Dave Elman (1900 – 1967)
Dave Elman (born Kopelman) instructed over ten thousand physicians, dentists and psychiatrists and in addition successfully and efficiently relieved thousands of people from their problems. He is, above all, known for his direct manner and the speed with regard to achieving the desired change for a client.
A master of fast hypnosis and highly efficient therapeutical methods. A genius who is responsible for our successes in today’s hypnosis therapy which we, not long ago, considered as impossible – and some still continue to do so today…
Direct, fast methods were is Trademark.
The simplicity of the methods and above all the results convince even those who were most reluctant to it and astonish critics. Elman’s genius, methods and techniques in hypnosis are, compared to other excellent personalities, easy to reproduce due the simple basic concept: regress to cause and fix it (R2C). It is structured as a process and therefore easy to learn and apply.
Dave Elman was often, in a completely unfair way, overshadowed by Milton Erickson. On the contrary, Erickson is said to have stated: “I wish my students could do what Elman’s students can.” In any case the two approaches greatly differ from one another and one can surely learn a lot from both. We are convinced of the simplicity, the direct approach and the encounter on a level playing field with clients which Elman personally cared about very much. Jerry Kein and Hansruedi Wipf totally agree to that.
We owe a lot of pioneering work to Dave Elman
For good reason Elman is associated with his brilliant but also simple hypnosis induction (Dave Elman induction – DEI). The great majority of people goes into hypnosis with it for the first time. But Elman represents much more.
- Elman was the first to bring people on purpose and regularly to somnambulism (deep hypnosis) demonstrating a clear process with.
- Elman found a way to go into the Esdaile state and out again that worked and could be repeated
- His works in the field of pain management are still used today and amazingly simple.
- Elman also coined the phrase “Every symptom has a trigger”. He used this to developed a completely new approach for hypnotherapy which appeared to be revolutionary to traditional methods and hence faced rejection in the first place (regress to cause and fix it (R2C).
- Elman developed “hypno-sleep”, a state which is very appropriate to work with children.
- Elman made it possible to conduct the first heart surgery without anesthesia by using hypnosis
- Due to Elman’s cooperation with a catholic nun who ran a delivery suite, Pope Pius enacted in 1958 the permission to use hypnosis for women in order to give birth painfree. We also owe the birth of HypnoBirthing to Elman.
Elman is the author of the classical book “Hypnotherapy” which is available in our Webshop. Even 50 years after its publication this book is an unbeatable source of information.
There is also a contemporary document available with his son Larry Elman when he was in Zurich for a 2-day workshop in 2012. The video set includes 4 DVDs celebrating the centennial of the Dave Elman induction. It is available in English and in German and contains many unknown facts about Elman, his life, work and his philosophy including historical facts about hypnosis in general. You find more information about Dave Elman here.