What is Hypnotherapy?

What is hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is doing traditional talk therapy while being in a trance-like state.

So how do I get my clients into a trance?

Now let me just say, being in a trance is not like what you see in Las Vegas when it comes to hypnosis. My clients aren’t taught to quack like a chicken. They’re fully awake. They are controlling and guiding the whole session.

How do I get people in that trance? Basically, through progressive muscle relaxation, listening to calm music, and focusing on the breath.

Once my clients are in this trance, which takes about 15 minutes, then the real work can be done. The reason for this is that by putting people into a trance-like state we are able to access the subconscious brain. And in the subconscious brain, that’s where all the gold is.

If you think about it, most of us have had childhood experiences where we came to believe something about ourselves. We call this the “old conclusion” like “I’m a failure. I’ll never do anything with my life. I’ll never be good enough.” And once we make those old conclusions, we come up with a behavior to cope with those old conclusions.

I think I can safely say that almost all of us have had childhood experiences where we came to believe something negative about ourselves, and then what happens is we carry those negative conclusions into the present. So, for example, when one of my clients will ask me, “Why do I keep choosing the same type of guy over and over?” Inside my head, I’m like “Ooh, we’re going to find out.” By going back to these childhood experiences, we’re able to look at where did these limiting beliefs come from. For example, “Nothing I do is ever good enough” or “I have to be perfect in order to be successful and loved.” Then we come up with behaviors to cope with these false beliefs about ourselves, like being a perfectionist or not doing anything out of fear of being a failure.

The other really important part of this is to be able to express the emotions associated with the event. A lot of times anger will come up and sadness. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

Yes, hypnotherapy can be a little intense.

So, after we found these limited beliefs and we’ve expressed those feelings, then we have what’s called a ‘healing completion’. So, we go back and we find that part of us, like a little 8-year-old who had maybe some trauma or adverse childhood experiences. It doesn’t even have to be that traumatic. Then we come up with new beliefs and a new ways of behaving in the world.