Sleep and Hypnosis: A Journal of Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopathology Volume 2, Number 2, Year 2000
Anatoly Tkachev and Inga Topeshko
For many years we have been studying Dr. Milton H. Erickson�s communication as a system trying to find out why it is so powerful and why its influence is so precise. In re-sult we have found some regularities that we call secondary languages. The way of how Dr. Erickson used non-verbal patterns is very similar to the way of how natural languages work: each of the non-verbal signals in Dr. Erickson�s communication is used with some specific meaning which is understood by unconscious mind of patients in therapy or stu-dents in teaching. Using the methods of structuralizm we have analysed the meanings of some signals and the way of how Dr. Erickson associated those signals and the me-anings. In order to test the results A. Tkachev used the model of secondary language in therapy. Working with patients he associated two of non-verbal signals with different me-anings and used those signals to build therapeutic process. The experiment has shown that even the system of two signals being arranged as secondary language allowed to get stable positive shifts in the patients� behaviour. And also the experiment has shown that the secondary languages can be used in therapeutic communication. The system of more than 3 signals as a secondary language is a powerful tool for therapeutic influen-ce. Dr. Erickson used several secondary languages that contains several dozens of sig-nals with different meanings. The structure of secondary languages is the structure of in-direct suggestions. (Sleep and Hypnosis 2000;2:90-94)
Keywords: hypnosis in the state of sleep, positive presuppositions, extralinguistic elements of therapeutic communication, behaviour ploblems