What is Hypnosis and how does it work?

What is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is heightened state of awareness and relaxation, induced by suggestion. It is where you quiet the conscious mind to such a degree, that the hypnotist can communicate directly with the subconscious mind. Another description could be a trance-like state. Your brain will go in and out of trance periodically throughout the day. For example, when you catch yourself staring off into space or you veg-out in front of the TV.

Some common stereotypes of hypnosis are the unfortunate ‘victim’ who clucks around the stage, like a chicken or where a Victorian fiend dangles an old-fashioned watch in front of a damsel until she falls asleep. I hope that this post will dispel these myths.

The Word Hypnosis

The word Hypnosis comes from the Greek god Hypnos. Hypnos was the god of sleep who lived in a cave with his brother Thanatos, the God of death. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Hypnosis is not sleeping and you certainly won’t die. You are actually in a heightened sense of awareness. Your senses are acute; you can actually hear a lot more than normal for instance.

The first part of the job of a Hypnotist is to induce this trance like state of hypnosis. This is actually a simple process once you learn how to do it.
When you think about visiting a hypnotherapist for say, smoking cessation, a very small part of the process is actually inducing hypnosis, otherwise known as the Induction. A vast amount of skills, care and time, however, are required to deliver the actual therapy.

There are many types of therapy; Suggestion is the most common type. The suggestion can be negative and positive, so the therapist needs to exercise great skill and knowledge to get this part right. This is so that the therapy takes hold and the client gains the benefits.

Suggestion Therapy

To varying degrees, people are all open to receiving suggestions. We are often swayed by peoples’ opinions. These suggestions can also change our beliefs and therefore the results we get in our lives. Suggestion therapy is therefore one of the first things your hypnotherapist will learn, because they can affect real change in you, if they do it right.

The important thing to remember when using suggestion as therapy is that we do not use the unwanted feeling or condition. We always use the opposite positive suggestion. This is because of how the mind works. For instance “You will stop smoking” becomes “You will now return to being a non-smoker”.
When we hear language, the words are processed by our subconscious minds and associations are made, so that we can make sense of them. Properly formulated suggestions can therefore be accepted by the subconscious as fact and then become reality.

Direct and Indirect Suggestions

Suggestions can be either direct or indirect and both types are useful tools in the hypnotherapist’s armoury.

Direct Suggestions

Direct suggestions or commands like “You will now return to being a non-smoker”, are used on analytical types of people. They are to the point, abrupt and without any ambiguity. In a way, they are clear instructions for people. These are very useful for people who are used to taking orders or people in hierarchical working environments.
These would be used with armed service personnel or the emergency services.

Indirect Suggestions

Indirect suggestions can be used for creative types of people. These types of suggestions ‘go round the houses’. The therapist would ask politely for someone to do something. They are true suggestions.
These would be good for artists, dancers and designers.
An example of an indirect suggestion would be “…and you might find that you begin to enjoy the process of becoming your ideal size and shape…”.
If someone is not an obvious creative or analytical type, a good therapist would throw in a mixture of direct and indirect suggestions.

Contingent Suggestions

Contingent suggestions are those that involve the client’s current routines. For instance, let’s suppose you suffer from insomnia and you want to be able to drift off to sleep at a reasonable time. A contingent suggestion would use your current bedtime routine. For instance, the therapist might say, “As the music to News at Ten comes on the TV, you will find… then as you climb the stairs, you will become more relaxed and each step you take up the stairs you will feel more relaxed.”

The idea here is that you are making the situation safe and familiar to the subconscious mind and the amygdala, which don’t like change or threats. You are simply suggesting that the client feels a different way, when a familiar thing happens.

Embedded Suggestions

Embedded suggestions are commands can be used to prevent rejection of the suggestions.
Here the therapist would would give you lots of simple, true suggestions or truisms that the cannot reject. They would also add one embedded suggestion that they want you to take. For example:
“…you are feeling relaxed”
“… now you can relax ten times deeper…”
“…you can focus on the sound of my voice…”
EMBEDDED SUGGESTION – “…YOU WILL NOW RETURN TO BEING A NON SMOKER…”
“… now you are even more relaxed…”
“…the more you relax, the more your breathing slows down…”
“…you may feel the need to swallow, that’s ok…”

Post Hypnotic Suggestions

Post Hypnotic Suggestions are suggestions, which would be given during hypnosis, which your would carry out later.
To formulate Post Hypnotic Suggestions, they would use the formula – Stimulus X will result in Response Y. for example:
“… and when you hear the music you will…”
“…each and every time you have these unwanted feelings (X you will immediately take a deep breath. As you breath out your whole body will relax (Y).”

Trance

Once your are in trance, your conscious mind will not question any suggestions. The purpose of inducing trance is to bypass the preconscious part of the mind. This is the critical reasoning part of the mind that filters all the incoming sensory information. It will reject anything it deems a threat or is irrelevant.

Trance state allows the therapist to ‘bribe the guards’ so to speak. This will allow the suggestion to enter the subconscious. This is where all the skill and training of the therapist comes in to play. I could teach you to hypnotise someone in a few hours, however the process of therapy takes proper training and much practise to get right.

The Myths

One myth is that the hypnotist can make you do something that you wouldn’t normally do. This is preposterous. Your subconscious mind is powerful and will always protect you. So even though the suggestion bypasses the critical mind, the subconscious can still reject it.
Myth number two is that you can be hypnotised against your will. Again, this is nonsense. If the critical mind is still active, it could reject every single suggestion made. Trust is the key here. The client must trust the therapist or there will be no trance induction.

That said, be careful with this notion; you can be lulled into a state of trance just by watching the TV. You are then open to suggestion. Adverts are a prime example. In a later chapter, I will go into the tricks that advertisers use to ‘hypnotise you’ into buying their products.
Therapy won’t work unless you want it to. As I said before, you will resist any induction and suggestions if you don’t want to be there. This is often the case when a well-meaning relative cajoles someone into visiting the hypnotherapist to give up smoking, for instance.

The best patients are those who want to be there. The therapist can then use her skill to facilitate the changes in the client.
Remember that all hypnosis IS Self-hypnosis. The successful therapist is one who is adept at guiding the client to make the changes themselves. Self hypnosis is the subject of the next chapter.
If you think that hypnotherapy can help you, get in contact, I would be glad to help.