Dear ISSTD Community,
Welcome to the September 2025 edition of ISSTD News, which you are reading in early October! Hypnosis has been on my mind a lot over the past weeks, due in equal parts to my attendance at ISSTD’s 2025 Chicago Regional Conference (one day of which was dedicated to hypnotic phenomena in the treatment of dissociation) and to the fact that we are living in a time where our collective and individual critical thinking skills are very much being put to the test.
What are the conditions of that test? I am inclined to think that one of those conditions involves the accessing and use of people’s natural (and perhaps trauma-heightened) trance capacities. There appear to be linkages among hypnotic capacity, trance, trauma, and dissociation (see Butler et al., 1996; Coy, 2025; Keuroghlian et al., 2008; Yard et al., 2025). Cheek & LeCron (1968) assert that “[a]ny strong emotion may produce hypnosis [i.e., a trance]. A state of shock is similar to a trance state” (p. 6; see also Terhune & Cardeña, 2016). According to the American Psychological Association (2014), hypnosis is “[a] state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion” (Definition and description of hypnosis section, para. 1). The terms “hypnosis” and “trance” have been used interchangeably, referring both to the state itself and the means by which that state is achieved (Coy, 2025).
Barabasz and Watkins[1] (2005) discuss trance more specifically in terms of thought process:
Orne[2] (1959) held that the essence of hypnosis, and that which distinguishes truly hypnotized individuals from simulators, is the ability of hypnotized participants to freely mix perceptions derived from reality with those that stem from […] imagination. This characteristic tolerance of logical inconsistencies Orne termed trance logic [emphasis in original].
Trance logic is closely related to the concrete thinking or primary process that characterizes […] dissociative reactions […] and children. (p. 67).
Why am I sharing all this? The use and impact of language, tone, and behavior – in hypnosis, in therapy, and in daily life – matters. Hypnosis is not only about the ‘hypnotizer’. It is at least equally about the innate capacities, and vulnerabilities, of the individual on the receiving end of that language and tone. This knowledge is not new, and has been used in service of harm (see Meerloo, 1956). Additionally, trance phenomena are seemingly, inextricably woven into relational dynamics (Baker & Spiegel, 2020; Ferenczi, 1916; Henning, 2016; Wickramasekera II, 2015).
Most of us practitioners did not learn about trance phenomena either in graduate or postgraduate study. Because of this, hypnosis can seem rather esoteric and even irrelevant to our work with clients. I found my way to hypnosis via dissociation, and a bit by accident, at that. Clinical hypnosis training transformed how I see myself, how I experience my clients, and how I move through my work. You needn’t stumble haphazardly into it as I did. I mentioned above the day dedicated to hypnosis and dissociation at the 2025 Chicago Regional Conference. That session, Hypnotic Applications Across Phase Oriented Treatment for Trauma & Dissociative Disorders, was presented by ISSTD’s own Wendy Lemke, PhD, who helped develop and co-teaches ISSTD’s ASCH-accredited fundamentals and intermediate clinical hypnosis courses.
Excitingly, Wendy’s full-day seminar will be repeated this December as a virtual seminar. Here is what Wendy has to say about it:
This seminar aims to boost your confidence and improve your ability to integrate hypnotic techniques into the treatment of trauma-related disorders, including dissociative identity disorder. Hypnotic applications across the phases of trauma treatment, with emphasis on language that keeps multiplicity in mind, will be provided. Thus, the session will include applications for safety, stability, and skills; for accessing and exploring the unconscious or unconscious parts for the cause, maintenance, or solutions to common clinical concerns and/or symptom resolution. In addition, developmental repair and strategies that promote integrated functioning will be provided. Helpful metaphors and a review of how to utilize hypno-projectives will be reviewed.
If you already have training in clinical hypnosis, Wendy will help you extend your existing training to apply it to working with dissociation. If you’re not (yet) trained in clinical hypnosis, then you’ll get a clearer sense of the powerful possibilities for working with trance phenomena in service of healing. According to Wendy,
This seminar assumes you have had training in clinical hypnosis and/or intend to get formal training. The training will not be covering how to elicit trance. However, the applications and language may be useful without the use of formal hypnotic elicitations given those with dissociative disorders are often in auto/self-induced trance states. In addition, much of what we do in trauma work is the ‘undoing’ of no longer useful self-suggestions and/or suggestions from others.
I can say from experience that this will be a fabulous day of learning. It will help you better understand the power of intersubjective trance in the face of dissociation. Who knows? It may even offer food for thought to help you extrapolate beyond the therapeutic dyad to consider larger-scale manifestations of trance and dissociation. You can learn more about Wendy’s upcoming virtual seminar and register HERE.
ISSTD News and I will be back to check in with you again next month. Remember that kindness is contagious, and boundaries always matter. Thanks for taking the time to read.
Sincerely yours,
Michael
[1] ‘Watkins’ here is John G. Watkins, who, alongside his spouse Helen H. Watkins, developed Ego State Therapy.
[2] Unfortunately, Martin Orne has a complicated history when it comes to dissociation.
References
American Psychological Association. (2014). About the society of psychological hypnosis. https://www.apadivisions.org/division-30/about
Barabasz, A., & Watkins, J. G. (2005). Hypnotherapeutic techniques (2nd ed). Brunner-Routledge.
Baker, E. L., & Spiegel, E. B. (2020). Dancing in the in-between: hypnosis, transitional space, and therapeutic action. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 62(1-2), 31-59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00029157.2019.1585328
Butler, L. D., Duran, R. E., Jasiukaitis, P., Koopman, C., & Spiegel, D. (1996). Hypnotizability and traumatic experience: a diathesis-stress model of dissociative symptomatology. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 153(7 Suppl), 42–63. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.153.8.A42
Cheek, D. B., & LeCron, L. M. (1968). Clinical hypnotherapy. Grune & Stratton.
Coy, D. M. (2025). The autohypnotic model of dissociation. In A. M. Gomez & J. Hosey (Eds.), The handbook of complex trauma and dissociation in children: Theory, research and clinical applications (pp. 89-106). W. W. Norton & Company. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003350156
Ferenczi, S. (1916). Contributions to psycho-analysis. Richard G. Badger.
Henning, J. A. (2016). An intersubjective view of empathy and hypnotic trance: response to Wickramasekera II, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 58(3), 256-273. https://doi.org/10.1080/00029157.2015.1102701
Keuroghlian, A. S., Butler, L. D., Neri, E., & Spiegel, D. (2010). Hypnotizability, posttraumatic stress, and depressive symptoms in metastatic breast cancer. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 58(1), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207140903310790
Merloo, J. A. M. (1956). The rape of the mind: The psychology of thought control, menticide, and brainwashing. The World Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1037/13187-000