I believe that making the decision to seek assistance and visit a hypnotherapist puts our client at the top of the late status quo area (some versions of the graph have a little bump to represent the excitement of making a change)
Educating someone, particularly where that education runs contrary to an existing belief, put us into the resistance phase (“What do you mean it’s not done to me? What’s the point of coming here then?”)

If we can get just a little bit of momentum building by utilising their existing belief, then we can use that to carry them through the dip and up and out the other side 🙂

Hi Andy, your hypnosis laugh is spot on by the way… Some people just take to capes better than others I guess 😉

I hear what you are saying and it is wise to meet someone at their map of the world as far as hypnosis is concerned.

Though I prefer to think of it as ‘educating’ the client rather than ‘talking them out of it’ and with correct expectations the therapeutic results are likely to be enhanced.

Thanks again Andy.

As an aside, I look awesome in a cape and spent most of my training perfecting my “hypnosis” laugh 🙂

Hi Brenda, thank you for this, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your response and concur… And it has been a while since I read Wolinsky’s book, I do like it.

That said, I had my thoughts on the use of the word ‘trance’ and my own training school mutinied! As you can read here:

http://adam-eason.com/2010/10/05/why-do-so-many-hypnotherapists-and-hypnotists-refer-to/

Hi Marty, thanks for your contribution here, which is always valued.

In some respects, I suppose the myth that is created by many on the hypnosis field – of it being able to be wielded in this way – does bring us a lot of attention and more time in the spotlight. Though I really do think that we an stop dining out on that any longer.

There is such a body of evidence that demonstrates what hypnosis is and is not, that it seems foolish to allow people to perpetuate misnomers (whether its for marketing or during real-life trainings).

The problem occurs when the types of training you mention are the only exposure that some people have of the field, and accompanied with very little further reading, can end up perpetuating these notions further…

I know some therapists do not like to use the word ‘trance’ as well, but following along the lines of Stephen Wolinsky ‘Trances People Live’ where he explains that a client’s problem state is in itself a hypnotic or trance state — and our purpose as therapists is to ‘dehypnotise’ our clients to get more resourceful states and results. So, a therapist really acts as a guide with a good map to bring unresourceful thoughts, feelings and beliefs to surface awareness and using tools such as hypnosis to make change on an unconscious level. Does that make sense?

So, IMO all hypnosis is self hypnosis. It’s a focussed state of concentration at the exclusion of other things and in this focussed state you open to suggestions that benefit you the most.

There are lot of people who come into hypnosis, NLP etc with the intention of using it or attempting to use it to give them power over other people. I’ve spent some time in the whole seduction community (please, best not to ask) and to say some of those people’s ideas about hypnosis, NLP etc are “outside of the stratosphere of crap” would be an understatement.

I might look good in a cape but since becoming a trainee therapist, I haven’t wandered around Cardiff hypnotising people to do my bidding and proof of my lack of control over people abilities can surely be seen in the fact that I’m spending this evening typing this instead of having a night of passion with Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley. Despite that, none of my friends will let me practice my new found skills on them. There certainly is something that unsettles some people about hypnosis.

A lot of hypnotherapists blame it all on how the media represents hypnosis but I’ve seen quite a lot of hypnotherapists on things like Youtube and in person and some of them really do themselves no favours. For some, the client becomes “the subject” and there are still those notions of putting someone under something, working on someone, doing something to someone etc.

Mark Cunningham’s hypnosis recordings are something I discovered recently and, whilst they are very good, they do make me feel slightly uncomfortable. The recording is about 48 minutes and he spends almost half of that telling you to “open up fully to him”, “submit” to this and that and even borrows from the Borg in the whole: “resistance is futile” stuff. He’s also partnered with another hypnotherapist in the realm of erotic hypnosis where the notion they are working on seems to be trying to use hypnosis to gain power over women- something, as a feminist (yes, I know, I know), I’m bound to be uncomfortable with.

Now, granted, once you get past the marketing and look at what is actually going on, it’s not as bad but still….I guess my point runs along the lines that there are very few Adam Eason’s (and other therapists who genuinely want to help people) and a heck of a lot of people whose main intention or interest (whether the tools and skills they acquire can do the things they want them to or not) is to gain power over another person.

Thank you Derek… And very well said.