This is a classic Ericksonian maneuver. You presuppose a future occasional meeting with the client in which they present in real life the changes you’ve made in the session. Erickson used it on his students by suggesting to them that they run into him in 6 months and tell him how and when the problem they were facing was solved.

For smoking cessation, for example, you should not tell the client “in six months we will meet and you will not smoke,” because that’s a negation that places the image of smoking within the client’s mental map. You might say something like, “I wonder if you will remember to call me in a month or two and tell me that you’re still drinking the morning cup of water with a slice of lemon.” During the session, you can introduce a potential replacement (and kinesthetic anchor as a reminder) for the smoking habit, and by suggesting that the client still use it in a month or two, it gives the impression that smoking is out of the picture.

Recently, I worked with a female client who described herself as ugly and fat. Although she wanted to get involved and get married, she strongly believed no man in his right mind would ever want to be with her. As always, it’s best to orient the therapy around an easily reachable desired outcome, and in her case, it was losing weight. So once we established the daily habits for her to become thinner, I used a simple pseudo-orientation in time suggestion that knocked down both issues she came in with: “I hope that you are now aware that we have a 100% success rate with clients who want to lose weight, and now that you’re in the process, you’ll see many changes going on at the same time, and I just want you to be prepared that as you become thinner, you will most likely attract the attention of worthy men, so please don’t get too arrogant about it in a couple of months, and I hope that you’ll get an invitation to your wedding. If you do forget this promise, I will be disappointed, but I understand that being popular and thin and busy can make you forget, but then again, I am expecting that envelope on this coffee table in front of us within a year. "