everything you ever wanted to know about
hypnosis but didn't know who to ask ...
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WHAT IS HYPNOSIS? Hypnosis is a state of focused awareness everyone experiences
naturally many times a day.
It’s the relaxed but alert state your mind reaches just before you fall asleep
(called "hypnagogic"), and again just before you wake up (called "hypnopompic").
Similarly, when absorbed in a good book or great film, when day dreaming, or when you
miss your highway turnoff deep in thought, you're in a light but focused hypnotic state.
It's that naturally occurring state a Hypnotherapist guides you to then prolongs
and deepens so you can make the beneficial changes and improvements you've
chosen to change your lifestyle and beliefs. -
WHAT IS THE SUBCONSCIOUS? The subconscious is your mental “Auto Pilot.”
It's the seat of all your emotions … it carries habitual conduct, it’s the home to the
imagination and it remembers everything you’ve ever seen, done, heard, felt and learned.
The subconscious is also the home of your belief system, from where both negative and
positive beliefs arise automatically.
Through hypnosis, we bypass the conscious mind and re-programme the negative beliefs
you’ve chosen to change so the subconscious tells the conscious mind of your new reality,
allowing both to believe the same thing for rapid change. -
WHAT'S AN EXAMPLE? After setting your alarm clock at night and just before falling asleep, have you ever given
yourself the last thought of, "I WILL wake up at 6:00 o'clock tomorrow ..." and surprised
yourself by waking up minutes before your alarm went off?
You embedded a post-hypnotic suggestion in your subconscious when just before falling
asleep, you’re in the Theta brain state vs. the fully conscious Beta state.
That's how easy it is.
That's how quick it is.
And that's how much YOU are in
control of the process.
As a matter of fact, as all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, we teach you self-hypnosis
from your very first session. -
WILL I GIVE UP CONTROL OF MY MIND? No.
Hypnosis is safer than watching TV.
Television, movies and commercials throw subliminally masked messages at you in
psychologically calculated short bursts for the duration of the show - about lifestyle, about
products they want you to buy, about how you should think, act and dress.
Rather than bombarding you with directions like rapid burst commercials, a certified Consulting Hypnotist
is a guide, and we fully discuss any life changes you want
to make before any session.
You have complete control at all times. -
WILL I BLURT OUT SECRETS? No.
Hypnosis is not a truth serum.
The misconception propogated by TV for drama is that one is incapable of lying when in a
hypnotic state, and that it robs you of the ability to keep embarrassing secrets confidential.
On the contrary, while in hypnosis, you will not spontaneously begin talking nor reveal any
intimate secrets you wouldn’t tell while in a waking state as you're always in control with
the Consulting Hypnotist acting as your guide, not your interrogator.
No one in hypnosis can be compelled to blurt out things they don’t want to share. In fact,
with a little effort, one can 'fib' while entrained.
Too, for sensitive life issues, an experienced practitioner doesn’t necessarily even need to
know anything about them to guide you into state where the subconscious can be
guided to adjust negatively arising thought. -
CAN I GET "STUCK" IN HYPNOSIS? No.
Not any more than you can get “stuck” in concentration, or in a good book,
or while watching an enthralling movie.
The uninformed fear is that in the unlikely event the Consulting Hypnotist becomes incapacitated
during a session and goes unconscious for some reason or another, that the client will be
“stuck” there until they’re “brought out.”
Hypnosis requires rapport and interaction to sustain and if the practitioner stopped
communicating with you, you will simply drift off
into a natural sleep and awaken naturally a short time later. -
I'M TOO INTELLIGENT TO BE HYPNOTIZED! Actually, hypnosis is more effective with intelligent people.
It’s proven there’s a positive correlation between intelligence and hypnotizability
and as hypnosis requires concentration, the best clients are actually the
more intelligent of the population.
Alternatively, even though all humans enter an entrained brain state at least twice a day (when
going to sleep and waking up), it’s difficult and often impossible to hypnotize psychotics, people
with an IQ under 70 or severely detached individuals as they aren’t able to
concentrate for any substantive period of time. -
DO I GO TO SLEEP WHILE HYPNOTIZED? No.
Not any more than when deeply absorbed in a good book or movie.
Hypnosis is a state of concentrated focus and although the path into hypnosis parallels the
brainwave path into sleep, relaxation is not a requirement to reach an entrained state.
A marathon runner, for example, will reach a
light hypnotic state within one mile or less.
Medical studies have also established that the EEG of a hypnotized person is indistinguishable
from that of a person who is relaxed and alert with their eyes closed.
A sleeping person is unresponsive while a person in an entrained state, while deeply
relaxed and appearing asleep, is very aware with their senses increasing
6-10 times more than normal.
After their first session, most clients remark
about how clearly they can think while that relaxed. -
I'VE HEARD ONE SESSION FIXES EVERYTHING I’ve heard that too, and can’t help smiling when someone says it.
I’m considered an expert in the field and I’d LOVE to offer “one session fixes” but that’s only
happened five or six times over my years of practice.
For example, a smoker who’s cut down to 1 or 2 a day on their own can likely walk out of my
office that day as a non-smoker, if smoking is even found to be the causitive issue at that point.
Unfortunately, to meet the “only one session” promise, some lesser experienced practitioners
will try embed negative suggestions, like every time a client has a cigarette, someone in
their family will die.
That approach pretty well guarantees the client
will NEVER stop smoking.
Science knows so much about the hypnotic state of mind and there are so many ways to
approach an issue that there is, in my opinion, NO reason to embed negative suggestions. -
HOW MANY SESSIONS ARE AVERAGE? Some clients get what they need in two or three sessions. The profession as a whole has found
the average to be four to six sessions on average4 per issue.
For more complex issues, clients come as long as they need.
In my experience however, people often begin to feel some relief after the first session as it
can be incredibly healing to finally have a safe space to talk openly about your concerns
and feel genuinely heard.
As everyone is unique and has different goals, there is no prescribed time frame or number of
sessions. It takes as long as it's going to take depending on how much
you yourself want to dedicate yourself.
Bear in mind, what the conscious mind believes is the problem may not at all be what the
subconscious mind knows to be the cause, and that is what makes hypnotherapy so
incredibly healing. -
IS EVERYTHING I SAY CONFIDENTIAL? Yes.
However, counsellors in Ontario can be bound to break confidentiality in 3 instances
when we are required by law to report:
- If there is reason to believe a
child is being harmed
- If you tell me, or if it becomes obvious, that you are going to harm
yourself or another person
- If I am ordered by the courts to break confidentiality