A Shamanic approach to Hypnotherapy

By Martin White

When I was a newly qualified hypnotherapist, several years ago, the thing I found hardest of all was matching the most appropriate technique to the presenting problem. This issue was only compounded when I tried to string a number of techniques together to form a cohesive treatment plan. As the years progressed, experience made this easier, but I still felt that there was something missing; something at a fundamental level.

I should say at this point that I am always looking for additional healing modalities and interventions to add to my repertoire, sometimes using them as they are presented and sometimes adapting them; using Reiki as an induction for example would fall into the latter category — the ultimate induction for kinaesthetic clients! It was years later however that the ‘missing’ piece regarding treatment planning presented itself, and it came from a most unusual source. What I came across was a model of illness taken from a subject called ‘core shamanism’. The term core shamanism was coined by an anthropologist named Michael Harner. Harner had studied healing practises from indigenous cultures across the globe and discovered that these societies had striking similarities in their approach, which he distilled down to form his ‘core shamanism’.


These similarities include a belief that everything is alive or ‘has spirit’ and can be communicated with; that all illness is spiritual in origin; that effectively, illness stems from either missing something you should have (termed power or soul loss) or having something you shouldn’t (termed a spirit intrusion). Mediation between the spirit world and ours is undertaken by a specialist within the society and Harner borrowed the word ‘shaman’ (taken from the Siberian ‘saman’) to describe this role.

All of this may seem a million miles away from our therapeutic practise in the western world, but when all the ‘rattling and smoke blowing’ is stripped away from the shamanic approach, the underlying model is remarkably pertinent.

The shamanic model of illness states that the first thing we need to do is to build up a client’s strength to a point where they can undergo either a spirit extraction or a soul retrieval. In our terms this may be viewed as preparing the ground for the main interventions and may include ‘ego strengthening’ (which is a well known hypnosis technique) or basic relaxation techniques.
Of course other energetic methods such as Reiki would also be appropriate here.

Next come extractions, which are always performed before retrievals. The logic behind this, is that when the original soul part was lost, it left a vacuum, which was then occupied by an intruding spirit, therefore, in order to bring the soul part back, the body must first be cleared of the intrusion so that there is a ‘home’ for it to come back to.

Spirit intrusion itself is a useful construct. You may consider a phobia as a spirit intrusion as might negative thoughts and feelings, panic attacks or compulsions. The subconscious loves imagery and drama, so giving form to what can be an ephemeral idea (such as panic) definitely makes it easier to deal with and provides fertile ground for creative interventions.

Soul or power retrievals are next and this is an immensely powerful idea. Soul loss states that when we suffer a trauma, part of us takes refuge in order to protect itself. As the subconscious ‘doesn’t do time’ and only lives in the present, this missing part is effectively in a permanent state of trauma — or rather believes that the trauma is still taking place and therefore it is not safe to ‘return’. Have you ever worked with a client where whatever intervention you use just doesn’t seem to be hitting the spot; using the model of soul loss we can see that we are treating the wrong part of the person, the part we need to be treating isn’t actually available until the soul retrieval has been performed. In hypnotherapeutic terms, soul retrieval may be seen as a specialised form of regression or timeline therapy in which we can communicate with the missing piece and negotiate its return after convincing it that the original trauma has passed.

Interestingly, in most indigenous cultures the soul part only comes back after getting agreement from the client (through the Shaman) that certain conditions are met. These conditions more often than not involve the client making changes to elements of how they live or what they do in order for the soul part to remain and not take flight again.

In summary then, we strengthen the client first, then remove any unwanted or unhelpful thoughts and feelings, before returning any ‘missing’ parts and finally changing the clients environment (physical and mental) so that the problem does nor recur. In this way the shamanic model of illness can be used to give a coherent approach to treatment planning and brings a sense of order and cohesion to the interventions we use.

Of course this is only a brief introduction to the subject of shamanism in hypnotherapy and anyone who is interested in learning more about these subjects and maybe becoming an accredited practitioner should Contact us for on info@talkingcurestraining.co.uk