The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist

For people accustomed to traditional talk therapy, hypnosis as a method of healing may seem as uncertain as reading entrails. This book of compelling dialogues with the unconscious, carried forth under hypnosis, should help amend that doubt. It builds from mundane cases of reading problems, adolescent obesity and possessive parents to the high drama of inexplicable blindness, childhood sexual abuse syndromes and seemingly irreversible suicidal tendencies. Calof, the relater of the cases told as psychological narratives, is a hypnotherapist and family relations practitioner in Seattle who collaborated here with Simons (All Children Loving and Confident), and he emerges as a healer of unusual perspicacity and insight, telling gripping tales. Yet the book has problems despite its virtues. In Calof's apparent concern for literary sweep and, possibly, greater accessibility, he neglects to present a sufficient definition of what hypnosis and trance states actually are. And he leaves out the grunting and sweating of therapy, as well as the failures. It's somewhat a case of never letting all the facts get in the way of a good story. Yet the book has considerable value in the way it demonstrates hypnosis revealing the intricacy and powerful self-healing abilities of the human mind. (Oct.)