How to Use the PCAT Formula in Hypnotic Stories

The PCAT Formula will become a valuable and useful tool for you to utilize once you have practiced and are aware of how to use it in your hypnosis.  It will be valuable in improving your Conversational Hypnosis because it will assist you in being a better story teller. 

To really improve your skills as a hypnotic story teller you must first know all the steps and how to use the PCAT Formula.  As you know the PCAT Formula is most often used to create personal change in a person.  It will assist most in improving an area of their lives such as becoming better at a thing or changing something about themselves.

The PCAT Formula stands for problem, confuse, access resources and transform.  The best way to use this formula is to begin by knowing the change you are attempting to achieve.  Just like in your stories and nested loops you need to determine the outcome that will grow from the work you are doing with an individual.

You will do this by first setting the parameters with the person you are working with.  This entails a time of orientation, get to know the person you are working with and find out about the problem they are attempting to change.

 By getting involved in a general orientation you are establishing the beginnings of rapport and setting up the framework to correct the problem or make the change they are looking for.

After you have gotten a general orientation and are ready to move on the next step will be the actual problem.  As you begin the use of the PCAT Formula you will want to use your stories to get the problem activated within the person you are working with.  Use one of your first stories to bring this problem up and focus on it a little with either a direct or indirect approach. 

The next step will be to cause some confusion.  In this step you will use several different methods in order to confuse the person you are working with so you can get into the realm of their unconscious.  You will use ambiguity in your language to confuse the conscious and send alternate messages and meanings to the unconscious mind. 

You will also use embedded suggestions and the questions of what the problem really means.  These two levels of confusion will begin to break the problem down into pieces that are easier to manipulate and work with.

The fourth step is to activate a resource or resources.  In this step you will use your second story to begin to activate solutions to the problem.  You will often still use a bit of the same confusion you were using in step three, this is mainly to ensure that everything flows together nicely, so it is not noticeable that you were using confusion for a specific reason and then just quit.  This will also allow you to move fluidly into the last step of the PCAT Formula.

Here you will begin your hypnotic induction.  This is part of activating resources in the way as the induction is used to go within the person and really locate the resources you will need for the change to occur.  You will focus on using words repetitively that will draw the attention and instruct the unconscious mind.

The best way to break down the activation of resources is to think of it in layers that you will begin to slowly lay on top of your subject.  The first of those layers is going to be to get them to relax and take it easy.  You will begin a trace process in which relaxation and taking it easy are the common themes.  As you do this these words will begin to become emotional triggers that will start to activate the very resources you are looking for.

The second layer in this step is to begin seeding ideas to your listener.  There are two purposes to this layer and they are to first extract a matching experience from your listener which will cause anticipation to build within them.  The second purpose is to be giving clues as to where the solution they are looking for is going to come from.  This will become your embedded suggestion, you will embed the core concepts of the idea behind the problem you are attempting to solve.

The third resource layer you will add to this list of refinements will be to get inspired when you are going to tell your stories.  Really be excited to give the stories you have chosen to your listener, and always go first.

The fourth and final layer here will be to include an isomorphic metaphor in your series of stories.  An allegory or isomorphic metaphor is a story in which the story itself mirrors the experiences your listener has in relation to the structure of the story you are telling. 

The person you are telling the story to should see some type of resemblance in the story to the ways in which they need to work to create the changes they are searching for.  This is a conclusion they will draw from the unconscious interpretations of your stories, part of the wonder behind stories is that your subjects will never be told exactly what they mean the listener is left to decide for themselves about the meanings. 

Now this may sound like the person may take the incorrect or wrong meaning from a story right?  Well the truth of the matter is that as long as you are good at constructing your stories they will get the right meaning one way or another. 

The conscious mind will create a meaning for the story but the unconscious mind will make more sense of it than the conscious will.  Even when the conscious mind has exhausted all meanings and possibilities the unconscious mind will continue to grow and define the meanings found within the stories.

Finally you will move on to the last step in the PCAT Formula which is to transform.  In this step of PCAT you will continue to layer in resources that will assist in the transformation.  The first of those layers is to embed suggestions.  These are going to be very direct suggestions for the point of the actual transformation.  When embedding these suggestions you will use a soft language that is almost friendly and coaxing. 

You will also want to provide some instruction to your unconscious as to where to find the inspiration it is looking for to carry out the transformation.  You will be amazed as to how much your unconscious mind will carry you through these stories, even making them up on the spot at times.

One last thing you should include in your story telling and the transformation step is to use parallel processes.  This is a form of story that will tell the unconscious mind what to do and where to go but to the conscious mind it sounds as if were just another part of the story you are telling.  You will use this to achieve deeper meanings in the stories you tell.  You can use it to display one deeper meaning to the unconscious or many depending on the story and the outcome you are attempting to achieve. 

Now you have completed the PCAT Formula and you are ready to bring your subject out of trance.  As you do this you will want to set in some future memories about how this will all play out for the person you are hypnotizing.  The future memories and compliments you set at the end will be motivators and will show the unconscious a memory that it will strive to bring to life for the person in hypnosis.  

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