Thanks for your thoughts Matt, which are always very much appreciated indeed.

I hear what you are saying about asking them for details of their preferred destinations, but if you are ever going to use a favourite place, why not just dispense with asking them about houses and tell them to imagine their favourite place when the time comes?

We can still help them to engage in it with depth, by guiding them to do so, just not spoonfeeding an actual description necessarily.

Enjoyed your comments though, very much 🙂 Best wishes, A.

I think that there are some advantages to learning what someones ‘favourite’ environment is and then using it, because it offers up the opportunity to describe in vivid detail something that they love. Perhaps the kind of detail that they cannot create for themselves. Plus we can utilse all sensory modalities, even going as far as describing warm sand flowing between their toes. Just allowing the client free reign, they themselves might not be able to come up with this stuff!!

On the other hand, some people enjoy being able to explore their own imaginations without being told exactly what to think. If on the third session we are still saying ‘imagine you are lying on the beach’ they might start thinking ‘OW not the bloody beach one again I want to go somewhere else for a change’.

Personally, for me a beach feels a bit cheesy. I mean with regards to using it in hypnosis as opposed to the texture of the sand!! Its more fun to not be scared of exploring new and different terrains…. unless of course we feel that the client really does love the beach!! Perhaps if they show up in a wetsuit with a surfboard under their arm we can know its a good place to start.

I guess what we can learn from this is….. pay absolute attention to the client, especially hair colour and complexion!!

Chris (see what I did there?) thank you for that deep, meaningful and profound addition to the discussion here. I do like it when people agree with the things I write… Best wishes, Adam