group leader said this! If I say to you “Whatever you do, don’t
stop now,” I have given you the instruction to “stop now.”
I was out to lunch with my sons and on the next table were a
mother, father, and immaculately dressed little girl, about four
years old, in a beautiful pink chiffon party dress. She was
remarkably well behaved throughout the meal. For dessert the
father ordered her a huge chocolate milkshake, which arrived
with a jumbo straw. As the waitress put the milkshake down in
front of the little girl, her father said very clearly, “Whatever you
do, don’t blow down the straw.” I leave it to your imagination
what happened next!
We needto learn how we already use these hypnotic language
patterns. By doing so we can learn how to be more respectful
of ourselves and others in choosing language that supports
what we want.
When John Grinder and Richard Bandler set out on their
exploration of the structure of excellence, they modeled
outstanding psychotherapists. One of the people they
modeled was Milton Erickson. In studying Milton Erickson they
learnt about the power of the voice and the influence of
language, especially hypnotic language. The results of this
work became known as the Milton Model. To quote from John
and Richard’s book Trance—Formations, the Milton Model
provides the user with ways of being "artfully vague." Being
artfully vague allows a communicator to make statements that
sound specific and yet are general enough to be an adequate
pace for the listener’s experience, no matter what that is. This
is the opposite of the model for precision explained in Chapter
6, which is designed to specify experience more fully. The
Milton Model provides the user with a language structure in
which just about all specific content is omitted.
Hypnotic language was used originally by psychotherapists
for the following reasons:
❏ It stimulated altered states of consciousness—trance.
❏ It allowed therapists to bypass conscious resistance.
❏ It gave space for the listener to make sense of the language
in their own way and therefore draw on their inner resources.
HYPNOTIC LANGUAGE 111The history of hypnotic
language in NLPOur unconscious minds are
obedient