Loved this book! Recommended for all ages, young, old, great and small hearted

The book explores some of Erickson's experiences with creating changes in the body through hypnosis, as in the following story:

"A normal 18-year-old girl was very distressed over the fact that she had not shown any evidence of breast development.

Her father was a physician, and at the age of 12 he had loaded her up with every kind of hormone possible. Yet there was no breast development of any sort; still none by 13, or 14, or 15. He finally quit the treatments and just gave up hope.

By the age of 18, the girl was making an extremely shizoid adjustment, withdrawing completely. She had an extremely disagreeable mother and she just hated her mother thoroughly.

So her doctor-father sent her to Erickson, asking him, "What can you do to keep my daughter from becoming schizophrenic?"

Well, it took Erickson about an hour to get the girl to tell him herself that she had no breast development whatsoever. She did agree, however, to go into a trance, and so he spent a couple more hours putting her into a deep trance very cautiously, very gently, very indirectly.

Then while she was in a deep trance state he explained to her how ignorant a man is about what a breast feels like; that he can't have any idea of how it feels to grow a breast; that he can't know what a breast feels like during a menstrual period; that he cannot really know what a woman's nipple feels like during menstruation.

And he spent a good deal of time presenting that sort of idea to her very repetitiously.

Next he explained in a similarly repetitious manner that since she was a girl, somehow or other she must have the right nerves, the right blood vessels with which to grow breasts.

He told her that when she was alone in the privacy of her room - she would someway, somehow, get a tremendous surging feeling in the breast area; and suddenly, somehow, her rudimentary nipples would feel warm, and she would have the feeling that something was happening.

He told her very honestly that he didn't know what that feeling was, but that she could find out; and that she could get that tremendous surging feeling, that growing feeling or whatever it was, and then drift off to sleep very comfortably.

Erickson saw the girl once a week for two months, at which time she had very well developed breasts."

If you are a normal Person who reads self-help books to go beyond your blockages or "Trances" then you will get more confused reading this one. It's an excellent book for the practising Psychotherapist or Healer but I would rate it one star for understanding and practising what this book entails for the ordinary person.I had to go for a 3 star for the excellent contexts for the professional.This is not an ordinary Self-Help book for the ordinary person.

This book is geared toward practicing hypnotherapists. Dr. Wolsinsky is a student of the Milton Erickson school of hypnotherapy but has brought his work much further. Wolsinksy gives us his idea that all disorders can be thought of as "Deep Trance Phenomenon" and there is no need to induce a secondary trance. Instead you can/should work with the orignal trance that is causing the disorder. Most of this book discusses the therapy process and specific 'trances' and how to deal with them.

Wolinsky offers the compelling argument that, unless we are enlightened, we are always in a state of trance. As an example, he speaks of a day in the life of someone flowing through various trance states: the "playing with the kitty trance," the "walking on the beach trance," the "fighting with the spouse" trance, the "making up with the spouse" trance, etc. In each of these states, the narrowed focus of attention induces a trance state in which only that particular reality is experienced.

I trained in clinical hypnotherapy, but it was not until I read this book that I got an important and powerful piece: our attention/intention and every word we say to ourselves and others serve as post-hypnotic suggestions that alter our perceptions of reality--and thereby reality itself--for good or ill. Because most of us are not conscious that we are in trance, we have less say in what happens to us; the inputs from the world around us operate on us unconsciously and largely negatively. It was exciting to me to realize that much of the world is out of touch with the power we all have to create the kinds of realities we desire, but that this does not have to be so. Armed with the ideas and tools in this book, we CAN change reality, each and every one of us, and shift the consciousness of the whole planet to a higher level.

In summary, this book has had a profound influence on the way I live and work in this world, on my understanding of human behavior, and on my ability to help marshal in the kind of world we hoped would come with the dawning of the new millennium. Yes, I would go so far as to say this is an extremely important work. I am now reading Wolinsky's other titles on quantum psychology with great interest and relish.

I bought this book thinking that it could help me put humor into my speeches. Humor is mentioned a few times in the book. This book is mainly for school projects. You know, if you have to give a speech at school. Not student council speeches, but academic speeches. If you want a book on how to do speech reports, than this book is for you. But if you are in a situation like me, don't buy it.