Conquer Writer's Block with Hypnosis
BY DR. BRYAN KNIGHT, MSW
Hypnosis can help writers to:
- overcome writer's block
- generate ideas
- improve concentration
- end procrastination
- increase motivation
- enrich characterization
- deal with rejection
Writer's Block
The writer stares helplessly
at a blank sheet of paper, or at the blank eye of a computer.
Writer's Block is about fear. Fear of failure or fear of
success. Either is paralyzing. Neither is necessarily
conscious. But both failure and success are excused if the
writer refrains from committing words to paper or screen. (The
writer has not really "failed" because the work is not
finished; he or she has postponed success because there's
nothing to judge).
Hypnosis can be used either in
advance of a Block or during one. Hypnosis can conquer the
Block in several ways:
- by getting to the root
cause
- by post-hypnotic suggestion
- by imaginative destruction.
In hypnosis, the writer can
delve into his or her subconscious to uncover the underlying
reason(s) for the Block. These are legion. Typical would be a
fear of failing like the writer's father failed, or
conversely, fear of succeeding because this would signify
outstripping the father. Another deep cause could be the fear
of rejection (see below). There might even have been a
long-forgotten traumatic incident of a teacher scoffing at the
writer when he or she was a child, and saying something like,
"You're hopeless, Jimmy, you'll never learn how to write
properly." Yet another cause could be the fear of being
judged.
Getting to the cause via
hypnosis is best done with the aid of a competent
hypnotherapist. The therapist will then help the writer deal
with that cause in a constructive way.
With or without delving into
the cause, post-hypnotic suggestions are an excellent way to
program oneself to write. These are simply positive
suggestions the writer gives to herself while in hypnosis.
(How to do this is explained in clear detail in my eBook
Self-Hypnosis: Safe, Simple, Superb.)
This would be an ideal way to
implement the time-management ideas I elaborated in my
Success Schedule for Writers (published in the Canadian
Writer's Guide) and now available in updated form as a Report
(see below).
Conceiving of the Block as an
object or symbol of some kind, and then destroying it while
the writer is relaxed in hypnosis, is yet another way to
overcome Writer's Block.
Generate Ideas
The well-worn advice to "sleep
on it", when you are confronted with a tough problem, really
means "prime your subconscious." And so it is with hypnosis.
Instead of drifting off to sleep, you drift into hypnosis. You
could have asked your subconscious for ideas, or just let
yourself flow with whatever it pops into your conscious mind.
Ideas for nonfiction books or
articles or for fictional plots and subplots — in fact, for
anything to do with writing -- can also be discovered by using
the House of Ideas or the Wise Author in the Forest imagery.
The House of Ideas is an
imaginary house which you explore while in hypnosis. You may
do this on your own, or with the guidance of a hypnotherapist.
What's inside the House is up to you. For instance, you could
begin with a series of doors on which appear the names of
characters in your novel, or you might imagine meeting up with
a historian who is going to guide you into various epochs of
the House, for that new history text you're writing. Or
perhaps there are key documents hidden in the House which you
uncover so as to make your mystery novel more complex. The
possibilities are endless.
The Wise Author in the Forest
is an adaptation of a popular hypnotherapy technique. Briefly,
you imagine yourself in a safe, friendly forest where, in a
beautiful clearing, you meet up with The Wise Author. You then
ask whatever questions you wish, including a request for
ideas.
Post-hypnotic suggestion can
also be used to generate ideas. The most straight-forward way
to do this would be to give your subconscious instruction and
permission to allow ideas to pop up into your conscious mind
as needed. You could also add a suggestion that ideas will
come to you from a more acute awareness of your environment.
Another way, this time with
"eyes-open" hypnosis, is to give yourself the "idea-creation"
suggestion and then relax into hypnosis as you watch the
Psychovisual Therapy DVD
Serenity.
Improve concentration
Most of us enter a hypnotic
state when we write. This applies to nonfiction writers but
especially to authors of fiction. We want our readers to
suspend disbelief, to enter our make-believe worlds and
experience them as real as they were to us when we created
them. And when we wrote, it was with concentration. Our
attention was focused, our critical mind was on hold, our
imagination engaged. This is hypnosis. So the more we formally
practice going into such a trance, the more we develop our
capacity to concentrate. Post-hypnotic suggestions and
imagining ourselves (while in hypnosis) relaxed in
concentration, can also be helpful.
End procrastination
The hypnotic approach to
ending procrastination is similar to that for conquering
Writer's Block: a combination of rooting out the cause and
positive post-hypnotic suggestions. Just as the knowledgeable
hypnotherapist talks about "discomfort" rather than "pain",
you would feed yourself images and words about "doing it now",
"writing immediately", "enjoying the process of writing". You
would not give yourself suggestions which include the actual
word "procrastination." The point is to avoid negative
reinforcement.
A useful aid to bucking
procrastination is the Psychovisual Therapy DVD
Positivity, which puts you into a light hypnotic trance
and subliminally offers your subconscious mind encouraging
messages about letting go of negativity and taking positive
action.
Increase Motivation
Writers need motivation to
write, and to sell their writing. Hypnosis can build
your motivation through similar ways to those mentioned above
in answer to other challenges.
Visualization in hypnosis is
one of the most powerful ways to build motivation. You enter
hypnosis (either with direction from a hypnotherapist, or on
your own) and visualize your goal. For one writer this would
be her finished book so she imagines the cover, complete with
title and her name emblazoned thereon. Another writer's goal
may be fame. Thus he might visualize himself on a book tour,
being interviewed on television. Yet another writer's goal
might be to become rich, so she would use her session of
hypnosis to imagine a stack of royalties.
Enrich Characterization
Fiction writers go into trance
when entering into their characters. This is the common
experience often described as "the story wrote itself", or
that "the characters say and do things which I hadn't thought
of."
Relaxing into hypnosis enables
you to imagine details of your character's appearance, speech
and actions.
One way to use hypnosis for
character development is to let yourself drift into hypnosis
while becoming "absorbed" in the fictional mind of your
creation. You could write the experience immediately after the
hypnotic session or, if you choose to talk during the
hypnosis, you could tape-record the character's activities for
later transcription.
Deal with Rejection
Almost every writer has to
face rejection. That marvelous memoir is returned with a curt
refusal, or no note at all; that book outline you slaved over
is turned down by a score of publishers; that novel in which
you bared your soul sells only 20 copies. How can hypnosis
help you deal with such hurt? By enabling you to continue
writing.
As long as you are churning
out more articles, more books, more essays, any single
rejection has less power to hurt. And hypnosis helps you to
generate ideas, improve concentration, end procrastination,
increase motivation, and enrich characterization. It creates
all those positive ions!
Incidentally, this article was
written through the use of several of the hypnotic techniques
mentioned within it. Additionally, I made use of the
hypnosis-like state just before falling asleep and just after
awakening mornings, to prime myself with positive suggestions
and images about writing worthwhile content.
Canada's foremost hypno-psychotherapist,
Dr. Bryan Knight holds a degree in psychology from Sir George
Williams University, a Master's in social work from McGill
University and a doctorate in counselling from Columbia
Pacific University. If you want to write a book, you'll want
to check out Dr. Knight's Recipe for Book Writing Success.
No fluff, no rambling, his concise report offers you the exact
ingredients you need to write a book successfully. Succinct,
practical and only $7 US, it's avialable through
his website.
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