Minimal Cues

Milton Erickson refers to subliminal hearing as the ability to observe, through sensory acuity, the minimal cues expressed in a person’s behavior as a result of what the person is thinking. This actually represents the hypnotherapist’s ability to be aware of the client’s unconscious signaling.

The reading of minimal cues requires close observation. To do this effectively, the hypnotherapist may develop an externally oriented trance, then focus his eyes about a foot in front of the client. This will enable a more holistic viewing of the client’s behavior. The minimal cues should be first noted without interpretation. The minimal cue may mean one thing about one person, yet something completely different with another.

In the clinical setting, the client’s unconscious may demonstrated through the person’s behavior and/or marking of certain words, the cause of, or the problem itself, and also lead to the solution of a problem.
In one of Bandler’s books he mentions a woman who had difficulty sleeping, and when Bandler requested that her unconscious mind tell him what is the problem, within her statement, she marked the words “electric shock”. It turned out that some time earlier in her life, she had received a series of electric shock treatments to prevent her from dreaming.

Minimal cues are wonderful tools for any operator in most fields of communication once recognized. An example might be one in which a person is asked whether they are right or left handed, and without verbally answering the person might quickly look at, or move, their dominant hand, in turn indicating the answer before verbally providing it. With training in NLP, a large part of the learning process is learning to read minimal cues in order to learn the processes a person uses. Examples would be, eye accessing cues, which indicate the steps taken internally for a procedure, or simply to ascertain whether a person is accessing visual images, sensations, or sounds. Other example would be skin color fluctuations, pulse rate, pauses within speech, differences in inhalation, along with other changes in breathing patterns.

Respiration and rhythm play a major part in our physiological happenings. To move quickly, we must breathe faster, and to calm down we must breathe deeper and slower. As Milton Erickson has stated, our respiration changes with almost everything we do, from singing a song to falling asleep. His personal experiments taught him that by simply breathing in a certain fashion we could manipulate the behavior of any specific subject. The most common example of this is the everyday yawn. Just the thought of yawning may cause someone to gasp for breath. Of greatest importance is the fact that breathing and other unrecognizable forms of communication can elicit desired behaviors in another without their awareness.

Milton Erickson’s uses of minimal cues are one of the most incredible and inspiring aspects of his work. Everything from physical movements to pauses, hesitations, and changes in verbal inflections are used both within hypnotic inductions, and the reading of subjects. Within hypnotic inductions minimal cues are often used in association with previous learnings and act as anchors revivifying past experiences. An example might be when one’s sweetheart utters the words “come here”. Depending upon how those simple two words were stated, the implication could be one of a simple request, one for punishment, or possibly when stated in just that certain way, positively revivify erotic dreamy memories, that cause the listener to simply fall at the speaker’s feet.

In summary, the monitoring of minimal cues can help a hypnotherapist determine when the client is entering or coming out of a trance state, elicit desired behaviors, and in the discovery of highly relevant information that the client is not expressing verbally and/or possibly not even aware of consciously.

email: dr_frank@hypnoticadvancements.com

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Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)
Hypnotic Advancements
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Mississauga , ON
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© 2004, Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)

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