4.4: Invitation to the Trance

Covert experience is cheap. Imagining what would happen if you take a curve too quickly on a slick road is less costly than learning from direct experience. Taking the time to purposely engage your mental faculties, including rational analysis and creative imagination can prepare you to cope with the unavoidable crises that await you on your journey ahead. The exercises in this chapter will give you the opportunity to explore and develop your cognitive resources.

The Exercise of Will
During the early phases of behavior change you will encounter many autonomous paths that lead to relapse, and so you will have to be vigilant for the early warning signals of state-dependent biases the would promote relapse. These are your signals to switch to a meta-cognitive perspective and dissociate from your current state. A recommended tactic is to use this moment of dissociation to ask Will’s Question: “What is the best use of my attention right now?” The answer to this question may then be used as the target stimulus to achieve Intentional Trance Formation. The objective of this tactic is for you to get yourself focused on thoughts or activities that promote good outcome as you define it, rather than to allow yourself to get sucked into the emotional states and the autonomous behavioral sequences they evoke.

Contemplation
To understand what good outcome means to you, invest 20 minutes of your attention to contemplate questions such as: “What do I really want for this one life I have to live?” Engaging such issues with your full cognitive powers can produce more interesting adventures and a higher quality of life than mindlessly following the path of least resistance. There are many methods to facilitate the contemplative process; the attached CD-ROM includes:

· Ask Alice
· Short Harmony

Other Transformative Tools
Intentional Trance Formation refers to a range of covert tactics that can help you intentionally change your life’s course. The attached CD-ROM contains hypnotherapy audio files (in MP3 format) including inductions and scripts that address specific addictive relationships. These may be copied to a format that will be convenient for you to play in an environment appropriate for the purpose of the exercise.

· Hypnotic Induction: This is a general hypnotic induction.

· Suggestion: An exercise to enhance your ability to use your imagination to influence your subjective reality.

· The audio files below are designed for specific addictive disorders. See Psychological ARTS' web site to register and download the appropriate files.

o Nicotine
o Substance Use
o Overeating
o Impulse Control – e.g. gambling, pornography, computer use, etc.