The Confusion Technique

It is primarily a verbal technique, although pantomime can be used for confusional purposes as well as for communication. As a verbal technique, the Confusion Technique is based upon plays upon words, an involved example of which can be readily understood by the reader but not by the listener, such as "Write right right, not wright or write."

Spoken to attentive listeners with complete earnestness, a burden of constructing a meaning is placed upon them, and before they can reject it, another statement can be made to hold their attention. This play on words can be illustrated in another fashion by the statement that a man lost his left hand in an accident and thus his right (hand) is his left. Thus two words with opposite meanings are used correctly to describe a single object, in this instance the remaining hand. Then, too. Use is made of tenses to keep the subject in a state of constant endeavor to sort out the intended meaning. For example one may declare so easily that the PRESENT and the PAST can be so readily summarized by the simple statement, "That which now IS WILL soon be WAS yesterday's FUTURE even as it WILL BE tomorrow's WAS." Thus are the past, the present, and the future all used in reference to the reality of "today".

The next item in the Confusion Technique is the employment of irrelevancies and non sequiturs, EACH OF WHICH TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT appears to be a sound and sensible communication. Taken IN CONTEXT they are confusing, distracting, and inhibiting and lead progressively to the subjects' earnest desire for an actual need to receive some communication which, in their increasing state of frustration, they can readily comprehend and to which they can easily make a response. It is in many ways an adaptation of common everyday behavior, particularly seen in the field of humor, a form of humor this author has employed since childhood.

A primary consideration in the use of a Confusion Technique is the consistent maintenance of a general casual but definitely interested attitude and speaking in a gravely earnest, intent manner expressive of a certain, utterly complete expectation of their understanding of what is being said or done together with an extremely careful shifting of tenses employed.

Also of great importance is a ready flow of language, rapid for the fast thinker, slower for the slower minded, but always being careful to give a little time for a response but never quite sufficient. Thus the subjects are led almost to begin a response, are frustrated in this by then being presented with the next idea,  and the whole process is repeated with a continued development of a state of inhibition, leading to confusion and a growing need to receive a clear-cut, comprehensible communication to which they CAN MAKE a ready and full response.

VALUE OF CONFUSION TECHNIQUES Amongst my learnings of hypnosis and NLP, two of the most powerful tools I have found available would be "anchors, and the art of controlled confusion. Our membership seems to be most interested in "Covert Methods" of hypnosis. To even begin hypnosis in a covert manner both of these two skills MUST be mastered. What makes these two skills so powerful is the fact they they drive a person "INSIDE" on a "transdiravational search". Remember that term "Transdiravational Search". What is a transdiravational search, it is a search for meaning, which can be interrupted by the operator (hypnotist) with whatever you choose. Anchors are one of the most useful and easiest tools for causing these searches, and the confusion technique is another. This transdiravational search is an automatic trance, it is the basis of the famous "Handshake Technique", and once understood, the hypnotist can learn how to utilize its function. You cannot have Covert hypnosis without it, and with it your possibilities of bringing on profound trances jumps trough the sky. I will be writing much about anchors and the confusion technique with its many varieties throughout the upcoming months. Feel free to play with your friends, but be careful and don't get to carried away. The following is an excerpt from Milton Erickson's "The Nature of Hypnosis" Volume One of the Collected Papers. The values of the confusion technique are twofold. In experimental work it serves excellently to teach experimenter's a facility in the use of words, a mental agility in shifting their habitual patterns of thought, and allows them to make adequate allowances for the problems involved in keeping the subjects attentive and responsive. Also it allows experimentors to learn to recognize and to understand the minimal cues of behavioral changes within the subject. A final value is that long and frequent use of the confusion technique has many times effected exceedinly rapid hypnotic inductions under unfavourable conditions such as acute pain of terminal malignant disease and in persons interested but hostile, aggresive, and resistant.

The following was used by Milton on two separate accounts with different patients. Capitalized words were originally printed in italics indicating tonal markings.

The approach was:

"You KNOW AND I KNOW and the doctors you KNOW KNOW that there is ONE ANSWER that you KNOW that you don't want to KNOW and that I KNOW but don't want to KNOW, that your family KNOWS but doesn't want to KNOW, NO matter how much you want to say NO, you KNOW that the NO is really a YES, and you wish it could be a good YES and so do you KNOW that what you and your family KNOW is YES, yet they still wish it were NO. And just as you wish there were NO PAIN, you KNOW that there is BUT WHAT you DON'T KNOW is NO PAIN is something YOU CAN KNOW. And no matter what you KNEW NO PAIN would be better than what you KNOW and of course WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW is NO PAIN and that is WHAT you are GOING TO KNOW, NO PAIN. [All of this is said slowly but with utter intensity and with seemingly total disregard of any interruption of cries of pain or admonitions of "Shut up".] Esther [John, Dick, Harry, or Evangeline, some family member or friend] KNOWS pain and KNOWS NO PAIN and so do you wish to KNOW NO PAIN but COMFORT and you DO KNOW COMFORT and NO PAIN and as COMFORT INCREASES you KNOW that YOU CANNOT say NO TO EASE AND COMFORT but YOU CAN say NO PAIN and KNOW NO PAIN but YOU CAN say NO PAIN and KNOW NO PAIN but KNOW COMFORT AND EASE and it is SO GOOD to KNOW COMFORT AND EASE AND RELAXATION and to KNOW IT NOW AND LATER and STILL LONGER AND LONGER AS MORE AND MORE RELAXATION occurs and to KNOW IT NOW AND LATER and STILL LONGER AND LONGER AS MORE AND MORE AND MORE RELAXATION AND WONDERMENT AND SURPRISE COME TO YOUR MIND AS YOU BEGIN TO KNOW A FREEDOM AND A COMFORT YOU HAVE SO GREATLY DESIRED AND AS YOU FEEL IT GROW AND GROW YOU KNOW, REALLY KNOW, that TODAY, TO-NIGHT, TOMORROW, ALL NEXT WEEK AND ALL NEXT MONTH, and at Esther's [John's] 16th birthday, and what a time that was, and those WONDERFUL FEELINGS that you had then seem almost as clear AS IF THEY WERE TODAY and the MEMORY OF EVERY GOOD THING is a glorious thing "… (IF YOU THINK THAT WAS TOUGH, YOU SHOULD TRY RE-TYPING IT WITH ONE FINGER) One can improvise indefinitely, but the slow, impressing, utterly intense, and quietly, softly emphatic way in which these plays on words and the unobtrusive introduction of new ideas, old happy memories, feelings of comfort, ease, and relaxation as presented usually results in an arrest of patient's attention, rigid fixation of the eyes, the development of physical immobility, even catalepsy and of an intense desire to understand what the author so gravely and so earnestly is saying to them that their attention is sooner or later captured completely. Then with equal care the operator demonstrates a complete loss of fear, concern, of worry about negative words by introducing them as if to explain but actually to make further helpful suggestions.

Once the patients begin to develop a light trance, I speed the process more rapidly by jumping steps, yet retaining my right to mention pain so that patients know that I do now fear to name it and that I am utterly confident that they will lose it because of my ease and freedom in naming it, usually in a context negating pain in favor of absence of diminution or transformation of pain. Then one should bear in mind that these patients are highly motivated, that their disinterest, antagonism, belligerence, and disbelief are actually allies in bringing about the eventful results, nor does this author ever hesitate to utilize what is offered. The angry, belligerent man can strike a blow that hurts his head and not notice it, the disbeliever closes his mind to exclude a boring dissertation, but that excludes the pain to, and from this there develops unwittingly in the patients a different state of inner orientation, highly conducive to hypnosis and receptive to any suggestion that meets their needs; sensibly one always inserts the suggestion that if ever the pain should come back enough to need medication, the relief from one or two tablets of aspirin will be sufficient. "And if any real emergency ever develops, a hypo will work far greater success than ever." Sometimes sterile water will suffice. Unfortunately this most amazing series of books "The Collected Papers of", seem to no longer be in print, but you might be able to order a used copy through the link below.