Before you start to market your hypnotherpy business, decide whether your first consultation will be a Free Session or whether you will Charge. It is a common practice for the first session to be a free consultation, although not always. I will leave this up to your discretion there are pros and cons to charging and giving for free.

Rapport

The first stage in your initial consultation will always be to establish rapport, without exception. This is where you discuss pleasantries, if the client is willing. If the client wishes to dive straight into the issue, then fine. You can still establish rapport, using your listening skills, matching and mirroring.

When allowing the client to speak, always remember the Five Minute Golden Rule. This is where you allow them to vent off their feelings without interruption. You do not judge, but you can maybe ask for clarification.

Subjective Interpretation

When allowing the client to describe their unwanted behaviours or results beware of their subjective interpretation. For instance, they may complain that they were passed over for promotion at work because they are clearly not well thought of. This is a subjective interpretation of an event. Do not buy into this. Stay objective.

Is it real? People exaggerate and lie, so again do not buy into it.
Commonly, what a client presents to you is not what needs addressing. The client’s subconscious mind knows what needs addressing. However, the client will consciously dress this up as something else. It is not for you to try to find out what this issue is. Acknowledge it but move on. Your therapy will allow the client to go inside and get their subconscious to heal itself.

Ask them if the have they seen other therapists about this issue. If you’re the fifth person they have seen, then there is obviously something else that needs addressing.
Above all, don’t buy into their subjective interpretation.

What about your subjective Interpretation? You should obviously leave your own baggage at the door. You mind map will be different from the clients. Stay objective and neutral.

Resources

Once the client has vented their feelings, you can then begin to question them further. Your aim here is to access resources you can later use in their therapy. Find them and feed them back into the therapy. Ask about their work, hobbies, and interests and note these. Establish further rapport by establishing common ground. Perhaps you or someone you know closely has the same interests. If you can’t find any, then lie. Remember the purpose here is to help the client get better, so a little white lie is fine.

Harvest Positive Emotions

Allow time to shift their headspace from negative to positive. You can do this be exploring what they say and steering it to something positive. Harvest as many of these positive resources as possible. Ask what was good about the situation? Jump on anything positive they say and expand on it.

Subjective Unit of Discomfort

Check their SUD (Subjective Unit of Discomfort
Here you can ask them on a scale of 0-10 (10 being bad), what is the emotional or physical pain.
Then ask them what level of discomfort would they be happy to live with. For instance, they may say they’re currently at a level 9 but would be happy to live with a level 3. You will use this in later sessions to check on their progress.

Secondary Gains

Always beware of secondary gains when involved in therapy. These can be an obstacle, for example, a smoker actually wants to stay slim or someone with a bad back doesn’t want to mow the lawn. Now these could be at a subconscious level. During your therapy, you may need to take account of these. You could put in some suggestions to the effect that you will easily maintain your slim physique when you are a non-smoker.

Use Clean Language

Use clean language, I don’t mean don’t swear, but use language which is unambiguous and doesn’t have negative undertones.
Talk about unwanted behaviours, thoughts and effects, not problems. Your client may present themselves with a problem, but from then on, you will refer to it as an unwanted effect. You can also go one better than this by then flipping it to its positive. So for example, a client may present to you asking to stop her fingernail biting habit. You could start by asking her why she wants to stop. She may say she is getting married later that year and wants long fingernails, to decorate. That is what you will then focus on – the outcome itself.

There are no problems only unwanted behaviours, thoughts or feelings.

Cut out the word try. Let’s say you ask me to go to your party. Perhaps I might say I’ll try to get there. You know I’ll likely not arrive. So don’t ask you client to try to do something. Give them suggestions, directives and orders if you have to.

This also works for you. Don’t say you are trying to do something. Instead, say “My aim is …”, or “My goal is…”, or “I am in the process of…”.

The proper use of language has a profound effect on how you perceive the world. As a therapist, you are in a privileged position of being able to affect people’s lives for the better, just by how you speak.

Questions

I keep six honest serving men they taught me all I knew, there names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. Rudyard Kipling.

My very first Sales Manager taught me this and he suggested to me that the most critical skill I could learn in Selling and Life was Questioning and Listening.
Practice the open questions using the honest serving men from above. They will affect the clients mind by making them go inside to search for the answer. This in itself is hypnotic in nature. You can then begin to access their subconscious better than asking closed and leading questions.

To illustrate this, the question “Is your fear of spiders serious?” is such a lousy question on so many levels. A better question is “How do you feel when I mention the word spider?” continue to ask open questions to get a full understanding. “When does this occur exactly”. “Who are you with?”.

We are not necessarily asking these questions because of the answers. We are asking these to access eye cues and the client’s suggestibility. Ask as many questions as possible.

Sell the benefits of them changing

In a way, therapy is very similar to the sales process. You ask questions, you listen, then you sell the benefits of them changing. The client already wants to change, that’s why they came to you in the first instance. Part of you your job as the therapist is to reinforce the benefits that they will get from changing. This is done in the therapy sessions as well as the consultation. You therefore provide a benefit, then the therapy, then another benefit.

You can uncover some of the benefits that are unique to them by finding out what outcome they want. A great question to ask is, if I could click my fingers and you were instantly better or cured, then how would you know? What would you feel, see and hear?

Listen attentively to the answers. Feed them back into the therapy. You may uncover some powerful emotional benefits here. For instance, they may tell you they want to lose weight to be in great shape for their wedding.

If you uncover these benefits properly, signing them up for the paid therapy should therefore be a formality.

If you would like a free copy of my first consultation template contact me and let me know.

The post Your initial therapy consultation session appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

How to use Collapsing Anchors to Change a Bad Habit

One way to change a negative emotion is to use a technique from Neuro Linguistic Programming and Hypnosis called Collapsing Anchors. In this post, I show you exactly how you can do this yourself.

What are anchors?

Anchors are sensory triggers that become associated with certain states or responses. For instance, you see a red light at the traffic lights and you stop the car. It is automatic. Therefore an anchor is the process of when a stimulus causes a response.
Anchors are useful, nay essential because they help us build associations and habits. Anchors can be visual, like the traffic lights or they can be auditory (a siren) or kinaesthetic (a tap on the shoulder).

Why is collapsing anchors useful?

Anchors are not permanent although it might seem like they are. There is a process in therapy called collapsing anchors, where you can break the association and even cause new resourceful anchors.

How are anchors caused?

Anchors can be caused in many ways, such as building up a habit. So again think of the traffic lights, the very first time you drove a car, you would have to think – red light – stop. Now as a seasoned driver this is automatic.
Anchors can also be caused when an event or stimulus is linked to a strong emotion. For instance a certain song can evoke a pleasant memory such as your wedding day. If the emotion is strong enough the anchor can be very powerful. An example could be a child who is hugged when they fell over and banged their head. They might unconsciously associate being hugged with physical pain and mental upset.

The Process of Collapsing Anchors

Someone might have an unresourceful anchor, whereby they comfort eat, when they watch TV. You could remove this anchor, so that they no longer feel the need to eat and watch TV. This could help them to lose weight.
With performance-fear like public speaking you could even use collapsing anchors, here’s how:-

How to use collapsing anchors to cure the fear of public speaking

Do you have a fear of public speaking, but have to give presentations for your career. Don’t worry you are not the only one, apparently this is one of the biggest fears of adults. People who can hold an audience’s attention and deliver a credible presentation, tend to do well in business. So, how would you feel if we could cure your stage freight quickly and permanently? Well here is how you can do it. Read this through a few times, so you get an idea of how to do it.

Preparation

1. Think of a time when you felt confident and proud. One example could be when you received a professional qualification. Write it down so you can remember. This is resourceful anchor number one.
2. Think of a time when you felt relaxed. It could be when you were on holiday. Write it down so you can remember. This is positive anchor number two.
3. Think of a time when you felt really in control. Perhaps after a break up with a partner, you were finally independent. Write it down so you can remember. This is anchor number three.
4. The negative anchor in this case is making the presentation or delivering the speech. This is anchor number four.
Anchor number four must have less emotion attached to it than all the other three put together. This means that all the positive emotions from 1,2 and 3 must be greater than the negative emotion of number 4. If you feel that the negative emotion attached to the fear of making the speech is more than the other three put together, then go ahead and write down some other positive memories.

Anchor each emotion

5. Now you will go through each emotion, one by one to anchor it. So first get relaxed and make sure you won’t be disturbed. You will need to be sat down in an upright position.
6. Think of the time you when really felt confident and proud, but this time close your eyes and imagine that you are actually there. Make all the sights, sounds and feelings come flooding back. As you are at the peak of the emotion press on your left thigh above the knee. Now break your state by opening your eyes and moving about.
7. Next, get into your relaxed position again. Think of the time you when really relaxed, but this time close your eyes and imagine you are actually there. Make all the sights, sounds and feelings come flooding back. As you are at the peak of the emotion press on your left thigh above the knee in the same spot as before. Then break your state by opening your eyes and moving about.
8. Then get into your relaxed position again and think of the time you were really in control. Again, close your eyes and imagine you are actually there. Make all the sights, sounds and feelings come flooding back. As you are at the peak of the emotion press on your left thigh above the knee, again in the same spot as before. Then break your state by opening your eyes and moving about. If you need more than three positive anchors, then repeat the process for each of your positive memories. Otherwise move on to step 9.

Collapsing the Negative Emotion

9. Now, think of the negative thoughts e.g. making a presentation. Get negative. Think about everything that could possibly go wrong and how embarrassed you might be. Once these negative feelings are at their height, anchor the feeling by touching your right thigh above the knee. Then break your state by opening your eyes and moving about.
10. The next step is important. Get in your relaxed trance state and this time just fire off both anchors by touching both spots on the right and left thigh at exactly the same time.
For a second or so you will feel weird, as your neurological system tries to make sense of having two opposing feelings going on at the same time. It is impossible for you to have a positive and negative emotions at the exact same time. Your nervous system will therefore choose the most powerful emotion to feel.
If you have done parts six to eight properly, your dominant feeling will be positive and therefore this will prevail. Not only will you have destroyed the negative feelings associated with making a presentation, but also you will have a new positive emotion attached to public speaking.

Future resource

11. One final stage is to keep this positive anchor as a future resource.
Get into a trance state one last time and fire off your positive anchor on your left thigh. Then mentally notice that the feeling is concentrated in this one spot. Now mentally move the feeling up your leg and torso and down your left arm, whilst keeping the positive feelings. Move the feeling down into your fingers and pinch your thumb and forefinger together.
Now whenever you need this positive emotion you can access it at any time by pinching your thumb and forefinger together. Also, whenever you experience intense positive feelings, you can reinforce and strengthen your positive anchor by pinching your thumb and forefinger together.

You can read more about resourceful anchors in the book The NLP Workbook.

Until next time…

The post How to use Collapsing Anchors to Change a Bad Habit appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.