Description:

This workshop will teach participants skills in using metaphors and stories to help patients experience a deep contact with themselves so that they can survive and even thrive following life-changing surgery. The material will focus on Ericksonian approaches that help patients heal, experience comfort, and restore body homeostasis. Clinical examples from patients undergoing transplantation – including face transplantation – will be presented. Face transplants are extremely complex and relatively rare. They usually require many months and even years of preparation. However, in May 2013, doctors in Poland performed the world’s first emergency life-saving face transplant. After the procedure, the patient began the rehabilitation process, including psychotherapeutic care. Ericksonian hypnosis helped this patient find body homeostasis and cope with the challenges of post-surgical recovery. Following the surgery, the patient stood right on the border between being and being, as well as how to be. For some patients, the therapeutic goal is to help them return to a state before the disease – as in the case in breast reconstruction after mastectomy. For other patients, such as those undergoing amputations or transplantations, healing is associated with developing a new and positive image of themselves. An Ericksonian perspective will guide the presentation, demonstrations, and practice opportunities. The focus will be on how to best adapting the psychotherapy to the individual patient’s needs, abilities, and healthy possibilities. Just as surgeons precisely reconstruct the patient’s body that is impacted by disease, so Ericksonian psychotherapists tailor-make treatment for each patient.

Educational Objectives:

1. List the elements of psychotherapeutic tale.
2. Create a psychotherapeutic story using informations from an interview with the patient.
3. Discuss three different ways to present a hypnotic story.

*Sessions may be edited for content and to preserve confidentiality*