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Arrigo B: A hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation of the process of changing limiting beliefs about the self in reimprinting.
Dissertation Abstracts International 59(6-B), Section B The Sciences and Engineering: 3045, 1998.
Abstract: This dissertation provides a hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis of two video taped examples of reimprinting. Reimprinting is a technique for changing limiting beliefs about the self and was developed by Robert Dilts using aspects of Ericksonian hypnotherapy and neurolingistic programming. This study provides a phenomenologically grounded reading of this intervention which claimed no philosophical orientation. It reveals that reimprinting uses evocative poetic language and shared bodily attunement in order to loosen the sometimes rigidly lived pattern of certain repetitive states of mind (limiting beliefs). It demonstrates that Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty had both described the existential and phenomenological structures of human existence which make the intervention possible. Reimprinting is understood as a dramatic narrative of transformation utilizing the child like potentials for being in imagination and playfulness. The study reveals that reimprinting is ritual like and that the quality of the lived relationship between client and therapist included an important spiritual dimension. It confirms Carney's earlier phenomenological finding that change in psychotherapy involves the client in taking up the therapist's attitudes and assumptions and appropriating them for him/herself. The limited results of this study suggest that reimprinting is an effective and phenomenologically sound means of approaching some persistently problematic patterns of being in the world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).