Product reviews for The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands

In reading The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands, I am quite simply stunned by the depth, care, research, and complexity the authors have expertly and very generously provided: the stage-by-stage approach to the Mirroring Hands process, and the attention to detail, is worthy of praise in itself.

One of the truly empowering aspects of the therapeutic relationship is when both client and therapist find themselves on the precipice of “not knowing” where they should point their combined focus in the therapeutic endeavour. The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands will provide you, at this most crucial of times, with a refreshingly new way of grappling with what to do next by showing you how to powerfully open up an exploration of your client's inner world and story.

The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands is grounded in well-respected theories of creativity, and it is helpful to see them referenced, as is the merging of the process with approaches such as person-centred therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. The foundations of Mirroring Hands are discussed by delving into how it relates to the body's natural rhythmic states, which helps you understand the “natural” basis of the process, while guidance on how to make use of observation of client cues will help the practitioner become more astute to their clients' communication patterns. Indeed, what you will learn about in The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands in terms of the complexity and power of communication will enrich your work greatly. Words can often be a poor conveyor of what is happening deep within us, but this book offers you a rich way of “hearing” more of what your client is “saying”.

The inclusion of some of the most up-to-date brain research is a tremendous leap in the quality of texts available to therapists in the field, and this information is vital to understand as, in the process of therapy, clients really do go through more neurological changes than can be witnessed, or is realised. This book offers you a top-class education in this area: providing a fresh look at the mind-brain relationship, the relationship of that with therapy, and that of the client-therapist connection. I particularly appreciate the notion presented of therapeutic consciousness, and the therapists need to engage with this idea and unlock its power through the three steps presented. The real powerhouse behind the change process - language - is presented in an intricate breakdown of how the moulding of words creates dynamic shifts in clients. Helping you to absorb this are practical visual diagrams so that you can become familiar with the processes and ideas of Mirroring Hands. This is also supported with an abundance of casebook examples of actual sessions so that you can see how the process works with real clients presenting their concerns. The book also shows you how to use Mirroring Hands to help yourself with a variety of your own life challenges.

You will also discover some of the finest recollections around the development of today's well-used hypnotherapeutic cues, such as the ideosensory or ideodynamic response. The book introduces the notion of the quantum level of human experience, and why people have the problems they do, and also delves deeply into the development of Milton H. Erickson's work first hand through Rossi's tremendously generous gifts to Richard Hill via their discussions. It is indeed rare to be able to delve into the remarkable mind of Ernest L. Rossi, and an even more special and profound delight that this book also provides additional insight into the innermost thoughts of the legend that is Milton H. Erickson. In saying that, it is also profoundly comforting to read Richard Hill's words of encouragement to each practitioner to be their own best self.

The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands will challenge you, and it should. The only sure-fire way to improve as a therapist is to deepen your own understandings through engaging with the depth of learning that can be obtained in a book of this magnitude. Complex systems, non-linear systems, chaos theory, order and disorder, self-organisation: these are all concerns that are vital in deepening the therapist's connection, at an intellectual level, of the processes their client is engaging in as they unveil their problems and challenges as the therapeutic process unfolds. Gaining this knowledge from The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands will offer you a succinct philosophical awareness behind your communication with clients. The book finishes with a stunning piece on the work of Milton H. Erickson and Leonard Ravitz on the hypnotic state, which is an exciting inclusion.

The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands really does do magnificent credit to Richard Hill's documentation and to his dedication in uncovering the genius of Rossi and Erickson, and will provide you with a never-ending source of wisdom on your professional journey in the therapy room. The authors should be commended for this text, which obviously sets out to achieve a quite remarkable feat in its presentation of the Mirroring Hands process, and it doesn't disappoint. It is indeed a tour de force which will - and should - become a classic.



One thing is sure - when you have read The Practitioner's Guide to Mirroring Hands, you will never look at your hands, your client's hands, or indeed anybody's hands in the same way again!