Who is in control?

I am always surprised when I hear people express concern about hypnosis, because they fear they will lose control and be made to do things against their will.  They have the old stereotype of the hypnotist with a turban on their head putting suggestions into the poor innocent victim, effectively taking control of them.  This fear is even further reinforced by stage hypnotists and their acts where people are put into a trance and made to do things on stage and later be brought out of the trance unaware of what they did. 

The fact of the matter is that your subconscious mind is being imprinted with suggestions all day long and only when the right combination of emotional emphasis, imagery and thought is placed around it, will your subconscious execute a suggestion. This happens when a football team is being prepped by their coach, or a minister lecturing from the pulpit, or any of the infinite number of scenarios in life where your attention is being focused and information is being transmitted to your subconscious mind.  Remember the coke ads that used to run with subliminal advertising.  There was a huge uproar and it was banned, because it was viewed as unethical.  What this means is people can influence you whether they are skilled hypnotists or not, it is a matter of your level of awareness and trust in the person transmitting the information. 

The real truth is that it is up to you to understand the powers within yourself and to learn how to use them and protect them appropriately.  Whenever anyone works with a hypnotherapist, they should make sure they are professionally trained and that they feel a rapport with the hypnotist.  If you begin to work with a hypnotist and feel the least bit uncomfortable, then assert your rights and end the session.  There is no point going any further.  There are many hypnotists and many therapists who do not have a thorough understanding of how the parts of our conscious mind work, yet the framework of training and scripts worked with may end with a successful result despite their lack of training in consciousness.  Chances are, if you work with a hypnotist and have success, you will go back to them for more help with other challenges or goals you are focusing upon.  I cannot emphasize enough the importance of looking for a highly trained hypnotists who constantly seeks education and training to expand their understanding of consciousness and hypnotic techniques. And remember, even the most adept hypnotist may need several sessions to target the correct information into the mind of the client, thereby achieving optimal results.

Now, let me give you an example of what I mean by the importance that the hypnotist have awareness of how consciousness works and the need for rapport.  I was doing training to learn a specific therapeutic hypnosis technique.  Everyone in the program were highly trained and skilled as therapists, coaches, etc.  Throughout the training we were given the opportunity to be the guinea pig for the class to observe, on this particular occasion pain management was the subject and I was the volunteer. My condition, neuropathic pain caused by a genetic condition had been flared up and giving me considerable trouble.  The teacher, 30 years skilled in the work of hypnotherapy, performed a pre-talk to elicit an understanding of my problem and condition.  Once the trance was entered, she began to work the script (in hypnosis we call the actual hypnosis work a prescription or script for short) and as she did, she was utilizing a technique that would eliminate the pain from my body, by making a suggestion that I would not feel anything in my feet.  Now this is where it became tricky, had we had the proper amount of time to do a real session she would have understood that my greatest fear is the progression of the disease where I would lose feeling in my feet and be wheelchair bound.  So each time during the trance that she would make the suggestion about how I would experience sensations in my feet, I would negate it in my mind.  After the session we discussed this and it became a great learning lesson for the whole class.  Hypnotists must be very aware of the words they use and how they are being construed by the client.  This is why most hypnosis sessions are at least 1.5 hours long and may require several sessions to be truly effective.  The hypnosis itself might only be 20-30 minutes, but the preliminary work sets it all up and no time limit should be placed upon that…it is crucial to success.