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Research Methods paper (Literature Review & State of problem)
TRADITIONALLY in sports psychologyand sports coaching, relaxation tech-niques have been used. In 1926, Dr Colman R. Griffith, who is sometimes considered as the father of the psychology of coaching, strongly advocated the use of relaxation (Griffith, 1926, pp.32–33):
‘A coach might think he would be wasting 10 or 12 minutes of each precious hour; but the experimental evidence is too conclusive to be denied. Frequent periods of relaxation more than pay for themselves in extra work and greater skill throughout the whole practice session’.
Griffith then describes an experiment in which players practising basketball shooting with frequent relaxation periods averaged 15 per cent more baskets than when they were shooting steadily without the breaks. He asserted that (Griffith, 1926, p.33): ‘Relaxation is an art that can be acquired although some people must spend many weeks in learning it.’
Sports psychologists and coaches would generally use relaxation techniques in conjunction with visualisation/imagery exer- cises (McMorris & Hale, 2006). However, the application of relaxation techniques within sports is sometimes contra-indicated depen- ding upon the activity. For example, it has been noted that relaxation techniques applied just prior to rifle shooting may leave participants feeling sleepy and lethargic and may hinder sports performance (Holmes &
Collins, 2002). The advantages and disad- vantages of the use of relaxation techniques within sports is well documented (e.g. Anshel, 1991). In addition, some forms of visuomotor behavioural rehearsal which combines imagery and relaxation can be similar to hypnosis and can trigger negative reactions in some athletes depending upon its application (McMorris & Hale, 2006).
Relaxation techniques are also used within life, executive, business and health coaching to help clients relax and lower stress/anxiety, enhance performance, anger management and reduce stress-related symp- toms such as tension headaches (see Nelson- Jones, 2006, 2007; Palmer, 2008a; Williams & Thomas, 2005). In cognitive behavioural coaching relaxation techniques are often used to decrease physical arousal. Palmer and Szymanska suggest that (2007, p.105): ‘Relaxation scripts can be narrated in session or coaches are encouraged to invest in good relax- ation tapes and CDs.’
The use of hypnosis within coaching appears less in the literature than the appli- cation of relaxation techniques. In sports psychology Singh (2004) suggests that auto- genic training which was developed by Johann Schultz, can be used to either ‘increase or decrease the tension level’ (Singh, 2004, p.68). Autogenic training can be considered as a technique that is a bridge between relaxation and hypnosis. In its development, Schultz wanted to transfer the
International Coaching Psychology Review ● Vol. 3 No. 3 November 2008 253 © The British Psychological Society – ISSN: 1750-2764
The judicious use of hypnosis in coaching and coaching psychology practice Stephen Palmer
This paper focuses on using hypnosis as an adjunct to coaching to reduce stress and enhance performance when dealing with non-clinical issues such as performance anxiety. Comparisons will be made with the use of relaxation as a technique within coaching. A basic hypnosis script is included.
Keywords: hypnosis, coaching, coaching psychology, sports psychology, health coaching, relaxation, cognitive behavioural approach, special state vs non-state theory.
control from the hypnotist to the client (Luthe & Schultz, 1969; Palmer & Dryden, 1995). McMorris and Hale (2006, p.49) suggest that hypnosis used by sports psycho- logists is similar to visuomotor behavioural rehearsal although it may ‘have a greater effect upon the sub-conscious’. Although not identical to hypnosis, it has been suggested that coaches can bring to the attention of their coachees methods such as Mindfulness to help them enhance performance and reduce stress (Passmore & Marianetti, 2007).
Berger (2002) discusses the boundary issues relating to the use of hypnosis within professional and life skills coaching. He recommends its use to aid transition by the coachee visualising the reality of their situa- tion, accepting the situation, and then becoming motivated to move onto a better situation. Berger refers to it as the Transi- tional Visualisation process. Some self- coaching books also include self-hypnosis scripts to help the reader deal with stress (e.g. Palmer & Puri, 2006). Interestingly, Lazarus (1973) found that client expectancy played an important part in whether or not clients found relaxation or hypnosis helpful. Even if the actual intervention was identical, if the participants who wanted hypnosis believed they were receiving relaxation and not hypnosis, the outcome was not so effective.
What is hypnosis? The ‘special-state’ and ‘non-state’ theories attempt to explain the nature of hypnosis. ‘Special-state’ theorists assert that the parti- cipant’s self-reports and appearance would indicate that a trance state exists whereas ‘non-state’ theorists would argue that hypnosis behaviour is due to the partici- pant’s expectancy, motivation and the inter- action between the participant and practitioner (see Chapman, 2006; Heap & Aravind, 2003). Lazarus’s research (1973) would support the latter theory. Cognitive behavioral theorists are likely to support the non-state theory.
Heap and Aravind state (2002, p.55): ‘The term ‘hypnosis’ is used to denote an interaction between two people (or one person and a group) in which one of them, the hypnotist, by means of verbal communication, encourages the other, the subject or subjects, to focus their attention away from their immediate realities and concerns and on inner experiences such as thoughts, feelings and imagery. The hypnotist further attempts to create alterations in the subjects’ sensations, perceptions, feelings, thoughts and behaviour by directing them to imagine various events or situations that, were they to occur in reality, would evoke the intended changes.’
Stages of hypnosis Depending upon the method used there are a number of different stages of hypnosis. The example provided in this paper has five stages. 1. Preparation and Preliminary induction. 2. Deepening. 3. Cognitive restructuring (sometimes
known as ego-strengthening). 4. Termination. 5. Debrief. Stages 1, 2, 4 and 5 are described elsewhere in the literature (e.g. Curwen, Palmer & Ruddell, 2000; Dowd, 2000; Hartland, 1971; Heap & Aravind, 2002; Palmer, 1993, 1997). However, Stage 3, the cognitive restructuring and modification section is described below.
Within cognitive behavioural coaching, if necessary, the coach will facilitate cognitive restructuring or the modification of perform- ance interfering thinking (PITs) and the subsequent development of performance enhancing thinking (PETs) (Neenan & Palmer, 2001). When using hypnosis to enhance performance, at Stage 3, the PITs can be challenged and the PETs previously developed during the coaching session inserted. The standard script below should be revised to take account of the situation the coachee wants to tackle. Reiterating the posi- tive effects of hypnosis outside the coaching session can be beneficial and can have a useful post-hypnotic effect (Palmer, 1993).
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Visualisation techniques such as Coping Imagery (see Lazarus, 1984; Palmer 2008c) can be included in the cognitive restruc- turing stage to help the coachee rehearse strategies to deal with situations they are stressed about such as giving presentations or dealing with difficult situations such as chairing meetings. Time projection imagery can also be included to demonstrate to the coachee that they ‘can stand’ or tolerate current difficult or challenging situations, noting that rarely are events ‘the end of the world’ or ‘awful’ indefinitely (Lazarus, 1984; Palmer & Dryden, 1995). As with the appli- cation of other interventions, it is important to choose the most suitable imagery tech- nique for a specific problem.
Introduction to hypnosis script In the hypnosis script, the ‘pauses’ help to underscore the cognitive restructuring and enhance their effect (Palmer, 1993). A pause may be two to three seconds, and a long pause from five to 15 seconds depending upon how relaxed the coachee appears to be. A longer pause can aid relaxation. Coachee feedback can be obtained during the debrief stage and the length of the pauses and other aspects of the script can be revised for the following meeting. The script below focuses on both performance anxiety and general stress reduction. Sections can be cut-out that are not relevant for a particular coachee.
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A COMBINED HYPNOSIS SCRIPT FOR PERFORMANCE ANXIETY AND STRESS Preliminary induction (adapted Palmer, 1993, pp.33–36) Can you make yourself as comfortable as possible in your chair. Pause And if you would just like to close your eyes. Pause If you would like to listen to the noises outside the room. Pause And now listen to the noises inside the room. Pause These noises will come and go probably throughout this session and you can choose to let them just drift over your mind and choose to ignore them if you so wish. Pause You will probably notice how these noises and the sound of my voice will become softer and louder and softer again during this session. This is quite normal and will indicate that you are in a state of hypnosis. Pause Let your whole body go limp and slack. Pause Now keeping your eyelids closed and without moving your head, I would like you to look upwards, keep your eyes closed, just look upwards. Pause Notice the feeling of tiredness, sleepiness. Pause And relaxation. Pause In your eye muscles. Pause
And when your eyes feel so tired, so very, very, tired, just let your eyes drop back DOWN. Pause Notice the feeling of tiredness, sleepiness and relaxation in your eyes. Pause Let this travel DOWN your face to your jaw. Pause Now just relax your jaw. Pause If your teeth are clenched, then unclench them. Pause Now relax your tongue. If it’s touching the roof of your mouth then just let it fall down. Pause Let the feeling of relaxation slowly travel up over your face to your forehead. Pause To the top of your head. Pause To the back of your head. Long pause Then slowly DOWN through the neck muscles Pause and DOWN to your shoulders. Long pause Now concentrate on relaxing your shoulders, just let them drop DOWN. Pause Now let that feeling of relaxation in your shoulders slowly travel DOWN your right arm, DOWN through the muscles, DOWN through your elbow, DOWN through your wrist, DOWN to your hand, right DOWN to your finger tips. Long pause Now let that feeling of relaxation in your shoulders slowly travel DOWN your left arm, DOWN through the muscles, DOWN through your elbow, DOWN through your wrist, DOWN to your hand, right DOWN to your finger tips. Long pause And let that feeling of relaxation in your shoulders slowly travel DOWN your chest right DOWN to your stomach. Pause Notice that every time you breathe out, you feel more and more relaxed. Pause Let that feeling of relaxation and tiredness travel DOWN from your shoulders DOWN your back, right DOWN through your back muscles. Long pause Right DOWN your right leg, DOWN through the muscles, DOWN through your knee, DOWN through your ankle. Pause To your foot, right DOWN to your toes. Long pause Let the feeling of relaxation and tiredness now travel DOWN your left leg. Pause DOWN through the muscles, DOWN through your knee, DOWN through your ankle.
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Pause To your foot, right DOWN to your toes. Long pause I’ll give you a few moments now. Pause To allow you to concentrate on any part of your body that you would like to relax even further. 15 second pause or longer if necessary
Deepening (adapted Palmer, 1993, pp.36–38) I want you now to concentrate on your breathing. Pause Notice how every time you breathe out, you feel more, and more, relaxed Pause With each breath you take you feel so relaxed, so very, very relaxed. Pause Breathe in slowly through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. Pause With each breath you take. Pause Every time you take a new breath of air. Pause You are becoming more and more relaxed. Pause Gradually you are drifting away as you become more, and more, relaxed. Pause On every out-breath you are becoming more, and more, sleepy. Pause More and more deeply relaxed. Pause Notice how, as you relax, you are breathing more, and more, slowly. Pause And more, and more, steadily, as you become more, and more, deeply, very deeply, relaxed. Pause You are drifting DOWN into a deep state of relaxation. Pause Your whole body is becoming more, and more, relaxed, every time, you breathe out. Pause I’m slowly going to count to five, and as I do, you will feel even more relaxed than you do now. Pause One. Pause NOW you are feeling more and more relaxed than you did a few minutes ago. More and more relaxed than you did a few seconds ago. Pause
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Two. Pause Notice how you are feeling so relaxed, that you are finding it so difficult to concentrate on my voice all the time. Pause Three. Pause NOW every time I say a number, every time you breathe out, you feel more and more deeply, very, very deeply relaxed. An overwhelming feeling of tiredness and relaxation is descending upon you as you listen to my voice. Pause Four. You are feeling even more relaxed NOW than you did a few minutes, a few seconds ago. In a moment when I say the number five, but not quite yet, you are going to feel so very deeply relaxed… Pause Five. Pause NOW you feel even more relaxed than you did a moment ago, more relaxed than a few seconds ago, much more relaxed than you did a few minutes ago, and very much more relaxed than you did a few hours ago. Pause
Cognitive restructuring (adapted Palmer, 1993, pp.38–41) You are now so relaxed, so very relaxed, that you are becoming very aware of what I am saying to you. Pause You are so aware that your mind is open to any positive and helpful suggestions I may make for your benefit. Pause You are feeling so relaxed that when I make positive suggestions about your wellbeing and performance, you will accept these suggestions, and gradually over a period of time you will feel better and better, even though you will not be here with me. Pause My suggestions will just drift over your mind and you will be able to remember all the relevant ones that will influence your feelings. Pause Your thoughts. Pause And your behaviour. Pause As you feel more and more deeply relaxed during this session, you will find new energy to help you cope with any issues you may have had recently. Pause New energy to tackle future challenges. Pause New energy to lessen any fatigue. Pause
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New energy to help you concentrate on your goals. Pause A new strength of mind and body to deal with internal and external pressures. Pause And as every day goes by, you will become more relaxed, and much calmer than you have been for some time. Pause And each day, you will feel far less tense, and far less concerned with unimportant matters. Pause And as this happens, your confidence will grow as your old concerns become a distant memory. Pause Week by week, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, your independence will grow. Pause Any stress or anxiety will fade away as you learn to cope with life. (NB: Target relevant emotion according to the coachee’s presenting problem.) Pause You will be able to stand difficult situations much more easily. Pause You will no longer hear yourself saying ‘I can’t stand it’, but instead you will realistically say to yourself, ‘It’s unpleasant but I CAN STAND IT.’ Pause As you learn that you can stand challenging situations, you will procrastinate less often and you will be able to start and continue your tasks more easily. Pause You can now see yourself coping with difficult situations. (NB: Target the relevant problem such as giving a presentation at work and describe how the coachee will deal with possible challenges as they arise. This strategy is discussed and developed prior to the hypnosis session. Coping imagery or other appropriate imagery techniques could be inserted here.) Pause You will question whether things are really awful. They may be bad but are they really awful? Pause As you realise that you can stand situations, and that things are seldom awful, you will be able to face challenges much more easily. Pause If you fail at a task, you will not condemn yourself as a total failure. Pause All it means is that you did not achieve your target. Pause No more, no less. Pause You will learn to accept yourself more for the person you are and not just for your achievements. Pause
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Your internal demands, many of those unnecessary, inflexible musts and shoulds Pause Will change to preferences and coulds and subsequently your stress and anxieties will lesson. (Target relevant emotion according to the coachee’s presenting problem, e.g. anxiety.) Pause Gradually, as time goes by, you will feel better and better and your life will improve. Pause And your recent concerns will be a thing of the past. Pause And you will be able to put them behind you. Pause
Termination (adapted Palmer, 1993, pp.43–44) In a few moments’ time, but not quite yet, I am going to count to three, and when I do, you will open your eyes and wake up, and feel relaxed and refreshed. Pause You will be able to remember or forget whatever you want to of this hypnosis session And you will be in full control of your body and mind. Pause And wake up today on (insert here: day, time, location). Pause As I count to three, you will wake up. (NB: Practitioner starts to speak louder with each subsequent number.) Pause One. Pause TWO. Pause THREE. Pause Open your eyes in your own time.
© Stephen Palmer, 1993.
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Discussion When appropriate, hypnosis can be used within coaching in a similar way that relax- ation and imagery techniques are applied in assisting to reduce performance anxiety and stress. For example, to help coachees cope with forthcoming presentations at work. Hypnosis should not be used for clinical disorders within coaching or coaching psychology practice as coachees with these conditions should be referred to an appro- priately qualified mental health practitioner for that particular problem. If the coach or coaching psychologist is also trained as a mental health professional it could blur the coach-coachee boundary if the practitioner shifted the existing coaching meetings into therapeutic sessions.
Due to the complexity of the coach- coachee relationship and issues relating to ethical practice, the practitioner does need to consider carefully the use of any tech- niques within coaching and coaching psychology practice (Bachkirova, 2007; Berger, 2002; Law, 2005; O’Broin, & Palmer, 2007) although coaching psychology can be usefully informed by sports psychology practice (O’Broin, & Palmer, 2006). If the coaching psychologist believes that the coach-coachee relationship boundary may encounter difficulties if he or she undertakes hypnosis then alternatives can be consid- ered. For example, the coachee can under- take self-hypnosis without the assistance of a coach if they are referred to suitable self- help material such as DVDs/books and sometimes as an alternative the coachee can make their own recording (e.g. Palmer & Puri, 2006). Within health coaching, hypnosis or self-hypnosis can be used to assist wellbeing, enhance relaxation, and form part of a weight control or stop smoking programme and is used within multimodal coaching (see Palmer, 2008b).
Whereas coaches may have received limited mental health training, currently a small but substantial percentage of coaching psychologists are likely to be qualified in other psychological domains such as coun-
selling, health or clinical psychology (see Whybrow & Palmer, 2006). A possible ethical issue does arise whether or not the coaching psychologist needs to be therapeutically qualified or have received clinical training when applying therapeutic techniques that have been adapted to non-clinical domains of coaching and coaching psychology. As many therapeutic approaches such as the cognitive behavioural approach have been successfully adapted to the field of coaching psychology (see Whybrow & Palmer) this potential ethical boundary issue has not been thoroughly addressed in the literature. One safeguard to enhance ethical practice recommended by professional bodies is regular supervision. If the coach or coaching psychologist is using adapted therapeutic techniques it might be sensible if the super- visor was a trained clinician as well as a coach or coaching psychologist. However, within health coaching, often the practitioner is a trained health professional.
Conclusion Similar to relaxation and mindfulness, hypnosis as an adjunct to coaching used judi- ciously, could possibly enhance perform- ance, reduce stress and increase relaxation. It can be used within health coaching to enhance well-being and other health-related issues. However, care needs to be taken when suggesting the use of hypnosis to ensure that it is an appropriate intervention for the issue concerned and consideration should be given on the impact it could have upon the coach-coachee relationship (O’Broin, & Palmer, 2007).
Correspondence Professor Stephen Palmer Centre for Coaching, Broadway House, 3 High Street, Bromley, Kent, England, BR1 1LF. E-mail: [email protected]
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