Hypnosis

1. What hypnosis is and what it isn’t
2. What hypnosis can do and what it can’t
3. Who hypnosis can help and who it can’t

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Hypnosis has existed for thousands of years. There are now many different applications, approaches and methods of use. The applications familiar to most people are, hypnotherapy – for smoking, weight loss, anxiety etc, regression to past events or ‘past lives’, hypnosis for pain relief or total anaesthesia and of course – stage hypnosis.

Stage hypnosis, amusing, impressive, often controversial, is the medium from which most people obtain what they think they know about hypnosis. What most people incorrectly perceive when watching stage hypnosis is people being ‘made’ to do things against their will by mind control.

The key point missed with stage hypnosis is the subjects volunteer to get on stage. They are not drawn from the crowd in a trance against their will. The hypnotist asks “who wants to come on stage to entertain the crowd” and certain people volunteer. By volunteering they choose to entertain the crowd.

In any stage hypnosis show there will be a percentage of the crowd who have turned up in the hope of being picked to go on stage, to be the centre of attraction and hopefully do something outrageous or ridiculous.

The hypnotist then selects the best hypnotic subjects from the volunteers, puts them in a deep trance that will allow them to respond to suggestions to help them do what they have chosen to do, entertain the crowd, and because their choice is only to – entertain the crowd – they will only respond to suggestions to do with entertaining the crowd, nothing else.

Some people make the comment about stage hypnosis “no-one could make me do that” and they are right, but not for the reason they think. The comment is usually made to imply that their mind is stronger than the ‘gullible’ people who get on stage. This is nonsense. The reason the hypnotist couldn’t make them do that is that they would not choose to do that (entertain the crowd) whereas the other person did choose.

Hypnosis doesn’t ‘make’ people do things, it operates through your choice, not against your choice.

This ignorance of the true nature of hypnosis and it being mistaken for mind control leads some people to avoid hypnotherapy, and others to resist it. The extreme example of this is the misguided individual who sits down folds his arms and challenges the hypnotist “go on then make me stop smoking, I bet you can’t”. The challenge is made because the person thinks they are strong minded i.e. someone who could not be made to do the things they have seen happen in stage shows.

The problem is not the strength of the persons mind, the problem is that the individual’s misinterpretation of stage hypnosis has left them in a situation where they are intending to resist the process in order to prove how strong minded they are, even at the expense of achieving the results they want.

Hypnosis does not require a weak or gullible mind, on the contrary, for hypnosis to work it is essential that you know your mind i.e. know what you want because -

Hypnosis cannot decide anything for you

You must choose what you want and hypnosis operates through your choice. Your conscious choice is the doorway through which the suggestions are allowed in and accepted by your unconscious mind.

Hypnosis uses the power of your mind to harness the power of your choice

One key difference between stage work and hypnotherapy is that stage work produces a temporary effect whilst the subject is in a trance. Hypnotherapy uses a trance to communicate with the unconscious to produce a change in the client which lasts in normal life after the trance is finished.

Hypnotherapy creates change by communicating with the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind contains all memories, controls all bodily functions and all habits and behaviours. During hypnotherapy you are relaxed in control and can hear the hypnotherapist’s voice as it speaks to your unconscious mind to bring about the change required.