What is hypnosis
- Many people believe that hypnosis is a mystical ability to bend people to their will and force them to do things that they would never normally do. This is fundamentally wrong.
- Hypnosis is a natural state of consciousness of every person. It is simply the ability of a person to accept information or ideas without analyzing them critically.
- Moreover, we spontaneously enter and exit hypnosis several times a day without realizing it.
- Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention. In this state, critical thinking, which usually analyzes information and makes decisions, takes a back seat and temporarily ceases to perform its function.
- This opens the door to help a person accept new useful ideas or get rid of old and limiting ones.
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is an ability of the human mind to accept ideas or information without critically analysing it. It is as natural for a human being as dreaming, thinking or sleeping. Contrary to popular belief, when you are in hypnosis:
You feel ‘normal’, just a bit more relaxed
You realise and understand everything that happens to you
You control everything that happens and choose how to react
You can remember what happened when the session is finished.
With hypnosis, you will:
- Feel completely normal and ” normal”, just more relaxed, as if you have closed your eyes and are dreaming
- Understand and be aware of everything
- Control everything that happens and choose for yourself how to react
- You can terminate the session at any time if you want
- You will remember everything at the end of the session
With hypnosis, you will NOT:
Lose consciousness and ” disconnect”Being under someone’s controlDo something that you wouldn’t normally do
Facts about hypnosis
Adopted for use by the British Medical Association in 1955
It is used for anesthesia in dentistry, during operations and even during childbirth
It is part of the recommended treatment for obesity, smoking and irritable bowel syndrome in the British health system
Frequently Asked Questions
Stage hypnosis is, above all, a show. It’s specially designed to entertain and amuse people. For maximum effect the hypnotist needs to find high suggestible people in the audience. Such people do exist, but they make 1-2% of total population. That’s why hypnotic shows require big audience – so that there is choice. You won’t see a show for a small audience. To start with, the hypnotist checks the suggestibility levels, and only invites those on stage who are most suggestible and wants to participate (i.e. they already are prepared to follow instructions). Then during the show the hypnotist continues filtering participants, to the point when he only has 1 or 2 most suggestible ones. And those are the people who make the show for him. You can watch this TED talk called “Is Hypnosis Fake?” to see what I mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RA2Zy_IZfQ The good news is that for successful hypnotherapy you don’t need to have such high suggestibility, just an average is more than enough. How do you know it? well, if you’ve ever been able to close your eyes and day dream, you know you’ve got it! You are suggestible enough to successfully participate in your hypnotherapy.
Anyone can be hypnotised, if they want it and can follow some simple instructions (like ‘Close your eyes’, ‘Relax your muscles’, etc.). Have you ever day dreamt? Then you can go into hypnosis, it’s that similar (and simple!). The main reason why people are not ready to go into hypnosis is their fears. That’s why I spend so much time and effort to explain everything here, answer all the questions and de-bust all the myths, so you would feel confident and comfortable. The only people that can’t go into hypnosis are people with some mental health issues, as their concentration of attention is low. But hypnosis is contra-indicated for such people, any way.
That’s just another name for hypnotherapy. It’s used to stress the differences from stage hypnosis which is done purely for entertainment purposes. You may comes across a term ‘clinical hypnotherapy’. This is simply a marketing trick – there is no method of hypnotherapy that would be classed as ‘clinical’ and wouldn’t be used by ‘normal’ hypnotherapy. This is just an attempt to add some medical image to something that is not — and doesn’t need to be — medicine, and as such is a pure manipulation.
Hypnosis is contra-indicated for any mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, psychosis, bi-polar disorder, and some others. Hypnosis is allowed for use with mentally healthy people, but your therapist needs to be aware of any medical diagnoses that you may have (of any kind) — so they could adjust the session accordingly, in particular going into and out of hypnosis.
How hypnotherapy works
There are a great many methods of hypnotherapy, but fundamentally they are all divided into two categories: working with symptoms and working with the cause of the problem.
Working with symptoms
- It brings only temporary relief
- There is always the question “how long will the effect last”?
- The reason remains unaffected
- With the slightest stress, the probability that the problem will return increases
Working with the cause
- It allows you to find and remove those limiting irrational attitudes of your subconscious that led to the problem
- Allows you to replace them with truthful and helpful installations
- Removes even the most persistent and long-standing problems that you have lived with all your life
- It helps even where other methods have proved powerless
- Since the reason goes away, the problem goes away forever.
It’s essential to address the root cause and the power of hypnosis is the best way to do so
- What you see as a problem is likely to be a symptom of a deeper rooted issue, like being feverish when you have pneumonia
- Managing symptoms is often ineffective — even a slight stress increases chances of the issue coming back
- The root cause of any issue often lies in irrational and erroneous beliefs about ourselves and the world — something that we mistakenly picked up and then carried, causing issues and distress to ourselves
- While the root cause is there, it is likely to continue making an impact, now or in the future, regardless of the coping mechanisms you’ve developed
- That’s why we always work with the root cause. We’re not interested in wasting your time and money on band-aid solutions.
Hypnosis
- Speaking directly to the subconscious mind — both positive and truthful; negative and erroneous
- Erroneous beliefs that are responsible for the issue can be revealed and removed and new righteous and positive ones installed
- Many methods try to do the same, but without the use of hypnosis it takes longer and is less successful
How does hypnosis occur
When someone hypnotizes you, it is the result of the interaction of two factors:
Instructions of the hypnotherapist
Your following these instructions
The instructions are extremely simple and clear, for example “ “look at my hand”,” close your eyes” “ ” imagine a tree” and so on.
When you follow the instructions of a hypnotherapist, you are immersed in hypnosis.
And if you continue to follow the instructions, then gradually you will dive deeper and become receptive to new information and ideas — exactly what is needed for successful therapy.
Everything turns out better with practice, and after several dives into hypnosis, anyone learns to achieve the desired state quickly and effectively.
Getting out of hypnosis is even easier than diving-you will just need to stop focusing on your feelings and pay attention to the outside world around you.
At the end of the session, the hypnotherapist will definitely bring you out of hypnosis, but if you want, you can do it yourself by simply opening your eyes — after a couple of minutes, the hypnosis will dissipate completely.
The structure of the human mind
The unconscious
We are born with it. It allows our bodies to function and provides a biochemical basis for all our feelings and emotions.
The subconscious mind
It begins to form from birth and is a repository of all our experiences and memories, which eventually turn into our beliefs and character traits. According to some estimates, it takes up to 98% of our mind.
Conscience
This is a logical function that develops with age — according to some estimates, up to 20 years. It is very limited in its capacity, and the focus of attention is constantly moving. That is why it is so difficult to change something in a person or character based only on logic.
Critical factor
Protects the subconscious mind and ensures stability and the absence of changes. It acts as a filter and often has its own idea of what is useful or harmful, different from consciousness.
Hypnotherapy Online
Remote work is just as effective as personal work: the therapeutic effect occurs with the help of words, therefore, there is no difference between personal presence and video communication.
- You will have a memo on conducting remote sessions, according to which you can check your readiness
- We check everything at the first session and reduce the probability of failures to a minimum.
Myths about hypnosis
Some of the common myths preventing people from using hypnosis and benefiting from it include
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