Working as a hypnotherapist, I help clients go into trance every working day. One of the questions I get asked is, “How does hypnotherapy actually work?”
What is Trance?
The first thing to examine is trance. I usually help people into trance by relaxing them (and they do get very relaxed!) and then asking them to imagine something. Once the brain and the body are very relaxed, something strange happens in the brain – the brain finds time to deal with unresolved issues. The part of the brain known as the default mode network comes into play.
It is the same process when you daydream, or when you get engrossed in a film or a book. Maybe you are totally absorbed in a film, and you become unaware of everything that is going on around you. You loose track of time. You become totally drawn in. This is trance.
What is Hypnosis?
Now we understand trance, it is time to look at hypnosis. Hypnosis is simply to act of helping someone else go into trance. You can also self-hypnotise, where you deliberately go into a trance yourself. There are various techniques for doing this, the most popular one is getting the person into a comfortable position (usually lying down or sitting) and helping them to imagine something, simply by talking to them.
What is Hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy is simply the use of hypnosis to help someone change. Many of us have things about ourselves that we would be better off changing – too anxious or depressed, addicted to something, unhealthy obsessions, lack of confidence, worry about how we look, righteous anger that interferes without lives and so on. If we could simply decide to change, we would … but it is not that easy.
Hypnotherapy is a type of therapy that allows us to change things that we don’t really like about ourselves.
So How Does Hypnotherapy Actually Work?
When you come to a hypnotherapy session with me, I will usually ask questions about how you want to be. In other words – you don’t like how you are now (e.g. too anxious, too much worry), so how do you want to be instead?
The first half of the session is talking, as I ask you to explore what you want, and what it will be like when you have achieved it. Then I lead you into a hypnotic trance where you relax. It is when you are in a trance that the default mode network in the brain comes into play and starts resolving your issues. Usually, this happens in the background where you are unaware of it.
And so, typically after 5 to 10 sessions, my clients find they have moved on considerably from where they were and can stop coming. My job is to get them to a point where they no longer need my help.
And Finally …
If you have issues that you would like help with, hypnotherapy is one of the options you have to help you deal with it. You can Contact Me if you want to enquire further about hypnotherapy. I will be very happy to call you and have a chat.
Photo courtesy of Photo by Muhammad-Taha Ibrahim on Pexels