Entrancing Relationships: The Hypnotic Framework of Addictive Relationships

Why do partners return to dysfunctional relationships forgiving, forgetting and forever repeating the same miserable scenario? Without awareness and mastery of entrancing hypnotic forces, relationships can be severely damaged or even destroyed.The essential premise is that addictive enmeshment is the result of what are experienced as irresistible pulls from hypnotic entrancement. Hypnotic entrancement is fantasy fixation of perfect love leading to eventual demise. Parallels are drawn to hypnotic phenomena. Entrancement involves a coming together or fusion of idealized images superimposed upon physical attributes of the partner. Each partner brings to the relationship ideals or images of their perfect mate. Partners merge their ideal images of love and beauty with the size, shape and contour symmetries of mates.The scope of the book is to guide the reader through the turbulence where the hidden self is revealed as an anchor of sensory motifs. Sensory motifs are inherent, self-organizing structures and characteristics that give partners their sense of uniqueness. Numerous case examples illustrate a four-stage parallel between addictive bonds and hypnosis (e.g.: idealization, disillusionment, obsession and reproachment). Reawakening is described as releasing entrancement through the emergence of innate artistic motifs.

Don J. Feeney, Jr. is the founder and director of Consulting Psychological Services, P.C., in Downers Grove and Chicago, Illinois, where he functions as a licensed clinical psychologist. He earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Loyola University of Chicago in 1979 and has been fascinated with the study of life purpose dynamics and motifs for more than twenty-nine years. He completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago and attended the Adler Institute of Chicago. He is a certified alcohol and drug counselor and has published numerous articles on addictions. He has been on many national talk shows and recently completed Motifs: The Transformative Creation of Self and is currently working on new material related to the Psychology of Terrorism. He is a certified neurolinguistic programmer, using Ericksonian hypnosis in his therapy and publications. He has drawn extensively from many theoretical and clinical fields in formulating his particular brand of therapeutic intervention involving healing and sensory motifs.