Atlas›Domain VI · Brief, integrative, trauma, hypnosis & coaching›Guide 092
Guide VI-092

Relational hypnosis

Udi Bonshtein, Douglas Flemons2012Israel
A 37 · L 32 · M 3116 interventions in the Trinity explorer
Client cardCompare
[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: relational hypnosis as a clinical orientation, with Udi Bonshtein's version as the named reference point. His key paper (Bonshtein 2012, "Relational hypnosis", IJCEH 60(4), doi:10.1080/00207144.2012.700613) is confirmed by its Taylor & Francis, PubMed and Wikidata listings, but its text and abstract are not reflected in this guide, nor is his chapter "The relational (intersubjective) approach to hypnosis" [uncertain]. Bonshtein's own 2014 newspaper column on clinical hypnosis (ynet) and the publisher page of his 2014 book are used; positions taken from them are tagged [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. They are his general views on clinical hypnosis, not a description of relational-hypnosis technique. A paper titled "Relational hypnosis: Psychodynamics, therapeutic approaches, and attachment" in Contemporary Hypnosis & Integrative Therapy, Bonshtein–Diamond chapters, and Israeli Society of Hypnosis or ESH congress descriptions of the method are unconfirmed [uncertain]. The relational procedures below therefore come from Douglas Flemons's relational hypnosis (Flemons 2020 abstract; Ramos 2018 dissertation abstract), an attachment-focused relational hypnosis curriculum (Spiegel, ASCH-listed workshop, 2025), and published interactional accounts of hypnotic rapport (Staffin 2024; Varga 2021). The hypnosis session structure around them is standard clinical practice, marked [synthesis]. Nothing below is attributed to Bonshtein unless the tag says so. Bonshtein's relational-hypnosis technique itself remains [uncertain].

What it is. Relational hypnosis is less a fixed protocol than a way of understanding and doing clinical hypnosis. Hypnosis is treated as something that happens between clinician and client, and within the client's relationship to their own experience. It is not treated as a procedure done to a passive subject. Bonshtein is an Israeli senior clinical and medical psychologist. He directs the Hedadiot institute for hypnosis studies and works as chief psychologist at Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya [source: Mifrasim author page; University of Haifa Press book page]. In 2014 he chaired the Israeli Society for Hypnosis [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet byline]. His Hebrew books are The Inner Eye (2011) and Hypnosis: The Mind's Way of Creating the Body (University of Haifa Press with Yedioth Books/Hemed, 2014). The publisher presents the 2014 book as proposing a new and original theoretical approach, supported by preliminary empirical findings, but its description does not say what the approach is [source: University of Haifa Press page; HumanFactor catalogue page]. His later dream book builds on mentalization, absorption and the hypnotic state [source: Mifrasim author page]. His chapter title pairs "relational" with "intersubjective" [source: USI catalogue record]. That pairing suggests a link to relational and intersubjective psychoanalysis, but the chapter's content is unconfirmed [uncertain].

Bonshtein's stated stance on clinical hypnosis [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]: hypnosis is a professional tool that works through suggestion and is learned within a trusting therapeutic relationship. It increases the hypnotised person's self-control rather than removing it, and it cannot make someone act against their will or values or reveal what they do not want to share. The therapist's expectations can influence the patient, consciously or not. Memory is unreliable, and hypnotic recall, including age regression, can mix fantasy with reality. He prefers to teach most patients self-hypnosis. He favours hypnosis as a tool used within psychology, medicine and dentistry rather than as a stand-alone "hypnotherapy" profession; Israeli law (1984) restricts its use to those professions.

How change happens, in the published sources:

  • Flemons: Flemons builds on Erickson and Bateson. Change comes from altering the intra- and interpersonal context of a problem and the mind-body connection. The client does not change by conscious effort or willpower. Change is something the client finds happening. Flemons calls his early moves "intraventions": they shift the client's sense of self so the client can use new capacities [source: Ramos 2018 abstract]. Flemons offers a relational view of mind and self as an alternative to two older ideas: hypnosis as a special state, and hypnotizability as a fixed trait [source: Flemons 2020 abstract].
  • Attachment-focused version: the relationship itself is the vehicle. Attunement, marked mirroring and mentalization are built inside hypnosis to repair developmental and attachment injuries. The same approach is used to modulate pain and functional symptoms [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing].

2. Framework

No phase manual is published for any version, and Bonshtein's session structure is unconfirmed [uncertain]. What the sources give:

  • Course length (Flemons case): a client with blood/needle phobia and fainting had eight sessions, and the first two did most of the work. Progress was tracked through the client's emails between sessions and the therapist's case notes [source: Ramos 2018 abstract].
  • Phase-based use for trauma: hypnosis is applied according to the treatment phase and the clinician's theoretical orientation [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. The specific phases below are [synthesis], in line with standard phase-oriented trauma care.

Working framework [synthesis]:

  1. Relational assessment and preparation (sessions 1–2).
    • Goals: understand the problem in its relational context (who, when, with whom it gets better or worse). Screen for contraindications, obtain informed consent and correct myths about hypnosis.
    • Already doing hypnosis: for brief problem-focused work in the Flemons style, the first session can include hypnosis [inferred from Ramos 2018].
    • Move on when: the client understands and agrees, no contraindication remains unaddressed, and a working alliance is felt on both sides.
  2. Hypnotic work on the presenting problem (sessions 2–8 for focal problems).
    • Format: weekly or fortnightly sessions of 50–90 minutes, each with a conversational lead-in, hypnosis of 10–30 minutes and a debrief.
    • Goals: change how the client relates to the symptom, and build resources and a felt sense of safety.
    • Move on when: the client reports change in daily life, not only in session.
  3. For attachment trauma, insert stabilisation first.
    • Content: safety, self-soothing, an inner secure figure and mentalizing capacity.
    • Then: any work that touches memories comes only after the readiness criteria in §4.11 are met.
  4. Consolidation and ending.
    • Content: self-hypnosis practice, plans for setbacks and spacing out sessions.
    • End when: goals are met and the client can produce the useful state on their own.

For medical-adjunct uses (pain, functional GI or neurological disorders, procedure fears), hypnosis is added to medical care after medical assessment and never replaces it [synthesis]. Bonshtein lists medical areas where he combines hypnosis with care, including pain control, digestive and neurological disorders, sleep, skin conditions, obstetrics, dentistry and oncology. He also mentions its use as a diagnostic aid for functional disorders [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. He has also published on hypnosis in oncology (Hebrew article title). In such settings hypnosis supports coping with symptoms and procedures; it is not a treatment for cancer or other physical disease [synthesis].

3. Guiding principles

Lines tagged [synthesis] are this guide's own working rules, not quotes from the founders.

  • Hypnosis is co-created. Practical meaning: treat responsiveness as a product of this relationship today, not a fixed trait to be scored and accepted [source: Flemons 2020 abstract].
  • Change is not forced by willpower. Practical meaning: invite, allow and notice change. Avoid commands to try harder [source: Ramos 2018 abstract].
  • Context over content. Practical meaning: change the frame, relationship or position from which the client meets the symptom, rather than arguing with the symptom [source: Ramos 2018 abstract].
  • Shifting self-experience comes first ("intraventions"). Practical meaning: early moves aim at how the client experiences themselves in relation to the problem [source: Ramos 2018 abstract].
  • Attunement and marked mirroring. Practical meaning: reflect the client's state accurately but in a visibly marked form, so the client sees their own state and is not just mirrored back into it [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing].
  • Build mentalization. Practical meaning: suggestions invite curiosity about one's own and others' mental states [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing].
  • The alliance carries safety. Practical meaning: use the felt relationship, directly or indirectly, as the ground for suggestions of safety [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing].
  • Hypnosis is learned inside a trusting relationship. Practical meaning: build trust before formal hypnosis, and treat any loss of trust as a reason to pause hypnosis and repair it [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet; the practical step is synthesis].
  • Hypnosis adds to the client's self-control. Practical meaning: frame every procedure as a skill the client gains and directs, never as control handed to the clinician [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet].
  • A tool within a licensed profession. Practical meaning: hypnosis is added to the psychological, medical or dental treatment you are already qualified to give, not practised as a separate "hypnotherapy" [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet].
  • The clinician's experience and expectations are information. Practical meaning: notice your own pace, breathing, images, shifts in absorption and expectations as data about the shared field, and do not impose them. Bonshtein warns that the therapist's expectations can influence the patient, consciously or unconsciously [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. Using the clinician's own experience as relational data is [synthesis]; it is plausibly central to his "intersubjective" framing but not verified [uncertain].
  • Permissive, collaborative language. Practical meaning: offer choices and use the client's own words and images [synthesis, Ericksonian lineage per Ramos 2018].
  • Consent throughout. Practical meaning: the client knows when hypnosis begins and ends and can stop at any time. No covert induction [synthesis; brief requirement].
  • Practise within competence. Practical meaning: use hypnosis only for problems you would treat without it [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

Scope note: these are all the procedures the published sources name, plus the standard clinical-hypnosis frame needed to deliver them safely. Bonshtein's own relational techniques are unconfirmed [uncertain]; only his general positions on trust, expectation, memory, contraindications and self-hypnosis are sourced [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet], and they are cited where they apply. Every step sequence is the guide's own operationalisation [synthesis] unless tagged otherwise. All example wording is illustrative and is not any author's script.

4.1 Screening, contraindications and informed consent

  • Purpose: decide whether hypnosis is appropriate and get real consent. Use before any hypnosis. Bonshtein says a skilled practitioner identifies the contraindications, and he attributes complications mainly to misdiagnosis or poor management rather than to hypnosis itself. Hypnosis should be used only by licensed psychologists, physicians or dentists, as Israeli law requires [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. He does not list the contraindications there, so the screening list below is [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Take a full clinical history, including medical review for any bodily symptom.
    2. Screen for:
      • active psychosis, mania or a severe personality disorganisation;
      • severe dissociative disorder, or dissociation that is not yet assessed;
      • unprocessed trauma where suggestion might stir intrusive material;
      • active suicidality;
      • substance intoxication;
      • epilepsy or fainting history (relevant to the Ramos case);
      • pending legal testimony, because hypnosis can affect how credible a witness's memory is judged;
      • any wish to "find out what really happened".
    3. Correct myths: the client stays aware, cannot be made to act against their will or values or to reveal what they do not want to share, and gains rather than loses self-control [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. They can open their eyes and stop at any time [synthesis].
    4. Agree on the goal, how long the hypnosis will last, the touch policy (default: no touch) and a stop signal.
    5. Record consent.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Hypnosis here is something we do together. You'll hear me and can stop at any point by opening your eyes or raising a hand. It won't uncover hidden memories, and I won't use it for that."
  • Watch for: expectations of magic or control, a wish to recover memories, fear of losing control. Address each before going on.

4.2 Relational assessment of the problem

  • Purpose: map the problem as it lives in relationships (with other people, the body and the self) so that suggestions fit its context [source: Ramos 2018 abstract, emphasis on context]. The attachment-focused curriculum includes a relational assessment of chronic pain built on five questions [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. The questions themselves were not listed, so the steps below are [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Ask who is around when the symptom appears, gets worse or eases.
    2. Ask how the client relates to the symptom: as an enemy, a burden, part of them or something foreign.
    3. Ask what the client's relationship with care-givers and clinicians has been like.
    4. Ask what a good outcome would let them do or be with others.
    5. Note the client's own words and images to reuse later in hypnosis.
  • Example language (illustrative): "When the pain is there, who are you with, and how do you treat yourself?"
  • Watch for: the client's characteristic relational stance (compliant, mistrustful, self-critical). It will also show up in how they respond to hypnosis.

4.3 Collaborative, permissive invitation into hypnosis (induction)

  • Purpose: begin hypnosis as a shared, voluntary shift of attention. This fits the Ericksonian lineage of relational hypnosis [source: Ramos 2018 abstract]. The steps are [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Ask permission to begin.
    2. Offer a choice of focus: breathing, a point to look at, or a sensation.
    3. Pace what is observably true, such as breath, posture and sounds.
    4. Then lead gently toward comfort and inward attention, using permissive phrasing such as "may", "perhaps" and "you might notice".
    5. Fold in the client's own words and images from 4.2.
    6. Eyes may stay open or closed, whichever the client prefers.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You might let your attention settle wherever it wants… on your breathing, or the chair under you… and I'll go along with you at your pace."
  • Watch for signs of absorption: slower breathing, a still face, delayed responses. Watch for signs of discomfort: fluttering, tension, a frown. If you see discomfort, slow down, check in verbally or give more choice.

4.4 Attuned pacing and marked mirroring

  • Purpose: use contingent and marked mirroring inside hypnosis, so the client's state is reflected back in a way that helps them regulate and see it [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing; the steps are synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Match your pace and tone to the client's state, and build implicit rapport: once the client names people in their life, use those names; build small shared references (a gesture, a phrase) that carry meaning between you; and work details from the client's own world into your wording [source: Staffin 2024, IJCEH, on implicit rapport].
    2. Name the state slightly marked: tentatively and with warmth, as an observation rather than an identical echo.
    3. Pair the naming with a regulating cue.
    4. Check with an ideomotor signal or a brief verbal check that the reflection fits.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Something tightened just then… it can be noticed from a little distance… and your breath can keep moving through it."
  • Watch for: the client settling after accurate naming, which shows it is working. Escalation is a sign of mis-attunement: re-attune or come out. In the interactional view, clinician and client keep adjusting to each other's cues; synchrony appears when expectations align and disharmony when they do not, so treat a felt loss of synchrony as information [source: Varga 2021, Brain Sciences].

4.5 Deepening through shared absorption

  • Purpose: increase absorption when the goal needs it. The steps are [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Use counting, a descending image (stairs, a path) or the client's own favourite place.
    2. Make each step contingent on the client's readiness.
    3. Allow the client to set the depth.
    4. Your own steady, absorbed attention supports theirs.
  • Example language (illustrative): "With each number, you can go as far into this as feels right for today, and no further."
  • Watch for: depth is not the goal. Trauma clients may need lighter states and their eyes open.

4.6 "Intraventions": shifting the client's relationship to self and symptom

  • Purpose: Flemons's term for early moves that change the client's sense of self in relation to the problem, so new capacities become available [source: Ramos 2018 abstract]. How Flemons builds them in detail is unconfirmed. The steps below are an operationalisation [synthesis, uncertain].
  • Steps:
    1. In hypnosis, invite the client to experience the symptom and the self in a new relation. Options:
      • curious rather than fighting;
      • connected to an overlooked capacity;
      • noticing that the body can do something without being told.
    2. Link the new relation to a cue the client meets in daily life.
    3. Leave it open-ended and do not demand results.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Your body already knows how to keep you steady, the way it keeps your balance without you thinking about it… and it can find that again in the room where it matters."
  • Watch for: the client reports change that "just happened" or a different self-description. This is the hallmark the source describes.

4.7 Alliance-based suggestion of safety

  • Purpose: use the therapeutic relationship, directly or indirectly, as the basis for a felt sense of safety. The source names this for functional disorders [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. It is also useful as a stabilising move in general [synthesis].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Choose the form:
      • direct: refer to the here-and-now connection in the room;
      • indirect: refer to a remembered or imagined steady, caring presence.
    2. Anchor the felt safety to a bodily location or gesture.
    3. Suggest the client can call it up between sessions.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You can notice that right now, here, someone is paying attention with you… and let your body register what that is like."
  • Watch for: some clients find closeness threatening, often those with attachment trauma. Offer the indirect form or a non-human source of steadiness instead.

4.8 Secure attachment figure, self- and object-constancy suggestions

  • Purpose: inside hypnosis, build a mental representation of a secure attachment figure, together with self- and object-constancy. Used in phase-based work with attachment trauma [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing; the steps are synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Let the client create or choose a wise, caring figure. It can be real, imagined or symbolic.
    2. Invite the client to experience the figure's attuned response to them.
    3. Suggest the figure "stays" when out of sight, which builds constancy.
    4. Rehearse calling on the figure, first in calm states and then in mildly stressful ones.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Let a figure appear who understands you exactly as you need… and notice that even when the image fades, the sense of being held in mind can stay."
  • Watch for: the figure becoming critical, or grief welling up. Slow down and go back to 4.7. Only use real people if they are safe.

4.9 Mentalization and reflective-awareness suggestions

  • Purpose: increase curiosity about one's own and others' mental states [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. Bonshtein also links the hypnotic state with mentalization and absorption in his dream work [source: Mifrasim author page]. Whether that link appears in his relational hypnosis is [uncertain].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. In light hypnosis, guide the client to notice a feeling and wonder what it is about.
    2. Then imagine how a significant other might have felt in the same scene.
    3. Suggest that feelings and thoughts are states of mind, not facts.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You can be curious about that feeling, as if it has something to tell you… and wonder, too, what might have been going on inside them."
  • Watch for: concrete or overwhelmed responses mean mentalizing has gone offline. Lower the intensity and ground the client.

4.10 Relational hypnotic scene for pain modulation (adjunct)

  • Purpose: use attachment and relationship principles to build a hypnotic scene for modulating pain. The source pairs relational alliance-building with active-alert hypnosis (hypnosis while the client is moving or upright, eyes open) [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. The source distinguishes CRPS work from general chronic pain work, but the specifics were not given [uncertain]. Use only after medical assessment, alongside medical care [synthesis].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Build the alliance and assess as in 4.2.
    2. With the client, design a scene where the body is cared for: a supportive presence, comfort and the pain's sensations changing quality.
    3. Include active-alert elements, such as walking or gentle movement, for clients whose pain is tied to inactivity.
    4. Teach the scene as self-hypnosis.
  • Example language (illustrative): "As you walk, imagine moving alongside someone steady… and notice what your body does with the pain when it doesn't have to face it alone."
  • Watch for: changes in pain ratings and in function. Any new or changing symptom needs medical review.

4.11 Trauma-related work: phase-based, no memory recovery

  • Purpose: use hypnosis by treatment phase in attachment trauma [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. Readiness, dosing and closure below are [synthesis] based on standard phase-oriented practice.
  • Readiness criteria (all required before any work that touches memories) [synthesis]:
    • stable living situation;
    • no active self-harm crisis;
    • reliable use of 4.7 and 4.8 to self-calm;
    • dissociation assessed and manageable;
    • an agreed stop signal.
  • Dosing [synthesis]:
    1. Approach material in brief, titrated segments (a few minutes), with the client at a distance or observer position.
    2. Return to safety (4.7) between segments.
    3. Keep the client oriented to the present: eyes open if needed, voice contact.
    4. Close at least 10–15 minutes before the end of the session.
  • Never use hypnosis, imagery or suggestion to "recover" or verify memories. Treat what emerges as the client's present experience, not as historical fact. Avoid leading questions. Bonshtein states that hypnosis cannot produce "true" memories: hypnotic recall, including age regression, can blend fantasy with reality and still feel real, and careless work can create false memories [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet].
  • Example language (illustrative): "We'll only touch the edge of this, and you can step back to the safe place whenever you want."
  • Watch for and respond: for signs of overwhelm or dissociation (glazed eyes, no response, shaking, losing contact), see §5.

4.12 Relational suggestions for functional GI and neurological disorders (adjunct)

  • Purpose: the source teaches at least one relational hypnotic suggestion for functional GI disorders and one for functional neurological disorder, each built on alliance-based safety [source: Spiegel 2025 workshop listing]. The actual suggestions were not given. The steps are [synthesis]. Use only alongside gastroenterology or neurology care.
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Explain the gut-brain or brain-body loop in the language of a medical diagnosis.
    2. Establish safety as in 4.7.
    3. Suggest the body can settle into an ordinary, unthreatened rhythm when it feels accompanied: a calm gut, or movement returning in familiar patterns.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Your gut can take its cue from the steadiness you feel here, settling into its own easy rhythm."
  • Watch for: symptom diaries. Any red-flag symptoms go back to the medical team.

4.13 Procedure-fear and blood/needle phobia work (adjunct)

  • Purpose: Flemons treated a client with fainting to blood, needles and medical procedures, who wanted to become pregnant. Early intraventions shifted her sense of self over eight sessions [source: Ramos 2018 abstract]. The detailed moves are unconfirmed [uncertain].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Medical clearance for the fainting.
    2. Intraventions (4.6) that reframe the client's relationship to her body's reactions.
    3. Rehearse the procedure in imagery, with safety anchors.
    4. Graded real-life steps.
    5. Consider combining with applied tension, a standard behavioural method for fainting-prone blood phobia [synthesis].
  • Example language (illustrative): "Your body has been trying to protect you… it can learn a new way to stay with you through this."
  • Watch for: pallor or light-headedness in session. Seat or recline the client, stop the imagery and alert them.

4.14 Clinician self-monitoring of the shared field

  • Purpose: use your own experience during hypnosis (absorption, images, bodily shifts, pull to rescue or withdraw, and your expectations of the client) as relational information [synthesis]. Bonshtein's warning that the therapist's expectations can influence the patient, consciously or not, supports checking your expectations [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. "Intersubjective" in his chapter title suggests the clinician's experience matters to his approach, but how he works with it was not verified [uncertain].
  • Steps [synthesis]:
    1. Before the session, check your own state.
    2. During the session, keep part of your attention on yourself.
    3. Use what you notice only to adjust pace and attunement. Do not insert your private images as suggestions without checking.
    4. Afterwards, note it in supervision.
  • Watch for: your own drift or absorption weakening your observation of the client. Keep your eyes open and stay responsible for safety.

4.15 Re-alerting and relational debrief

  • Purpose: return the client fully to alertness and process the shared experience [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Give a closing suggestion: carry the useful thing forward, leave the rest here.
    2. Count up or invite a gradual return to the room.
    3. Check orientation (name, place, time) and look for drowsiness.
    4. Debrief: what the client noticed, what fitted and what did not, and how it felt to do this together.
    5. Make sure the client is fully alert before they drive.
  • Example language (illustrative): "In your own time, bring your attention back to the room… eyes open, feeling alert and here." Afterwards: "What was it like doing that with me?"
  • Watch for: lingering disorientation or headache. Repeat the re-alerting and ground the client.

4.16 Self-hypnosis practice and between-session contact

  • Purpose: move change into daily life. Bonshtein says he prefers to teach most patients self-hypnosis so they can use it safely on their own [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. In the Flemons case the client's between-session emails described her progress and were part of the treatment record [source: Ramos 2018 abstract]. The self-hypnosis steps below are [synthesis].
  • Steps:
    1. Teach a short self-induction cue and one key image or suggestion.
    2. Agree how often to practise (e.g. brief daily practice). An optional recording is acceptable.
    3. Invite brief written updates, with boundaries on how fast you will reply. Email is not for crises.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Each day, take a few minutes to find that steadiness on your own… and jot down anything that shifts."
  • Watch for: practice becoming a duty or a test, which is a sign the client is relating to it through self-criticism. Reframe it as permission.

5. Handling problems

The published relational sources do not address problem-handling. Bonshtein's only relevant point is general: complications and unexpected problems arise mainly from misdiagnosis or poor management, and a skilled practitioner should be able to handle them [source: Bonshtein 2014, ynet]. Everything else in this section is [synthesis] unless tagged otherwise.

  • "Nothing happened" / low responsiveness.
    • In relational terms this is a feature of the current interaction, not a fixed trait (consistent with Flemons 2020).
    • Ask what got in the way. Switch the mode: eyes open, active-alert, or more conversational.
    • Shorten the hypnosis and give more choice. Use the client's own images.
  • Resistance or fear of losing control.
    • Put control explicitly in the client's hands: they set the pace, give the signals and choose when to end.
    • Present hypnosis as a skill the client uses, not something done to them.
    • Never escalate into more directive, authoritarian suggestion to override reluctance.
  • Compliance or faking.
    • Clients with a pleasing, compliant attachment style may report what they think you want.
    • Name this kindly in the debrief. Track change in daily life rather than in-session reports.
  • Overwhelm or dissociation during hypnosis.
    1. Stop all suggestion.
    2. Speak in a normal, firm voice. Use the client's name.
    3. Orient them: date, room, the feel of the chair. Ask them to open their eyes and look around.
    4. Use grounding: name five things they can see, press their feet down, hold a cool object.
    5. Do not resume that day. Review readiness (4.11) before continuing.
    6. Assess for a dissociative disorder if this recurs.
  • Abreaction or a spontaneous memory.
    • Contain, ground and return to safety (4.7).
    • Treat the content as the client's current experience. Do not probe, interpret it as fact, or suggest that more is hidden.
    • Make a careful note. If litigation is possible, advise the client that hypnosis can affect testimony.
  • Ruptures.
    • Common causes: a mis-attuned image, a suggestion that felt intrusive, or the therapist's absorption being felt as absence.
    • Name the rupture and own your part. Ask what was missed and adjust (4.4). Repair is itself relational work.
  • Closeness feels threatening.
    • Suggestions about the alliance can trigger attachment fears.
    • Use indirect or non-human sources of safety, keep more physical distance and keep the hypnosis shorter.
  • Non-adherence to self-hypnosis.
    • Look at what practising means to the client (duty, a test, loneliness).
    • Shorten it to one minute. Tie it to an existing daily routine. Offer a recording made in session.
  • Persisting physical symptoms.
    • Refer back for medical review.
    • Do not interpret bodily symptoms as purely psychological without medical assessment.
    • Hypnosis is an adjunct only, including in oncology settings, where it supports coping and does not treat disease.
  • Clinician drift or over-involvement.
    • Your own absorption can blur your judgement of safety.
    • Keep your eyes open, keep part of your attention on yourself (4.14), and take intersubjective material to supervision.
  • Requests for stage-style feats, covert induction or memory recovery.
    • Decline, and explain clinical hypnosis boundaries and consent.
  • Missing primary details. Bonshtein's own handling of these problems in relational hypnosis is unconfirmed. Read Bonshtein (2012) and his chapter before adopting this guide as "his" method [uncertain].

Sources

Web sources:

Further papers cited [uncertain: content not reflected in this guide]:

  • Bonshtein, U. (2012). Relational hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 60(4). doi:10.1080/00207144.2012.700613. PubMed 22917105.
  • Exploring hypnotist trance: the experiences of skilled practitioners. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis (2024). doi:10.1080/00029157.2024.2398431.
  • Bonshtein, U. & Sefers, L. Hypno-oncology (Hebrew article, Israel Psychological Association site).

Books cited:

  • Bonshtein, U. (2011). The Inner Eye (Hebrew). University of Haifa Press.
  • Bonshtein, U. (2014). Hypnosis: The Mind's Way of Creating the Body (Hebrew). Yedioth Books / Hemed.
  • Flemons, D. Of One Mind: The Logic of Hypnosis, the Practice of Therapy. Norton.
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