the processes by which the world influences you and you influence it. This book will not tell you what to do with your life or how to live your life. It is a book about process—about the process of transforming your everyday life into whatever it is you want it to be. This book will show you how to get to where you want to be. xii INTRODUCTION That is not to say that this book is value-free, The valie 1 am talking about is simply genuine consideration for others — the conviction that you have the tight to be treated with the same dignity and respect you would like from others. That we are in this life together and we might as well make the hest of it; that it is better to share than to take, to nurture than to break. That “dead serious” is all too apt a metaphor (and that it is better to live than to be unalive). Now, let's focus on haw to gain new power over your thoughts, feelings, and actions so that you can creale some desired changes in your everyday world. How, in actual practice, to become more fully alive. This is nol a how-to-do-it “cookbook.” Rather, it teaches you how to discover your own best way to deal with every new problem or situation in your life. It does not prescribe. Instead, it teaches you the skills you need to clarify what it is you want for yourself and then to break out of whatever self- limiting and self-destructive habits and patterns lie between you and your chosen goals. [t will show you how to become more awake, more fully conscious, and to achieve new free- dom and power with respect to everyday living, working, learning, and relationships, This book contains a great deal of information about perspectives, about ways of understanding the experiences, events, and relationships in our lives. But it also breaks the flow of my talking to you through the medium of print and has you explore concepts and discover things for yourself. Then, rather than provide the type of highly structured tech- niques found in my earlier book, Strategic Self-Hypnosis, this book teaches you some simple, almost effortless methods for releasing and channeling your creativity, intelligence, and imagination so as to make your entire life the vehicle by which you move toward attaining your goals. The only way to get there, | am convinced, is to do it your own way. Some of the material this book contains might seem pretty radical, but everything you find here is grounded in contemporary social and behavioral science. The concepts and methods represent the fruit of more than a dozen years of research, teaching, and practice as a clinical sociologist, In INTRODUCTION — xiii fact, a secondary objective of this book is to introduce fone of the perspectives and methods developed by doris) science ractitioners who have devoted their lives to pauline p Pal, family, organizational, and Sieh araies jenn summary, | have intended this boo! a Bkicg you nae ever read. To inform you, but ones r, rather, to set you up wi important, to change you—ar, : Pe to creatively transform y: ols, know-how, and motivation : life work, and relationships in a way that perfectly sults ourself I hope and | trust that Creative Self-Hypnosis Eiches your mind, tickles your fancy, and sends you on a journey toward your highest dreams and goals. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK Depending on your needs, Creative Self-Hypnosis can be used as a text, a handbook of techniques, or a self-contained training manual. You can use it on your own, with one or more friends, with a college or adult school class, or with the guidance of a professional counselor, therapist, or hypnosis practitioner. It’s yours to do with as you wish. If you want, you can simply dig in and mine the material for whatever you find to be of value. Feel free to do so. However, this book is explicitly organized to serve as a train- ing program. I have written it to be the workbook I would assign you to use if you were my student and I were training you in creative self-hypnosis. Form follows function, at least in this case. You will find that the following pages contain text for you to read. with forty-one Key Principles and twenty-five Key Tactics set off from the rest, several exercises for you to work with in every chapter, and seven techniques for you to practice (one at the end of each chapter). The chapters are carefully organized to provide a programmed learning experience. and I suggest that you work through them in sequence. I'd advise you go through one chapter per week over a seven-week period, although this program can be learned in half that time if you devote considerably more time each day to the readings and the exercises xv xvi HOW TO USE THIS BOOK But in order to get the most from this book, take it slowly. The reason for this is twofold. First, you need some time practicing each new exercise before you can profitably move on to the next. Second, there is a great deal of experiential material to cover. Much of what you will learn from this book you will learn by doing. So don’t go through it too quickly. Talso suggest that you don’t drink anything alcoholic for at least a couple of hours before you do the exercises and techniques. Because the effects of the so-called recreational drugs linger longer than a few hours, it is best to avoid them completely during the seven weeks you are working through the program. T anticipate that most readers will be going through this book on their own and I have designed the exercises accord- ingly. However, there is a great deal ta be gained from working with a partner or a group (be it several friends ora class). In this way you can tap the pawer of group dynamics, more fully explore some of the issues and concepts we will be consider- ing, and take advantage of the social support others can offer as you work to change your own life and relationships. Special instructions are provided in the exercises for those who choose the team alternative. As an overall princi- ple, I recommend that you read through the material on your own and meet together at least once a week to discuss one chapter at a time and to go through the group exercises as suggested. It would be best if you agreed not to practice the technique for that chapter until after you have met to discuss the material and do the exercises. Whichever way you choose to work through this pro- gram, keep a written journal documenting what you do and what you experience. Those of my students and clients who have faithfully kept journals have invariably reported getting a lot more out of the program than those who have not, The key seems to be keeping an intensive journal—not just listing times and writing out answers to questions but recording thoughts, feelings, observations, worries, fears, problems, in- sights, and inspirations. This technique is so powerful that it has been adopted by counselors and therapists of virtually every discipline and school of thought. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK = xvii Trust me, While nothing is more important than pels doing the activities and practicing the exercises, Ce is the single best way to guarantee that you will get the mi out of the program. KEEPING A JOURNAL + Use a blank spiral-bound or other notebook. ee * This is to be your private contngeont gr cliery sae can share it with anybody y: of i oe don't let that influence how you keep ey gure Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or what 0 would think. It’s for you and for you alone. Heel Be creative in keeping your journal. It = 3 a fe please or make sense to anybody else but ne ae any way that strikes your fancy of sporesta tna ey you want to record: doodles, sketches, diag ‘ , music, whatever. Bid ; a ie you do one of the cee this obs write down which one it was, what you i ia a you did it, what you felt, what you noticed, and what y — exercises OF practice sessions, or on as ues read this book, feel free to jot down any q nee notice and anything else you think sppones thoughts, reactions, odd or special renee eee Bee erect rakitors Gal cans sete ems, and possible solutions 2 ene oom your dreams, your septa bs fantasies, your hopes, and your fears. Be sure to referably time) each entry. . i Pattoutarly important to make aint vb works for you and what doesn’t wor! oF voor a with respect to creative self-hypnosis and to s going on in the rest of your life. . ONE Self-Management Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be free, to be like a child again, to recapture the richness and the brilliance and the wonder and the infinite possibilities of every new moment? Have you ever said to yourself that this has gone on long enough, that life is too precious to waste? ‘That starting right now, or tomorrow morning, or on New Year's Day it’s going to be different; you're gaing to take control of your life; you're going to really start to live? And what happened? Chances are, you never got around to doing anything about it. ‘That's what this chapter is all about—doing something about it. a Exercise 1-A: Awakening DIRECTIONS 1. Close your eyes. 2. Imagine waking up. 3. Record what you did and what you experienced in your journal, You see, we are all hypnotized, so to speak. We are all walking around in something like a trance, sleepwalking i 2 CREATIVE SI L.F-HYPNOSIS thiateh our lives, following what amounts to a set of “post- Bata Sussestions to be a certain kind of person and to think and ehave in a certain way. We perform the same tired old ae over and over, making the same old choices, the same : ae, aa and again and again. Most of the time we st go along with it, doing what we c ving ; oe ig e can, trying to make the

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