These Gestalt psychology principles of perception based themselves on what we believe to be the most powerful pre-existing principle. Each of us seems unavoidably compelled to make meaning of what we sense. Given this drive, if you communicate something unconventional to someone, the receiver must oblige human nature and attempt to process your message in order to understand it. This presents a major advantage and a huge, always open door through which to enter the unconscious mind. The unconventional portion of a hypnotic language pattern must fold itself with in an otherwise traditional message. The unconventional portion of the message creates what Gestalt psychology refers to as dissonance.

Ericksonian hypnosis refers to this odd portion of a message as throwing the listener into confusion. Any time you cite counter examples you invoke dissonance in the listener. You can also lead the listener to a state of dissonance when you speak in a manner that includes information or words that defy the usual perceptual categories for information, hypnotic language.

Not only do we feel compelled to understand stimuli we sense, but Gestalt psychology suggests that our nature drives us to reduce dissonance. When a piece of a message is inconsistent with the whole or just doesn't seem to make sense, then confusion or dissonance sets it. Dissonance also occurs when two beliefs exist about the same event or when behaviors differ from beliefs. Because the listener is bound by the need to understand incoming stimuli and shave off inconsistencies, or reduce dissonance, the automatic next step involves the listener accessing and searching her unconscious mind in an attempt to make sense of the initial confusing message.

You might think of the listener's need to understand your message as a sort of innate empathy. Now you and he gain entry into the resource-rich field of the unconscious mind. Once in the secondary awareness you can assist the listener in finding and associating into more resourceful ways. So the Gestalt concept of seeking dissonance reduction plays an important role in allowing effective hypnotic language. When using hypnotic language, we can rely on the dissonance reduction drive to stir a reaction in the listener of 'Huh, what in the world is this meaning?' The natural next step leads to the unconscious mind where the answer lies.

When a person experiences the feeling of being at odds with themselves, cognitive dissonance exists. Maybe all clients who come in for therapy find themselves in the midst of cognitive dissonance. Otherwise they feel, think and behave consistently - an absence of dissonance. Knowing the driving forces that play a role in and determine the expressed dissonance represents the critical point.

In what way does the person experience a split?

What forces at deeper or higher levels seem at odds and create the dissonance?

Going into the unconscious mind permits are reconciling these apparent adversaries. In an odd way you can use hypnotic language to create dissonance, then enter the unconscious mind to resolve the more critical dissonance that brings the person in for therapy. The ambiguity language patterns in the Milton model create dissonance to open up the client for dissonance reduction.

I will briefly present a case as an example of cognitive dissonance within the client and using cognitive dissonance in hypnotic language. This involves a woman who sought therapy for her depression. She had experienced a lot of trauma during her life. When she was 12 years old she saw her mother take her own life.

The client had experienced a variety of other losses and disappointments throughout her life. In spite of these trials the client managed to finish college, get married and have a daughter. This woman brought in symptoms of anxiety and depression. She exhibited significant pessimism about almost any important part of her life. The pessimism served as a coping strategy for preventing loss in the disappointment. But this strategy actually brought on the feelings of anxiety and depression. Additionally the client lived in the past (past orientation Meta-program). By focusing on her past, she generated this need for a coping strategy.

The dissonance involved time, superimposing the past over the present and in generating emotions of anxiety and depression. But with nothing to support these emotions in the present, a discrepancy or inconsistency resulted. Her goal for therapy was to find relief from her anxiety and depression while being able to enjoy her current life. She also felt confused and quite angry toward herself for knowing that dissonance existed yet not finding a resolution. She stated that she should be happy because of the life she presently had still felt oppressed and anxious.

Several interventions too place to address her issues over the six therapy sessions. One particular intervention involved a simple one-line sentence into the category of hypnotic language because it induced a trance. The sentence also utilized cognitive dissonance within it to assist resolving the cognitive dissonance within the client. Once we determined she did, indeed, use pessimism as a coping style I asked her, 'How will feeling bad keep you from feeling bad?'

After a pause, and then some protesting to me that she doesn't do this process of pessimism to prevent pain and then another pause, the client clearly shifted.

The first pause likely involved internal processing other lower level of cognitive awareness resulting in the protest. But a mismatch between beliefs and behavior was undeniable to she went back into her mind more deeply to make sense of this confusion-dissonance. I believe this accessed her unconscious mind. From this point forward the client quickly extinguished her pessimism and replaced it with perceptions that were consistent with her desired outcome. This new strategy generated the ability to enjoy the present rather than looking for how it may go wrong. Soon she stopped feeling the anxiety and depression. She reported experiencing an interesting state that she discovered after leaving pessimism, 'joy with the kick'. For her, this meant that she felt joy but that it possessed an added dimension of an energizing effect.