subject: Essential Ingredients For Hypnotic Success [print this page] Hypnosis may not be a miracle cure - but it's very far from being a myth. As we've increasingly come to appreciate, it's a resource that's available to everyone, and used correctly, it can bring about remarkable, often dramatic, change. So how do you go about using hypnosis correctly, and what are the essential ingredients for hypnotic success?
Hypnotic trance is part of being human. At it's most basic, it's a highly focused state of attention, something that can be directed outwards - towards the TV, computer, games console or any of the myriad things that occupy us - or it can be directed inwards, towards our own thoughts and daydreams. Hypnotists or hypnotherapists use this natural human trait for specific purposes.
Hypnosis is universal. Nevertheless, there are times when it doesn't appear to work, or works poorly. This can happen when too rigid an approach is followed - either issuing direct commands and suggestions, or reading from a set script. Although these approaches were considered quite appropriate for much of the 20th century, and still are by some practitioners, the risk is that they will simply fail to connect with the client. Most people dislike being told what to do, after all.
Modern hypnosis tends to take place in a very different atmosphere. The old style Authoritarian Hypnotist/Compliant Listener relationship has been replaced by something much more subtle. Hypnosis is more of a collaboration, based on mutual trust, and only takes place when the hypnotist or hypnotherapist is certain that they have understood their client as an individual. Indirect, almost conversational, language patterns are used to create hypnotic suggestions that will resonate with the client, and bypass the old problem of resistance to being told what to do.
The essential ingredients for hypnotic success, then, are rapport, trust and the ability to see the world through another's eyes, together with an understanding of the subtleties of language that speak directly to the unconscious mind. When these ingredients are in place, our natural propensity for trance can bring about remarkable changes.
