The other day, a man was inquiring whether we could help his wife with an issue that seemed to be causing HIM a lot of distress. This made me think about...intent....and commitment. You see, in hypnosis, both the client, in a clinical situation, and even a subject in a hypnosis stage show,...and the hypnotist have to be in agreement to attain the trance-state necessary for suggestions to work. Backing up a little is one of the primary maxims of hypnosis, and that is...all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. That means that the hypnotist does not have some mysterious power over the client, as many TV shows and literature keep suggesting, which is suggestion in itself,...rather, it is an agreement of the client to self-relax and reach the state that goes around the critical, conscious mind and into the quite literal and impressionable subconscious mind. So, I'll give you an everyday example: YOU want to be entertained. YOU turn on the TV. A show comes on. YOU decide if you want to “get involved” with the show. YOU decide NOT, and begin switching to other channels. YOU find something that catches your interest. You adjust the volume and put down the remote. YOU relax your critical mind, your “willing suspension of dis-belief”, and soon, YOU are in that focused, relaxed, passive state, completely identifying with the characters in the show as if they were present, in the room with you. Time dilates and 20 minutes pass when it only seems life 2-3 minutes. Your phone rings and you “snap out of it” and answer the phone, turning your critical mind back on. You deal with the person on the phone. The phone call ends, and you re-engage with the show. At the end of the show, you see scenes from the upcoming episode, then you are directly led into scenes from the next show that is about to start in order to keep you engaged in the agreed-upon TV trance. What I just did was describe the essence of a hypnosis session. YOU have an issue. YOU decide, YOU decide to make an appointment and agree to come into the office or book an equally effective over-the-phone session, just like YOU select the channel or program you want to watch. Just like the TV show, YOU can end the trance state at anytime. Just like the TV show, time dilates. Just like the TV show, the info and data you receive is something that will be retained. Just like the TV show, you will imagine scenes from your upcoming episodes of life in a positive way. But unlike TV, you will not be handed over to the next TV show, still in a trance state, but will be re-awaken into the critical, clearheaded, conscious state before going out the door. So, just like turning on the TV, the hypnotists gives you the tools to access your own subconscious when you want to, on purpose, at will. And...YOU, the client, have to decide for yourself whether to “turn it on and then pick the channel”. But, here's how it works out, sometimes. A wife calls the hypnotist about her husband's smoking, or vice versa, and the husband shows up, and then, in the pre-session interview, the husband and the hypnotist discover that said husband really does not want to quit for whatever reason. So, the hypnosis probably won't work because...all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You have to want to be hypnotized and you have to want to be helped.
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