Hypnotherapy

The reading of the experiences reported so far allows us to use hypnosis as a key to understanding human events, in particular it underlines how much mental states are the basis of every act of conscience on the part of man, and how from their study there is permission to access the deep domain of experience until yesterday considered inexplicable.

The imprinting we receive in childhood is very important, hypnosis is "learned" as children, the functional setting that we receive, despite its complexity, the cultural imprinting, at the origin of beliefs and ideas, exerts always a control over man.

Ever since homo sapiens developed delusions, massacres, cruelties, adorations, ecstasy, sublimities unknown to the animal world, we have been living in a world of myths, signs and symbols.

Society domesticates individuals who create society, myths and ideologies engulf facts, we are in a world thanks to a method, we depend on the method by which we order the world and the world depends on us who have created and maintain it.

"El camino se hace al andar" Antonio Machado ("The way is made by going", this quote summarizes my work on hypnosis, the interest with which I continue to decline different experiences with the experience of hypnosis, a continuous search for the structure that connects the experiences of living, this is the witness that we leave to all those who wish to follow our training experiences.

“Man can do amazing things if they make sense to him.” Carl Gustav Jung Since for the constructivists every communication, every learning and understanding is in any case the construction and interpretation of the subject who lives the experience, whatever my sources are, whatever school he was able to attend and whatever master he may have been trained by , I, only I bear the responsibility for what is said in this writing of mine. The meaning we give to things and to our lives is screwed to our identity which is nothing more than an attempt to keep us consistent in our uniqueness. I believe that we have a stable idea of ​​ourselves, but stability is only the perception that we have of ourselves, in fact I believe that our identity is a continuous remodeling, on a cultural basis, of our uniqueness.

Heinz von Foerster considered himself more of a systems theory than a scientist and in fact draws a distinction between systems theory and the theory of science in general. The term "science" comes from the Latin "scientia" which contains the Indo-European root "skei": this root refers to activities such as "separate", "distinguish", "take aside". Among the words derived from the root "skei" we find terms such as "schism" or "schizophrenia" and, as Heinz liked to point out, also the term "schifo" (in English shit), something from which one wants to separate oneself, the word "science ” comes from this root because it refers to drawing distinctions between things. Spencer Brown's first law of form says that in order to have knowledge it is necessary to produce a distinction, “Make a distinction.”, while the second law of form says that in order to have knowledge one must remember which distinctions have been made, “Remember which distinctions have been made.” Von Foerster's vision of what science should be is such that it dictates the use of another term, “systemic,” which is concerned with drawing equalities and seeing things as a whole. The concept of systemic allows us to consider the inclusive "ee" logic to the discredit of the exclusive "oo" logic, to include is to see the reference system as a whole, only in this way can we have an ecological overall vision, where the logic is respected of the system. Many times it happens that we follow the story of a person and by limiting ourselves to seeing the detail we enter into an exclusive logic, at that moment we lose sight of the complex meaning of the path, forcibly seeking partial and reductive solutions which, in addition to not providing a solution to the problem, deceive and complicate the search for new solutions.

For the concepts of "separate", "distinguish", "take aside" Heinz von Foerster proposed to replace the complementary terms of "put together", "unify", "identify". These terms of "unification" have a common Greek root, "hen", from which "un", "sin", "sim", which brings us back to the meaning of "one". This is where the word "system" comes from. In the constructivist vision, Logic has changed a system is something that we put together, we build the system because we see it and distinguish it from the rest, Heinz von Foerster proposes to use the term "systemic" as a structure of thought complementary to scientific thought that , through putting together allows you to share a reality that otherwise is only supposed to be so, remaining partial and limited. The "autos" indicates the autonomy of the self. The individual computes the information of his environment to protect himself from dangers and to take advantage of them for his survival, in order to improve his own viability. But his autonomy can never be total, the increase in personal independence on the one hand corresponds to an increase in dependence on the other. The solution is not to choose either independence or dependence, but it is a solution to consider both independence and dependence, where at different moments one is both. “The more autonomous being becomes, the more complex it is, and the more this complexity depends on the eco-organizing complexities that feed it” Edgar Morin. So if animals have locomotion, they pay the price with a greater need to feed. But what price does man's self-organizing complexity pay? Ambiguity, inconsistencies and paradoxes are the limits of human complexity, we simply lose the "tripartite" or "triunique" structure of our brain, the complexity is clear when there are three different parts in us with different functions and tasks. The "reptilian" brain, an ancient structure present in every animal from the oldest reptiles to man, the main purpose of which is the survival of the individual. The "mammal" brain, a cerebral structure possessed by all mammals, including man, with the main purpose of promoting the maintenance and growth of the species. The "neurocortical" brain, the evolved part of the human brain, has the main purpose of anticipating and predicting events through calculation, inductive and deductive logic and cognitive intuition. According to Feuerbach, a German philosopher who lived from 1804 to 1872, when a subject enters into an essential and necessary relationship with an object, this means that this object is the very essence of the subject. Human feeling is in a necessary relationship with God: God is therefore nothing other than the objectified essence of man. Religion is the objectification of man's needs and aspirations, their projection into an entity which is considered independent of man and in which these aspirations are fully realized. In religion it is man who makes God in his own image and likeness, not vice versa, 'It is not God who creates man, but man who creates the idea of ​​God' Feuerbach affirms: when knowledge is attributed to God or infinite love, in reality it is meant to express the infinity of man's cognitive possibilities and love. In God and in his attributes man can therefore see his needs and desires as objectified and, therefore, know them. Feuerbach concludes by saying: "Religion is the first, indirect, awareness that man has of himself". I consider the order of thought expressed by Feuerbach very interesting, the projective logic identifying man is simple and clear, as structurally fed by the very structure of our brain, mirror neurons are simple structures that feed functional learning through replicative automatisms on the basis of identification with the other. By imagining the guide animal, the individual imagines himself carrying within himself, in an identification and identification process, all the useful qualities perceived in the animal itself. With his book: "The truth is the invention of a liar", von Foerster intends to underline the processes of change towards new paradigms of science. In fact, what was "scientific truth" once proved susceptible to modifications and even false constructions. Constructions, this is precisely the key concept, a new way of seeing reality and therefore also knowledge: “I have always considered science as an activity, creating science” Heinz von Foerster. Science is a great story that we believe. A generous story in whose order many advantages are intertwined, but these advantages also bring with them the limits of the story itself that we tell ourselves, changing logic also means combining this story. Von Foerster questions what is real, the concept of truth, as the father of Constructivism, Heinz, asserts that reality is nothing more than the shared construction of the meaning of the inputs received from the environment that our senses transmit to us. Our senses do not depict any representation of reality as it is in the central nervous system that the stimuli perceived as electrical impulses are calculated which, through language, we translate into elements of sense and therefore meaning. The meaning we give to stimuli must be shared by others with whom we decide what is true and what is real: "... a hypothesis, which is right for A and B, can only be acceptable if it is also valid for A and B together” Heinz von Foerster. Von Foerster's truth, therefore, is not to believe those who claim to be the holder of truth, and paradoxically this is Heinz von Foerster's truth: "The truth is the invention of a liar". But this would mean that von Foerster is also, like Parmenides, a liar, but if he is a liar he tells the truth and if he tells the truth he is not a liar, and if he is not a liar his statement is true, but if it is true it is, therefore, a liar and so on. Here is another important "truth" of von Foerster, which in addition to being a paradox, is a thought that applies to itself, also called autological.

Complexity is a paradigm shift as Edgar Morin suggests, both of Hypnosis the epistemology of representation and that of construction; from the point of view of objective evidence to the point of view of pertinence ...... irreversibility as typical of dynamically complex systems; from the cybernetics of observed systems to the cybernetics of observing systems; from a point of view of linear to circular causality; from internal complexity to external complexity ….. the complexity is not in nature but in the code, in the whole system, not in the simple observed system, but in the conjunction of the observed system and the observing one, in which the choices, the purposes, the ends of the observer, to put into a trance it is necessary to go into a trance, this experience gives a good idea of ​​reciprocity in the end and in the purpose; we must pass from a point of view of control and forecasting to a point of view of play, of interaction, as Gregory Bateson suggests, where there are the constraints of the events and the strategies of the players, the boundaries, the figure and the background together with defining reality, the hypnotist and the hypnotist who exchange mental states, where in this reality they build new scenarios, new borders, exchanges take place there, knowledge takes place there. I believe that life simply takes place behind the scenes, we can only watch the comedy from the spectator side, everything that happens beyond the scenario of which we are aware we cannot know it, there it is the unconscious that chooses and decides, leaving us enjoy the show.

All therapy is nothing more than an attempt to produce a change by disturbing a system, I believe in the wisdom of those who suggest simplicity, hereafter the first of von Foerster's imperatives, a man who as a scientist knew how to tame complexity with a vision simple of things, his ethical imperative says: "Act in such a way as to increase the possibilities of choice" "My opinion is: morality is explicit, ethics should remain implicit, it should be woven into the actions of the individual .” Heinz von Foerster. The ethical position considers the awareness that reality is invented and that this invention takes place in the relationship, in the context, within a common unit of people. Our responsibility, resulting from having highlighted a reality, means that our consideration, and consequently our actions, do not remain in an empty space but are surrounded by logical consequences, we undertake to provide reasons in favor of us that we say and do, indeed we are obliged to keep everything in a single explanatory and justification coherence of every fact of our life, only in this way can we maintain our identity. The second imperative, the aesthetic imperative, suggested by von Foerster: "If you want to see, learn to act". This aesthetic imperative, as well as recalling responsibility for one's choices, highlights the fact of having to act if one wants to build possibilities, the senses, the aesthetics serve to orient ourselves in building reality, but the senses are responsible for the construction of our reality they are unreliable since they are sensitive to expectations, to prophecies.

I think it could be useful to go back to considering the science of control, cybernetics, as a basis for understanding awareness. “Cybernetics is the science of regulating and transmitting information in living beings and machines”. Norbert Wiener. “Cybernetics as an information science”. Stafford Beer.

“Cybernetics as gnosology that deals with the generation of knowledge through communication”. Warren McCulloch. Top-notch cybernetics separates subject from object, there is a reality out there and it is characterized by linear processes, everything is attributed or attributable to a logic of cause and effect. But Wittgenstein reminds us that the logic of cause and effect is a great superstition, there is therefore a need for cybernetics, and therefore a second-order knowledge, the one created by von Foerster, is a circular knowledge, in this knowledge we know each other and we become part of that world that is observed. We therefore pass from a cybernetics of observed systems to a cybernetics of observing systems, von Foerster demonstrates. From a cybernetic where the systems tend to homeostasis, to maintain their own profile, to a cybernetic where the systems are constantly changing, in the making. We pass from a logic where the interaction with one's environment is unidirectional to one where the interaction with the environment is reciprocal and reflexive. We move from a logic where the organization of the listening subject remains separate from the organization of the listener, to a logic where we speak of the organization of the organization, a self-organization of the system that is created between the client and the hypnotist , Counselor. Only at a second-order level is the possibility of self-reflection formed, a place beyond the confines of the simple and the obvious. It is essential that the observer/listener becomes responsible for his own observation/listening.

Second-order cybernetics is that of non-trivial machines, that of living systems, language, paradoxes, circular logic, while first-order cybernetics is that of trivial machines, non-living systems, mathematical logic, logic linear. The difference between "trivial machines" and "non-trivial machines" can be summarized in this scheme: Trivial machines Synthetically determined (logic, mathematics, complication) Independent of history (time is indifferent to them) Analytically determinable (they obey logic) Predictable (they undergo cause and effect) Non-trivial machines Synthetically indeterminate (they are complex systems) Dependent on history (they change, grow, evolve) Analytically indeterminable (logic does not contain them) Unpredictable (unexpected, incomprehensible, unknown, impossible) the moment one says “it is”, everything stops, one becomes omnipotent, because “it is” is the truth. In this modern age, we know what the truth is, the truth lies in being”. von Foerster.

Man being a non-trivial machine, he is always in question, therefore always in flux. Constantly changing as is the environment that surrounds him, with which he interacts. And when a system stops evolving, it freezes, to the point that the system dies. When you work with the family system you recognize the problem, human systems are sick when they are blocked, a blocked system dies. The lack of freedom, the non-possibility of choices, and the lack of action, impasse, generate the end, the death of life. The assumption of constructivism is that everything we perceive is nothing but large quantities of electrical impulses which are computed in the human brain, "the world contains no information .... The nervous system transforms the neuronal signals into other neuronal signals… Computing means considering things together” von Foerster, this is how it was decided to call these artificial machines “computers”, machines which put together the impulses arriving inside the their circuits. “Perception is nothing that we should take as a guarantee. It is based on the interaction between the distinction and the connection that we have to fix all the time. The whole process is highly influenced by expectations.” von Foerster.

“However, knowledge as experience is something personal and private that cannot be transferred, and what is believed to be transferable, that is, objective knowledge, must always be created by the listener: the listener understands, and objective knowledge seems transferred only if he is prepared to understand. Thus cognition as a biological function is such that the answer to the question 'What is cognition?' it must arise from understanding knowledge and the knower through the latter's ability to know.” Humberto Maturana, in Biology of knowledge. Unfortunately, self-referential concepts are complex, they cannot be reduced, I believe we must accept the complexity and limits of knowledge and language, the limit is that we cannot ignore what we are and what we believe we are to say who we are and how we live , so it happens that we live from the stories that we tell ourselves and that we trust, so we die from the stories that we tell ourselves and that we believe in. This is why I love listening to people's stories, their lives, their needs, their desires, in which I often find myself, I like to think that reality is equivalent to sharing, we think in the idea of ​​reality and we live in the sense common just like that...

Hypnosis is a state of consciousness characterized by a mental state, which is placed between wakefulness and sleep, called trance or state of hypnosis, which allows to influence the psychic, somatic and visceral conditions of a person through a relationship between this (client) and another person (hypnotist) or that he himself can create through self-hypnosis.

The mental state is a balance between thoughts and sensation, each mental state has its own memory,
memory is a dependent mental state, the world of mental states is a world that needs a METHOD (journey, path) in order to be approached, Edgar Morin is able to orient us through the METHOD.

In this mental state there is a reduction of critical abilities, an increase in conviction, persuasion and suggestibility and a limitation of the field of awareness to only the requests suggested by the hypnotist.

The person regresses to infantile levels of mental functioning and behavior, characterized by phenomena of ideoplasia and monoideism, i.e. the transformation into subjective and objective reality of what is intensely imagined, transforming the idea into action, movement, remaining focused on a single idea at a time.

Hypnosis comes from ancient times through the magical religious practices that have always accompanied man in his history, the first phase in the history of hypnosis, but was introduced in Europe by Mesmer in 1779 with a first work created to better explain the operations to be performed during medical treatment, writing the essay: Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal (Memory on the discovery of animal magnetism, 1779).

Mesmer hypothesized that he possessed a magnetic fluid and that he could pass it on to his patient, with him Braid, another doctor of the time, who proposed a neurological interpretation with the method of verbal induction.

Indeed, proximity and physical contact with the patient were the reasons for the neuro-physiological activation noted in their patients by the doctors.

Subsequently, Charcot devoted himself first to the specific study of hypnosis, who distinguished its stages (lethargy, catalepsy and somnambulism), noting the organic modifications relating to muscle tone and reflex movements, and later also Freud who used the hypnosis, in the therapy of hysteria, following the cathartic method, consisting in making the emotional charge flow away or abreact, preventing it from seeking abnormal ways of outlet through the manifestation of symptoms. This technique was later abandoned in favor of psychoanalysis, as he thought, erroneously, that this state of semi-consciousness must be profound and therefore did not allow the patient to elaborate his own psychic experience, while a medium trance was enough, easily obtainable with each subject, in order to obtain the activation of the mental potential.

Hypnosis from this psychological phase was then linked to the path of neuroscience and in particular to the work of Pavlov who in the treatment of traumatized patients, leading them to regress at the moment of trauma, accidentally discovered the importance of emotions in the processes of psychic rebalancing, emotions allow you to erase memories and make room in the mind.

The last phase in the history of hypnosis was consummated with the new hypnosis and the work of Milton Erickson who laid the foundations, approaching, with naturalistic hypnosis, the particular idea that hypnosis does not exist because everything it is hypnosis.

The evolution of hypnosis from my point of view then continued leaning on neuroscience, and as regards the work carried out in our school, the idea of ​​combining hypnosis with constructivism, philosophical precursor of the work of neuroscience, keeping to underline the work of the brain as an emulation of reality, mental activity, immanent and not transcendent to the environment in which it is found, is at the basis of all the constructive processes of thought, including the process of identification in personal identity.

There are two forms related to hypnosis treatment: hypnotherapy (psychotherapy under hypnosis through meditative and contemplative experiences, role-playing, dramatizations), and hypnoanalysis (psychological analysis path through free associations, keywords, dream analysis, regressive and progressive experiences).

Hypnosis is currently a technique that is used as a research tool on the psycho-physio-biological modalities with which the mind-body interaction takes place, in particular by combining hypnosis and the placebo effect thus creating a new term of reference “hypnobobe”; and furthermore as a means of psychotherapeutic intervention as a methodology which makes use of the activation of the person's mental potential, in favor of the organization of his internal world (structuring and rebalancing the subject's unconscious world).

The neurological and organic basis of hypnosis seems to reside at the level of the central nervous system in differentiated structures (different parts of the brain connected to each other by specific creative connections), new synaptic and neurohormonal connections to form functional neuronal groups
different, integrated through a learning system facilitated by the state of hypnosis and by the lowering of criticism.

The cerebral cortex, the hypothalamic fronto-limbic system, the ascending reticular activating substance and its specialized pontine nuclei (especially the locus coeruleus) are certainly involved in the hypnotic process.

Hypnosis is mediated by communicative contents which are convictions, followed by persuasions, up to suggestions, which can be proposed by the hypnotist or self-induced by the subject.

The suggestion can be expressed verbally and/or non-verbally and be direct, i.e. recognized by the subject as addressed to his conscious part, or indirect, as in the Ericksonian hypnotic method, i.e. addressed to his unconscious and not understood part.

The ideoplastic (ideomotor) monoideism therefore transforms the word from thought into lived, thus starting the hypnotic process.

The hypnotic trance is induced according to various procedures, the most common of which consists in inviting the patient to stare at a point in front of him, then asking him to close his eyes and subsequently suggesting a state of profound tiredness.

The dynamic aspects that characterize hypnotic induction are regressive:

a) the reduction of sensory afferents, limiting the field of awareness, since in the absence of sensory stimulation the person tends to hallucinate, create with the mind, to keep his cortex under the influence of continuous stimulation (focusing);

b) limitation of movement, to reduce realistic contact with the outside world, through associations of relaxation, loss of awareness, sleep (implications);

c) manipulation of attention, which transfers the subject's attention to his own inner mental functions (dissociation);

d) repetitive or imposing stimuli which, by depleting the available attention, the mind is able to keep 7+or- 2 pieces of information under control at the same time, produce ideational impoverishment (intensification).

The point of arrival of induction is represented by the hypnotic state, which is characterized by a modification of the function of the ego, in which ideas are replaced by visual and acoustic images, and by a hypnotic transference with the hypnotist, in which the attention becomes selective and the subject listens only to the hypnotist's voice and commands, assuming unusual tones and roles such as the simulation of behaviors of regressed age or impersonating the behavior of other people.

The hypnotic state can reach different levels of depth, each of which presents different symptoms (signals), torpor, cataleptic phenomena (blocks) of short duration, light sleep with catalepsy, deep sleep, contractures, suggestive analgesia and discrete amnesia, automatic obedience with deeper amnesia, positive hallucinability (subject sees things that are not there), somnambulism and spontaneous complete amnesia, negative hallucinability (subject does not see things that are there) during trance and for activity favored by post hypnotic messages.

In the use of hypnosis, the methods of application of hypnosis in the psychotherapy field can be various. First, it can be referred to as a relaxation technique, as some neurophysiological reactions of the trance state portray the state of anxiety away from it.

Another use is in behavior, with destructuring interventions on negative behaviors, restructuring more appropriate behaviors in their place.

It can also be used in hypnoanalysis, analyzing the analytic material that emerged during the state of hypnotic trance. In the clinical setting, hypnosis is useful in the treatment of neurasthenic neurotic syndromes and hypochondriasis. It can also be useful in somatoform disorders and in the various forms of somatic (hysterical paralysis, aphasia, pseudosyncopal or pseudoepileptic manifestations, dysphagia, dizziness syndromes, intestinal disorders) or psychic conversion (hysterical neuroses, amnesia, twilight states, psychomotor arrests); moreover, it is useful in the psychogenic forms of post-traumatic stress syndromes, in ganseriform syndromes and in pseudodementia.

Other fields of use of hypnosis are anxiety and phobic neuroses, habit control, obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, smoking.

Particular difficulty in hypnotic treatment occurs in psychotic patients and in particular with patients subject to decompensation of the dissociative type (schizophrenic).

Hypnotic anesthesia is of great help, for example, in plastic surgery operations, where, for example, skin flap grafting must be followed by weeks of immobility. During the operations there is an advantage for the hypnotized patient, compared to the narcotized one, because it can facilitate the work of the surgeon during the operation.

Furthermore, the use of hypnosis shortens the post-operative course, prevents pain and vomiting and promotes healing. Balanced anesthesia is sometimes very useful, where pharmacological anesthesia is preceded by hypnosis which multiplies its effectiveness, in these terms it is also used in the dental field and sometimes, for short interventions, to replace the anesthetic same.

Over the years, there have been many surgical operations carried out in a sleepwalking state (appendectomy, herniectomy, tonsillectomy, dental, ophthalmological, obstetric operations); upon awakening there was complete amnesia for the event and a good post-operative course.

The neurophysiological and psychological mechanisms at the basis of hypnotic analgesia are not yet fully understood, it is thought that the intellectual and emotional psychological procedures have the possibility of influencing the balance of the synapses of the nerve centers where peripheral sensory centripetal and central centrifugal stimuli converge; in this sense, the conduction and perception of pain would be modified, in a partially conscious way, through a continuous interaction between excitation and inhibition.

Hence, with hypnotic induction, a perceptive alteration is obtained, i.e. the suppression of the emotional-affective components of pain and the consequent indifference of the subject due to the central elimination of the limbo-hypothalamic circuits involved in the processes of affective kinesthetic integration.

In pain control there is also an interpretation linked to biochemistry which foresees how the brain in hypnosis, or during particular alternative states of consciousness, is able to stimulate the production of endorphins, morphine-like substances which neutralize the painful stimulus.

The work and experience in the field of hypnosis has allowed us to develop an acronym in our School of Constructivist Hypnosis DO YOU TRUST ME which allows you to establish the points to take into consideration during an induction with Constructivist Hypnosis, Hypnotic Trance states can be generated with 4 inductions and four different hypnotic methodologies:

T therapist (trance)

I hypnotized (hypnosis)

F focus (displacement in time and space)

I intensification (increase/decrease of a sensation)

D dissociation (orientation to the unconscious internal world)

I implication (association, cause and effect, if X then Y)

D descriptions used by both the hypnotist and the hypnotist I standard or pre-structured inductions by the hypnotist

M handling aware of the reference subject also through physical contact

E elicitation, bring out a new desired mental state

So briefly below are all the steps of the hypnotic trance state with another reference acronym SEMOLTAFEDE:

SE synchronism emotional in the relationship with the patient/client

MO monoidea reference suggested by the hypnotist

L limitation of the perceptual field of awareness for the client

T trance hypnosis obtained with the methodology of the chosen hypnotic practice

A activation of the client's creative mental potential, as a consequence of the induced trance

FE phenomenology observable from the outside, signs of trance in progress

DE detrance as a gradual return to the client's waking state guided by the hypnotist

In these two simple acronyms all our attention to Constructivist Hypnosis and the development over time of a pragmatic approach to hypnosis, using all that is Hypnosis and Constructivism

Gregory Bateson

Human life is a continuous succession of choices and decisions that continuously orient and condition us, but with what yardstick do we proceed in life, what guides us in our choices?

Heinz von Glasersfield, a scholar of human-animal communication, and of mechanical translation has developed his model of radical constructivism according to which ontology must be renounced.

Ernest von Glasersfeld

It contests the idea that human knowledge must pursue a true and objective representation of a world that already exists "in itself" since to demonstrate such a truth it would be necessary to compare each knowledge with that part of reality that it should represent, which is not possible since for to make this comparison, one would have to know reality as it was before going through the operations of the observing subject, in other words one would require a comparison between one thing that is known and another that is not knowable.

He is convinced, and our School of Constructivist Hypnosis with him, that the concepts we use to "handle" the world of our experience are the result of our constructive activity, during which we apply a negative selection (principle of viability) , eliminating everything that is not needed or does not work, so that what remains in the end is suitable, usable or, as he prefers to say, "viable", that is viable.

The choices in life therefore would pass from the sieve of utility and feasibility to give space to a choice that is useful to the subject and viable, recently a film by Woody Allen entitled: "As long as it works" in a witty but witty way highlights the functional utility of our choices, continually looking for a principle of viability.

Life is a cognitive process: to live is to know and to know is to live. It is through the cognitive process, which arises from individual experience, that every living being generates its own world, we all live in a cognitive Domain and communicate through our linguistic Domain, we are the story we tell ourselves Humberto Maturana and Francisco suggest Varela.

Lived experience is the starting point of all knowledge and man carries out his own experiences through his own body with a specific structure, experience is the cause and the world is the consequence.

Different subjects respond differently to the same stimulus and the response will be determined by the way in which the observer is structured, each knowledge brings with it a set of assumptions that cannot leave us neutral, knowledge obliges.

It is the structure of the observer that determines how it will behave and not the information received.

Information itself has no existence or meaning other than what the system with which it interacts attributes it, therefore information cannot have an objective existence and since the principle of objectivity is intrinsic to the conventional meaning of the term information, we conclude that there is no information.

In this sense it is arbitrary to distinguish the subject from his life, each subject lives through a continuous relationship between himself and the rest, gradually finding the most "viable" path with respect to his needs, not being able to ignore his own internal structure, "how we are made".

In therapy there is a reorganization phenomenon, in particular with the use of hypnosis the subject agrees to use a creative approach to thinking, the new experiences resulting from this creative approach make possible a new relationship with the world and life, substantially changing the approach changes the entire adaptation process.

We essentially believe that life is faced through its viable aspect, we perceive, therefore we recognize and use simultaneously in every cognitive process.

Since our adaptive map does not allow us to adapt to life, we need a new adaptive process, a creative process, which allows us to do so.

Intelligence is closely linked to the creative process, intelligence creates a new reality for us and keeps it stable, and this is done continuously but our consciousness does not control, or owns, the mental structure, it only owns the use-fruit, we are not the owners of our brain, we live solely on its usufruct.

Using hypnosis means advancing a creative process that changes the relationship we have with the world, it goes without saying that any new, therefore creative, approach should be favored in a process of change until a new balance is reached.

The system is perturbed until a new viable, practicable map is obtained for the subject.

Here the essence of the Hypnotic Constructivist approach. knows to this day of effective in the practice of hypnotic trance.

Relational skills

Heinz von Foerster

Each individual has his own relational competence which allows him, on the basis of his own life experiences, to build meaningful relationships with other people. Time, experiences, knowledge bring continuous improvements in our personal method with which we build our relationships. the period of life in which we mostly set up our relational modality is the adolescent period during which, through comparison and hypothetical deductive intelligence, we develop our skills.

But there are no truths, only relationships that open up to the discourse of Heinz von Foerster's ethical and aesthetic principles:

Ethical principle: increase the possibilities of choice

Aesthetic principle: if you want to know some act

Both the experience of hypnosis, and any experience of helping, professional or occasional, is based on the development of a significant relationship, learning this skill necessarily passes through the mental state of learning which is equivalent to the state of trance or of hypnosis, in which criticism is lowered and one "regresses" to that phase of our life in which we learned and knew ourselves, a child phase for all experiences of concrete intelligence, doing things "process", an adolescent phase for experiences of abstract intelligence, to describe and be aware of “form” experiences.

The whole relationship experience develops on these two levels, on the one hand we learn concretely how to behave, on the other hand we become aware of how we behave by creating gentle, polite, strong, directive, gentle, loving, imperious, despotistic ways, flattering, acceptable, heartfelt, lovable, assertive, timely, friendly, interested, disinterested, unique, practical, diplomatic, fake, authentic….. to relate to others.

Hypnosis starts from these concrete relational skills, only partially known, and develops, with the progress of the complete training experience, to give us a conscious relational skill with which we can be interested in others.

Constructivist Hypnosis beyond the suggestive phenomenon: Autobiographical Method from the deep Self to the Core Self.

In view of the fact that language users achieve a high degree of linguistic compatibility with members of their own group, they often find themselves believing that the words they use really refer to objects in the real world, and that, consequently, they language can provide a description of things that goes beyond the sphere of individual experience. The implicit reasoning that leads to this illusion is something like this: if many refer to the same things, consequently things must be considered real. But all of this overlooks the way each language user constructs meanings, and that these meanings must be adapted to others' use of words, and, therefore, modified in the practice of segmenting and commenting on experience.

Ernst von Glasersfeld. Radical Constructivism: A way of learning & knowing.

What makes a hypnotic experience unique and unrepeatable is the intention, beyond any Technique or Method used, it is the intention that orients us, makes us effective, allows us to bring all of ourselves into the experience, during a induction or a hypnotic deduction are moments of chance, but what guides us is forever our intentionality.

What I'm going to say about hypnosis is my point of view, I chose from the beginning to understand the hypnotic phenomenon on a scientific model, not because other models aren't equally valid, but because the scientific community is the larger group of people sharing the same ideal, and the same rules of the game.

I started my personal experience in the field of hypnosis almost by chance, it happened to me during a training week to make a theoretical demonstration on a girl, a student of the training course in which I was a teacher, I knew hypnosis but still didn't know it. 'I had ever faced directly and quickly, on that occasion at the beginning of the week this girl in a deep state of trans catalectic, it was incredibly successful, word spread and I found myself being the protagonist of a unique event that surprised myself probably more than the others.

I insist on the intentional ability that we possess to let ourselves be guided by our desire and our will in reaching the goal, on an unconscious level our whole person is oriented in this direction the particular thing is that we remain and attacked, even beyond our consciousness , from this deep intention that we carry within us. For this reason I insist that the intention that creates the opportunity that generates change in you as an operator, and in the person you work with.

My theoretical studies, at the end of my university career, were based on a degree thesis: "Epistemological developments of second cybernetics", an experience where I understood that it is not the single individual but the relationship, it is through the relationship with the other that we direct our intentions and bring about the useful changes to the hypnotic experience.

I leave some points that serve as a basis in considering the epistemology and ontology of constructivist hypnosis, they are theoretical principles that guide the understanding of the constructivist hypnotic experience. By epistemology I mean the critical study of the nature and limits of scientific knowledge, with particular reference to the logical structures and methodology of the sciences; in recent decades, due to the influence of the corresponding English term, the word is increasingly used to designate the general theory of knowledge, therefore, epistemology. By ontology I mean the philosophical doctrine relating to the universal characteristics of beings, corresponding to the 'first philosophy' of the more mature Aristotle, later called 'metaphysics': it is traditionally considered the foundation of every objectivist system, and I can add that in analytic philosophy, ontology it is the theory that establishes the criteria for the existence of certain entities starting from a formal language. As Bateson says, access and form are the two components of an event, the process is the becoming of an action, the form is the conscious description of the action taken. We live in a process, life, denoted by a form, the story we tell ourselves, Autobiography, in which we know we have a life, process, and we live through a story, the narration of the lived process. Sometimes it happens that the Autobiography, built through memory and language, the shape we give of our life, guides the very process of living, as George Kelly says: "we are psychologically channeled by the way we anticipate events" we are the best our own prophets.

Principle constructivism argues that reality is not a discovery, but a construction, our brain is a perfect emulator of reality, a reality in which we find ourselves living and which we consider true. It was easy for me to move from constructivism to hypnosis, it was the work of Albert Ellis who defined the first step on the beliefs and convictions that determine part of individual identity, starting from the hierarchical vision of identity for Gregory Bateson, we simply possess the he identity of doing and being, the identity of salt is made up of actions, behaviours, strategies. In the hierarchy to guide our actions, behaviors and strategies, and the identity of being, convictions, beliefs, values, mission, these ingredients that motivate and guide our actions.

The personal constructs defined as correlates of George Kelly's thought in his work: «The researcher man», are the basis of my concept of Constructivist Hypnosis, they are connected to the work Albert Ellis who founded rational emotional therapy (RET), which subsequently It became rational-emotional behavior therapy (REBT), because it works on the interplay between cognitions, emotions, and behavior.

The main assumptions of the REBT can be summarized in the following points:

the way we feel (emotionally) and the way we behave derive from what we think;

* an illogical, distorted, irrational way of thinking generates emotional and behavioral problems;

* emotional and behavioral problems can be overcome by replacing irrational thoughts with rational thoughts.

Albert Ellis, has devised a scheme that allows us to identify the irrational ideas from which suffering derives. The scheme he proposed is called ABC and is divided as follows:

A (Adversities and Activating Experiences): everything that interacts (negatively or not) with the achievement of our goals. For example: being left by your partner, being fired, getting hurt, etc.

B (Beliefs, credenti o critical beliefs): the ideas that people develop with respect to the situation that has occurred and can be:

Rational: usually solutions that boil down to preferences and wishes that the As's don't happen. For example: "if I care about this relationship, some behaviors need to be changed"; "it would be appropriate not to be fired and even if it happens I am able to identify solutions", "I should take better care of my health".

Irrational: These are claims that As's absolutely must not happen. For example: "nobody can afford to leave me, if my partner did it means that he is a bad person", "I must not be fired and, if that happens, it means that I am a worthless person", "I like smoke, so it's intolerable for me to stop doing it."

C (Consequences): these are the consequences of the Bs and can be:

Sane: these are behaviors and emotions that derive from rational Bs. For example: “if my relationship is over it means we weren't compatible, so I find something different for me”; "I'm sorry I was fired, I'm trying to look for something else", "I'll have to take better care of my lifestyle to improve my health".

Pathological: are behaviors and feelings that derive from irrational B. For example: "I was left, you have to pay!"; "I was fired so I'm a nobody", "I smoke and I can't help it".

Bateson in his considerations on human identity considers the concept of mind in a complex way, as the sum of parts that make up the individual, I simplify them into three parts Psycho Bío Emotive, each person has a body, a biological brain, a brain Emotional, Core Central Consciousness, a Cognitive Brain, an Autobiographical Self. Bateson specifies six criteria of the concept of mind:

(a) "A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components";

(b) "Interaction between parts of the mind is activated by difference";

(c) «The mental process requires a collateral energy»;

(d) «Mental process requires circular (or more complex) chains of determination»

(e) «In the mental process the effects of difference must be considered as transformed (that is, codified versions) of the difference that preceded them»;

(f) «The description and classification of these transformation processes reveal a hierarchy of logical types immanent in the phenomena».

Bateson claims that any system that satisfies all criteria of mind is inherently epistemological. It is in this sense that Bateson argues that the Creature, the world of the living, constitutes a coherent and organized mind that processes information, the totality of Creature (planetary ecology) and each of its components (individual organism, interactive systems, ecosystems, etc.) are equipped with mental processes. The Creature, in all its manifestations, is mind. Thus Bateson insists that the fundamental characteristic of living systems is that
they possess the ability to know, think and decide. Convinced that the world of Creatures is intrinsically epistemological, Bateson gives his only possible answer to a fundamental philosophical question by stating that the knowledge of each individual organism is «a small part of a larger integrated knowledge that holds together the entire biosphere or creation ». Thus, for Bateson, biology and ecology are epistemology; all that lives is, in its essence, mental and epistemological.

Bateson asserts that character structure should be understood as «a set of assumptions or habitual premises and, in particular, that it is «a web of epistemological and ontological premises» which determines the way in which a person understands the surrounding world and relates to it:

physicist» Gregory Bateson. «In the natural history of the human being, ontology and epistemology cannot be separated. His (usually unconscious) beliefs about the world around him (i.e., his ontological premises) will determine his way of seeing it (i.e., his epistemological premises) and acting in it, and his way of perceiving and acting (i.e. his epistemological premises) will determine his beliefs about the nature of the world (that is, his ontological premises). Living man is therefore imprisoned in a web of epistemological and ontological premises. It is inconvenient to always refer to epistemology and ontology together, and on the other hand it is wrong to think that they can be separated in the context of natural history… Therefore I will use the single term «epistemology» to designate both aspects of the plot of premises that govern adaptation (and maladaptation) to the human and physical environment» Gregory Bateson.

Intelligence and consciousness are two inseparable, unique experiences, united by the experience of the mental state, a balance between perceptions, sensations, emotions and thoughts, intelligence allows us to anticipate events, consciousness and the basis of any process of knowledge and learning , consciousness and intelligence are the basis of the hypnotic process.

Hypnosis As a Technique and Constructivist Hypnosis as a Method

Any experience hypnotic and created by a relationship, the experiences I note that are inductive or deductive, both are part of a dance that creates a hypnotic state, the punctuation that is given in considering one individual as a Northerner and the other as hypnotized, is arbitrary , any punctuation, as a distinction, generates different contents and contexts, each content is understandable only if the context is understood, the context of the hypnotic experience and in the relationship is not single individuals, for this reason every hypnotic experience at moments in which we induce, and moments in which we infer experience.

The hypnotic Trance: it is a transfer of the individual from his Beliefs / Convictions, the area of ​​personal criticism, the living environment of the people, the certainties, through the Logic shared by the people with shared assumptions and axioms, until reaching the 'Imaginary/Hypnosis, the area of ​​personal creativity, where the resources for change are found.

In direct suggestive hypnosis it relies on the desire to be protagonist, on the curiosity in losing consciousness, it is perhaps the most fascinating experience of hypnosis for the observer, the one who receives the induction often doesn't have much to remember, falls into a particular state of limited consciousness, in which some areas of his brain are deactivated leaving him in a very particular limbo, being brought into play in front of an audience galvanizes people who are inclined to focus the experience on them, the techniques, the novelties, the surprises count work mainly on shock, confusion, non sequitur, speed, pattern breaking, the so-called Paternal, directive hypnosis uses the structures of our ancient brain, the basic Self, the reptilian brain, the paternal techniques they also find basic physiological techniques, such as Tersicoretrans, a rotation technique on one's own axis with forced breathing, carotid massage, eyeball messages, physical techniques for the invasion of the personal and intimate area. And directive techniques were predominantly used by doctors, they are predominantly authoritarian, impose strict guidance with precise, immediate commands, work very well with simple mentalities, easy to command, less creative, impose a climate of terror and fear, and therefore trigger us a primal reaction.

In hypnosis therapy things are different it doesn't count the technique you use but the Method you know, building a path together with the person who needs help, entering a climate of collaboration through an initial synchronism, a classic modeling on 'other making him feel at ease, following everything he says and what he does. The key to starting a therapeutic hypnotic treatment is listening, active listening as Carl Rogers taught us, in repeating words and concepts that the person expresses, and active listening as suggested by Milton Erickson with the indirect hypnosis, based substantially on the targeted use of non-verbal and para-verbal language, using everything that the client brings, considering all the resources he possesses before the limits he brings with him.

As an example of Hypnotherapy I bring our Psycho Bio Emotional method, which I developed and conceptualized, the result of a complex and particular work, listening, understanding, deductive hypnosis, and intervention, using continuous contact with the memories of the body, the connected emotional memories , in addition to the narration that the person brings with him, his story.

The Hypnotic Method like the Psychobioemotional Method in the field of the helping relationship has nothing particular or spectacular, it is just an experience where active listening counts a lot and therefore deductive hypnosis more than the classic inductive hypnosis, with use focused on hypnotic techniques, a naturalistic trance as Milton Erickson taught us, conversational, in its natural colloquial modality, The PBE Hypnotic Method (Psychobioemotional) seems simple and seems to understand it immediately, three parts, physical body, perceptions and memories of the body, sensations , emotions and memories, cognitive intelligence, language and memories, but the Method has to do with life which is a complex thing as you know ... the techniques are more difficult at the beginning because you have to train by repeating them, you have to learn step by step, but then it has to do with suggestions, the imaginary, an experience simulated by the mind, much easier to manage.

Directive hypnosis, classic, works mainly on Vertical Hypnosis, where some areas of the brain are deactivated, it descends into the so-called hypnotic depth, with a targeted use of the qualities of our reptilian brain, of the mammalian brain, and of the neocortical one, can be defined vertical precisely because it goes from the state of vigil to the state of sleep, gradually losing some areas of brain activity, the mental state is in any case experienced for each person at a different level of depth. A particular experience of Vertical Hypnosis is meditative hypnosis, both as self-hypnosis and as guided hypnosis, all meditation phenomena are linked to a partial loss of awareness certain critical areas are deactivated in favor of the imagination.

Horizontal hypnosis works on the change of one's Self and impacts on the person's life, through its different basic Biological, Emotional Relational, and Autobiographical Selves. The individual is linked to his own story as a personal narrative and therefore at the beginning the experience seems easier, but afterwards it is much more complex and complete. In horizontal hypnosis experiences such as regressive things are experienced, progressive hypnosis, where you plan your possible future life, contemplative hypnosis, where you build your own new identity.

If we want to start from the so-called techniques, then constructivist hypnosis is structured on a very simple acronym: TIFIDIDIME

TI

It indicates that, as I said, the hypnotic process is made up of the therapist and hypnotized relationship, two sides of the same coin, hypnosis is a co-conducted process, where the sensitivity of those who lend themselves to guide is fundamental, a sensitivity oriented towards maintaining continuous contact with the other, active listening, the sensitivity to use everything that presents itself, the humility of always being guided by the experience of the other, by his unconscious and by the relationship one is in able to build with the unconscious itself (internal dialogue and personal narration).

TRUST

There are four cardinal points of the hypnotic experience:

Focusing, as the possibility of moving the person in time and space, typical of the experience of regressive hypnosis to one's personal past life, or to hypothetical previous lives.

Intensification, as the possibility of increasing or decreasing the perceptions and sensations experienced, hypnosis for pain control, anesthesia, analgesia, desensitization, sensory delocalization.

Dissociation as the main ability, given by the two cerebral hemispheres, to be the protagonist and observer of one's own experience, the awareness of dissociation as the main ability, the awareness of one's Mental or Hypnotic State, the construction of one's Self, experience at the basis of all hypnotic realities.

Implication, the real magic of the trance state, the association that is generated between two different conditions, if X then Y, when X then Y, the magic of associative proximity.

OF ME

Hypnosis works on the description of the experience through hypnotic inductions and deductions, it necessarily contemplates a manipulation in which conditioning is operated, there are moments in which experiences are grafted into the person's life, as grafts of stories, and the result is expected as elicitation, emergence, unveiling of new behaviors, of a new experiential self.

Main passages in the Constructivist Hypnotic Method.

The framework within which the Psychobioemotional Therapeutic Method is articulated, from the point of view of Constructivist Hypnosis, can be exemplified with the metaphor originally proposed by Kelly (1955) of man as scientist. Therapeutic work is conceptualized as a research process within which patient and therapist perform the distinct and complementary roles of researcher and research supervisor, respectively. The metaphor defines the specific skills of each of the two members of the relationship: the patient is the expert with respect to the object of the research (his system of knowledge, his sensations, his thoughts, his emotions, etc.) since he is the 'unique to have the possibility of direct contact with it; the therapist is the expert with respect to the method and his task is to suggest the tools, procedures and times to carry out the entire hypnotic therapeutic process.

Maieutics is the term that defines the method used by Socrates to help his disciples "give birth to the truth". The Psychobioemotional Method, of Constructivist Hypnosis, like maieutics consists in asking questions in such a way as to induce the interlocutor to find the "truth" independently. The questions are extended to all levels of the person, the physical one, the body and its memories, the cognitive one, the narration and its autobiographical stories, the emotions and its memories, experiences and experiences, past moments, even just imagined moments .

The maieutic methodology used in cognitive psychotherapy corresponds perfectly, in its general assumptions, to the Socratic approach, meaning by "truth" the subjective one and not the ontological one. The aim is to help the client become aware of his own automatic and unconscious knowledge structures that can be expressed verbally and of the relationships between them. The analysis is conducted through an inferential process, inducing the client to observe himself, assuming the point of view of an external observer.

Many times it happens that people have overcome a physical trauma, but have not overcome it on a cognitive level, the cognitive emotion remains as evidence and it is not possible to heal from it, other times it happens that the psychological trauma has been overcome but the physical one his memories, the memory of the body must be treated like the Autobiographical cognitive memories, in this case the physical emotion remains as evidence of the lack of recovery.

With the Psychobioemotional Method of Constructivist Hypnosis the client is asked to:

a) concentrate on one's bodily sensations by maintaining physical contact with the client;

b) focus on a specific emotional state reached during the session;

c) imaginatively represent life situations by retracing them as in a filmic sequence following the memories of the body;

d) fantastically constructing hypothetical situations of real life, emotionally significant, following the sensations that emerge;

e) develop fantastic images through metaphors to express one's own mental states or develop guided fantasies on topics proposed by the therapist.

The work with the Psychobioemotional Method of Constructivist Hypnosis leads to an increase in his awareness and internal coherence. The consequence for the client takes the form of a greater ability to dialogue with himself (internal dialogue with the unconscious) and the ability to perceive himself emotionally.

a) Flexibility in using the information potentially available in the environment to carry out its constructions;

b) Ability to formulate anticipations of events, functional to one's objectives;

c) Tendency to welcome invalidations and modify one's own structures in relation to them;

d) Ability to attribute new meanings to life events, in particular those that previously threatened one's internal equilibrium are now rebalanced by the dialogue with one's own unconscious.

Conclusion.

«All mental processes are configured as the result of a progressive construction of structures, from the least complex to the most complex, along a succession of stages, each of which represents the point of arrival and the starting point of new forms of equilibrium». Jean Piaget

Conception of man as an information processor and generator of meanings. Man is not passive towards the environment but participates in the construction of reality.

The analysis is aimed at the physical and emotional mental structures that modulate and regulate the SA-P relationship (subject-environment-people) in terms of information flows and exchanges.

The helping relationships consider the modification of emotions and affects and of the person's internal mechanisms of regulation, processing and generation of information.

For the constructivists it is not possible to have a real world pre-existing and independent of the observer, there are rather different «worldviews» which depend on the observer's point of view, on its different selves, basic physical, relational, emotional and autobiographical.

Every perception or cognitive operation, every judgment does not simply reflect something, it is a procedural, constructive operation, in which the observer is involved in a self-referential and therefore Autobiographical process.

From a theoretical point of view, Constructivist Hypnosis sees the recovery of a holistic and unitary vision of the person and of his active role as inventor of reality, Watzlavick reminds us, has led to the formulation of more complex interpretative models, a man who is not a simple information processor , as a "builder of meanings" and to the environment no longer as a place of external stimulation, rather as a universe of symbols and experiences.

Personal growth = differentiation

From less organized behavior to more organized behavior.

Development = extension of the field of activity and interests from an Unreality to a Reality

From a weak relationship with life to a solid one

Retrogression return to a previous pattern of behavior in the psychological history of the subject

Regression, return to more “general” primitive modes of behavior, change in an opposite direction to the characteristic changes of development, reduction of differentiation, decrease of realism, compromise of the temporal dimension, restriction of the living space.

The Subject "constructs" the events of reality, he is not simply responsive to it. The representations of the environment allow for the possibility of intervening by modifying it, and adapting it to oneself, in a creative way: reality is not only given as such, and is not univocal, what also counts for the purposes of interpretation is the construct, the personal and unique representation of the events that everyone processes, according to their own personal characteristics.

The constructs are dynamic as daily experience involves a constant revision of the way of seeing things and life.

The hypnosis methodologies are varied and in turn schemes that must be adapted which in constructivist hypnosis are divided into:

• mother techniques
• father techniques

The maternal techniques are based on the limbic system of the brain, stimulating relaxation gradually, while the paternal ones use the reptilian system of the brain bringing the person into a hypnotic state rapidly. In fact, the former use emotions of acceptance and a more peaceful and slow relaxation, while the latter produce reptilian emotions that bring the patient into a state of trance in a more drastic and rapid way using adrenaline-pumping emotions.

The technique / scheme that is the subject of the name of this patent is based on bringing the patient into a trance through a preferably maternal technique.

At this point collect three keywords. The first is the quality that the patient believes he has developed in one of these points of life (child, adolescent, adult, professional, relationship with himself, relationship with others, affective parent, normative parent) then the connected emotion and then invite him to locate that emotion in a part of the body and then show him a diagram drawn on white paper linking it to a physical sensation of the aforementioned part in the state of this state of hypnosis.

1. image (example)

2. image (example)

Then to show drawn preferably on white paper with black ink (a crossing of four lines that divide the sheet into eight equal triangles)

3. image

at this point have him write the previously collected quality, emotion and sensation of one of the eight points treated (child, adolescent, adult, professional, relationship with himself, relationship with others, affective parent, normative parent) starting with where he prefers up to covering the eight triangles each with one of the points and the relative qualities, emotions, sensations going clockwise from the first chosen triangle. Once the patient has completed numbering the triangles from one to eight starting from the first on the right

4. image

Then a

• 1 2 =
• 2 4 =
• 3 6 =
• 4 8 =
• 5 1 =
• 6 3 =
• 7 5 =
• 8 7 =

In this way it is possible to reconstruct what is the path of life that the patient has done / must do and from where to draw the values ​​to reach that quality for which he requested the technique according to the suggestion of his unconscious.