Trance-Formations: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Structure of Hypnosis (Paperback)

~ (Author), Richard Bandler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

What is a trance state? How do you access a previous trance state? What is pattern interruption? Stacked realities? Generative change? Reframing? And how in the world do you use all this stuff to do anything productive? Better yet, how do you keep from using all this stuff to be unproductive? Well, this will give a you a taste of what lies in store for you in this book. It's the best book to learn about real hypnosis, the structure of hypnosis. There are many books that can teach you to hypnotize people, but few that can teach you to break through the consensual trance that you are already in. This book can get you on the road to doing that. "Hypnosis is a word that usually gets strong responses from people"  positive or negative. Often, people associate trance states with mysticism or magic, which has not helped the reputation of hypnosis. We encourage skeptics to suspend their beliefs or assumptions about hypnosis long enough to read this book. NLP cofounders Bandler and Grinder studied the famous therapist Milton Erickson to determine the structure of hypnosis. This book turns the "magic" into specific understandable procedures, some of which are useful in everyday conversation. In addition to the hows of hypnosis (basic and advanced), the authors describe numerous important uses for this science. A great introduction to the subject  and an important reference book for hypnosis practitioners.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Real People Pr; Fifth Printing. edition (July 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0911226230
• ISBN-13: 978-0911226232
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,365 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible of of NLP Books. Interested in NLP? Get this book!, January 6, 2004

By	TonyD "[e-mail]" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

John Grinder and Richard Bandlers collaboration in Trance Formations truly aims at the heart of what NLP is all about.

While many other books and individuals have tried to capitalize upon the methodologies within NLP, this book is probably where a lot of the other books derived from. Because of this, the book is highly concentrated with information about linguistics and most importantly, using it to your advantage.

This highly distilled book is comprised essentially of the transcript of a seminar which doesn't allow for the best outlay that you may come to expect in a book. There is no table of contents or an index. However, the fact that what these guys are saying is so clear, so distilled, and so elucidating, it's extremely easy to forgive them for the lack of structure in the book.

I personally carried this book around like a bible after I had first bought it reading as much as possible. Most of the seminar transcript is also where Grinder/Bandler are using the NLP to influence the audience, so you can actually see how masters of NLP use their technique.

Some of the topics that are covered are: presuppositions, nominalizations, unspecified referential indexes, deletion, mind-reading, ordinal numerals, awareness predicates, and a whole slew of other techniques.

It was only after the usage of this book that I truly began to integrate the use of NLP into my life and finally understood how language, pacing, breathing, and touching can truly allow someone to experience things in a different manner.

This book took me a little extra time to digest, keeping in mind that the intended audience is well educated therapists. However, their speaking style is not difficult to comprehend and anyone wanting to learn NLP and you can do so very well with a solid study of this book.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bandler never ceases to amaze me, May 30, 2000

By	Bluestream (in my world) - See all my reviews

I borrowed this book from my university library... and i haven't returned it for 3 months! A book where you can learn heaps from! Basically, Bandler/Grinder talks and teaches about hypnosis, theraphy, NLP and Milton Erikson. The amazing thing about this type of hypnosis (Indirect Hypnosis) is that you can hypnotise using embeded commands. Lets face it, almost all communication, beliefs, thoughts are hypnosis. Everything is hypnosis. Start thinking you're clumsy and you'll notice you actually are! The trick is, we must choose to hypnotise and instil beliefs that are positive and useful to us, not those that limit us! Bandler and Grinder models the technique of Eriksson, one of the greatest hypno-thrapist in the world before he passed away. Erikson was reknowned for being able to tell a patient a story about a tomato plant (with embeded commands in the story) to relieve the pain of the cancer patient! Totally unrelated story, but indirectly, he's hypnotised his unconscious! A great read for those interested.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb introduction to being in hypnosis ..., July 28, 2000

By A Customer

This is the big one in terms of learning about hypnosis as an application of the NLP(tm) model. If you are at all interested in hypnosis and especially so if you are interested in NLP(tm)this book will offer you the tools you need to incorporate hypnotic work in your own applications. There is no doubt there are at least five readings worth of material here for you. First of all is the general pattern of induction that Richard and John use. Often times this is language based (words) however it is in no way limited to language as they also offer non-verbal techniques as well. You'll find as you read along with them that the real success is in the deep pacing that they are both masters of using. This alone will keep you entranced. While the induction techniques are most useful they are also in some way the least relevant. The question for me regarding hypnosis has always been: "Utilization?" How does one utilize the hypnotic state. This is where this book truely shines. From their examples on situationally specific utilization to generative utilzation you'll be returning again and again to uncover what they've done to lead to where they've gotten.

As in all the Bandler and Grinder books after "Structure of Magic" and "Patterns of M.H.E." this is a written out and edited transcript. That also means that you'll get the influence of the editor (again Steve Andreas) coming through in flavor and content. The best way to ingest and digest the material is just to go along. Read the book as though you were attending a lecture, without notepaper. Just read it through. Then after you have, notice how they (B & G) generated in you the state they're describing. This is what you're reading it for ... to have the state experience so that you too can lead others to it. Then read it again ... more critically noticing as you enter the states of awareness induced what's leading you there. Then again, noticing how you're being set up to be led. Then again, again unpacking the structure of what's happened and happening inside of the hypnotic experience. By then you'll be ready to read the book and get it for yourself.