Understanding Hypnosis

For those who maybe have a similar image of a hypnosis, can you offer them a little ease and explain the difference? What is your technique for relaxing your clients into a state of hypnosis?

There are so many preconceived notions about hypnosis and stage hypnosis that demystifying it and explaining what it is and what it isn’t is quite literally the first step I take with clients who’ve never experienced it before. 

First of all, hypnosis in a therapeutic setting is not stage hypnosis. The experiences the media often portrays of stage hypnosis is for entertainment purposes - these are highly hypnotizable people who have been specifically selected and are in on the joke, the trance state is just allowing them to lower their inhibitions a bit more to participate. Hypnosis is also not sleep or unconsciousness, mind control or brainwashing. You are fully aware, fully in control, awake and will hear everything I say. It’s simply a highly inward focused state of relaxation where you’re able to willfully suspend your conscious thinking mind to accept what it’s hearing as reality - our imagination and subconscious mind will always win out over willpower, so it’s a powerful way to make huge transformations by simply just ‘rehearsing’ the life and identity you want.

In reality, all hypnosis is self hypnosis, it’s something we are doing together, I’m just your ‘tour guide’ so to speak, and I just remind people that they will feel incredibly relaxed, and also typically quite energized after.

There are many different ways to experience hypnosis or techniques to achieve a state of hypnosis, but after working with so many clients, I’ve found a blend of what resonates most with my clients and lends itself to the type of changes they want to make. Through progressive relaxation and focused attention, you’re able to access an alpha brain wave state and let go of the world around you. The induction itself can take anywhere from 10-15 minutes and is incredibly relaxing and calming. To go a bit deeper on the science, the first stage you will enter in a hypnotic trance is the alpha brain wave state (9-13hz). This is a highly suggestible state – our brain hemispheres are synchronized, and it’s typically the state our brains are in when we’re meditating, in a flow state, or receiving downloads.. Deeper than that is the theta state (4-8 hz), this is when you’re completely withdrawn from the outer world and often occurs when we’re dreaming during sleep. This is the access point to the subconscious, where automatic tasks like brushing our teeth are stored. Highly hypnotizable people will easily access this state on their first experience, and the more you practice hypnosis, the deeper you’ll go, the faster you’re able to access theta. But profound change can happen in alpha as well. The biggest thing I will say with any subconscious work is you have to want it to happen. Believe it will happen, want it to happen, and it will happen. What we focus on we give power to and this goes for anything - our minds are simply that powerful.