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ABSTRACT
This article described the connection between hypnosis and postmodernism. Sapp (2015a) defined hypnosis as having features of dissociation and absorption. Also, Sapp provided applications of hypnosis to various cultural groups. Postmodernism generally includes solution-focused brief therapy, narrative therapy, feminist psychotherapy, positive psychology, family systems therapy, and multicultural counseling. The major thesis of this article was that hypnosis was the glue for postmodern approaches to psychotherapy.
Keywords: postmodernism, hypnosis, multicultural counseling, phenomenology, adlerian counseling
Contemporary Founders of Post-Modern Therapies
Postmodern approaches typically include solutionfocused brief therapy, narrative therapy, feminist psychotherapy, positive psychology, family systems therapy, and multicultural counseling. Some contemporary founders of postmodern therapies are: Insoo Kim Berg (1935-2007), co-founder of solution-focused brief therapy with Steve de Shazer (1940-2005), and Michael White (1949-2008) and David Epston (b. 1944) who were co-founders of narrative therapy (Corey, 2012).
Phenomenology and Post-Modernism
The phenomenological approach of Rogers' Person- Centered psychotherapy is one of the foundations of postmodernism (Sapp, 2004a; 2004b). Phenomenology suggests that clients are in a process of becoming, and thus is a client's subjective orientation, and it provides clients with views of how the world, people, situations, and circumstances operate. Clients tend to draw conclusions, not based on facts, but from their worldviews, which are subjective. Phenomenology includes everything that makes up a client's inner world. Postmodern approaches stress constructivism-the notion that clients actively construct their reality, and that they are not passive participants within their environments. Before postmodern approaches came into vogue, Adler emphasized phenomenology in psychotherapy, and one can argue that Adler was the philosophical cornerstone for humanistic and existential forms of counseling psychology. When hypnosis is applied to various cultural groups, it, too, becomes a postmodern approach. Here, hypnosis is adapted to individual cultures and it is not applied in a rigid manner.
Race, class, and gender are social constructions, and postmodern approaches accept clients' realties based on these constructs without questioning if they are true, accurate, or rational. A client's race, class, and gender can be used to tell stories that create meaning. Hypnosis is a technique that allows culturally distinct clients to experience the past, present, and future in phenomenologically unique ways. Hypnosis as an experiencing tool allows therapists to connect with multicultural clients' inner worlds. Moreover, hypnosis can...