The author introduces a
new hypnotherapeutic technique termed “Mental Access/Somatosensory Access”
(MASSA). MASSA is designed to utilize an external somatosensory stimulus in the
context of hypnotherapy, based on a Bottom-Up/Top-Down Paradigm, which complements and mutually
reinforces hypnotic inductions by using imbedded suggestions. The intervention’s
algorithm includes a combination of real-time stimulation through one of the
following somatosensory modalities: sensorimotor activation of the palms,
visual, auditory, vibration, thermal, olfaction or oropharyngeal. These
modalities are accompanied by guided hypnotic dissociation and suggestions.
Somatosensory stimulation amplifies patients’ engagement in the procedure,
focusing their attention on a stimulus and on the hypnotic experience during
the intervention. A stream of closed
questions with imbedded suggestions, presented by the therapist, is designed
using suggestive presuppositions, termed by the author “The Create and
Verify Principle” (CVP). This principle facilitates effective pacing and helps transform patients’ sensory and mental experiences.
Imbedded suggestions followed by real-time stimulation, maintain a focus on the
somatosensory content, boost the hypnotic experience, and gradually combine
awareness of the somatosensory stimulation experience (Bottom-Up regulation)
with memory, imagination, emotions and meanings, for mental access of resources
and adaptive coping (Top-Down regulation). In the first part
of this article, the author briefly introduces the neurophysiological mechanism behind the suggestive, somatosensory, attention-management
intervention and provides an example of a basic algorithm of the MASSA
technique. The second part includes clinical samples with scripts of successfully
treated patients, who experienced tension headache, psychogenic balance
disorder, tinnitus.
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