Why Ericksonian Hypnosis

Ericksonian Hypnosis and The Alchemy of the Mind

“A powerful method of mental transmutation!"

There are many different forms of hypnosis in the world today. Most people have heard of or seen a hypnotist perform on stage influencing people to perform outrageous acts without recollection of what they were doing. Some have a stereotypical understanding of hypnosis, visualizing a hypnotist using the classic pendulum to induce trance to make direct suggestions to influence a client. An even smaller subset of the population are aware of hypnosis and its use for a wide variety of medical and therapeutic treatments, such as quitting smoking, weight loss, calming fears before dental work or surgeries. Yet, the truth is, that everyone has had some form of experience with hypnosis and remains unaware because of their limited interpretation of what it is.

Now, if we work with the Merriam Webster dictionaries definition, we can see why the previous statement is true.

hyp·no·sis noun \hip-ˈnō-səs\ : a state that resembles sleep but in which you can hear and respond to questions or suggestions

This definition, from the perspective of most hypnotists, is what is termed a trance state. A state of consciousness that the average human being spends the vast majority of their time in. Think about it, how many times have you been in a conversation and then realized, “oh my God, I didn’t hear a word they said”, or driven down a road and not remembered how you got from point A to point B. Human beings live the majority of their lives in a state of trance.

Here at Thought Alchemy's Transformational Hypnosis Center, we understand that the self-conscious mind guides us in a very unconscious fashion, unaware of its counterpart’s (the subconscious mind) interpretation of the same events. We know, that because of our general lack of awareness of this state of trance that we spend so much of our time in, and how open to suggestion we are at all times when in this state of trance, that we are repeatedly imprinting faulty thoughts and emotional patterns into our subconscious mind. We understand that the subconscious mind is responsible for all the vital functioning of our physical state of existence. What do we mean by this? Well ask yourself, when was the last time you told yourself to breathe or blink your eyes or told your legs to move to walk?

Our subconscious mind is far more powerful than people commonly understand. It not only runs every physical function performed in our body, but it is also responsible for our emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing and it executes flawlessly against our consciously directed thoughts all the while correlating it against the vast reservoir of life experience stored in our memory banks. Now, that is a lot to think about, isn’t it?  So please re-read these last few sentences before you proceed further.

At Transformational Hypnosis we understand that the subconscious mind utilizes the power of deductive observation…and executes against these observations flawlessly. You might be saying to yourself at this point, “if that is so, then why isn’t my life running smoothly or for that matter, why does my body get sick?” The answer….your self-conscious mind (rational mind), or what I like to call “your concrete mind” is stuck in a language pattern that is linear in its progression and incredibly inflexible and difficult to motivate…like concrete. It works with what I call, “the facts on the table” or inductive reasoning, and is challenged to see things through anything but the lens of external realities…or what the obvious facts present to it. The subconscious mind on the other hand, is very intuitive and can do parallel processing of thought, image and emotional stimulus of your what your five senses tune in to.  Which means it is very adept and deduces rapidly from your varying reactions to a situation and compares them to similar events from your past, and then determines exactly what is needed or being asked for when based upon that correlated deduction. In other words, the subconscious overrides your logical thought process of your conscious mind, because, while both parts of your consciousness use the same language, symbols and senses to communicate, their interpretations are very, very different.

Let me explain further with real life examples…and I promise I will bring this back to Ericksonian Hypnosis!

Alright, let’s say you are trying to lose weight, and you have done the usual see-saw on the scale most of your life through diet, exercise, yo-yoing through the ups and downs of attempted weight loss. And you think, well I just have a slow metabolism or any of the other myriad explanations we can come up with for why we can’t lose those pounds and keep them off. But the real reason is that your extra pounds and the eating behavior and body’s response to your eating is tied to a very positive goal that was initially deduced from observation by your subconscious mind and while the goal initially was probably something that made you feel very good, very safe or rewarded in some way, the result over time is that your body has gained excessive weight. Remember the subconscious mind runs your body, so the only reason it would allow excess weight that impacts your health is if a suggestion were given to it from the concrete mind that as a defensive mechanism would cause it to overrule normal functioning.

So let’s look at an example of a weight problem. A child is in the middle of divorcing parents and arguing is occurring. Mom and Dad are so caught up in their own drama that the normal nurturing and stable environment of the home is no longer there. Perhaps Dad takes the child out for an ice cream to make the child feel better and in the child’s fear and pain, the concrete mind can only feel and think that this is a new form of love from a parent that it fears it is losing. Subconsciously, the child’s subconscious mind is deducing from the intense feelings and images of love and attention they are feeling in the presence of their Dad and connects it to what the concrete mind is focused upon, the ice cream, and … Bingo… a new identification in the subconscious mind is formed.

Now many years down the road and many pounds later the child, now an adult, struggles with weight loss and it is profound. The adult beats themselves up because they cannot break the cycle of those mid-night visits to the fridge for ice cream and other goodies, meanwhile excessive weight gain results. The adult feels so badly about their weight, unable to see the connection of their overeating pattern and their original goal of remaining connected to their fathers love, and hence they feel destined to battle the bulge for the rest of their life. The consequences of it… adult onset of diabetes, heart disease, etc.

Pretty bleak picture, heh? Yet when you start to understand that within the adults consciousness is a desire for predictable and certain love, and that the adults subconscious mind has made an association of that love with that ice cream that the concrete mind is focused upon, then this very desirous form of love that they do not want to lose is definitely going to be more powerful than the drive to lose pounds. And while it might be labeled emotional eating, the truth of the matter is, rejecting this ice cream is tantamount to rejecting this love … and what do you think is a more powerful desire in the mind for this adult, weight loss or Love? If you answered love, then you begin to understand why you won’t win the weight loss battle easily and permanently unless you can communicate a new message to your subconscious mind about love. Now this is where Ericksonian Hypnotherapy comes into play!

Ericksonian Hypnotherapy is a form of hypnosis that utilizes the phenomena of trance to its ultimate powerful good, by quieting the concrete mind and powerfully re-patterning the subconscious mind with new and appropriate communications, new patterns may be assigned to this powerful intention set way back in the childhood. The results can be astounding. When the consulting hypnotist understands these aspects of consciousness and how they work, then works with the client appropriately through hypnosis, great and rapid progress can be made to transform a lifetime of behavioral issues. Any fear and its related behavior can be shifted, as well as achieving new goals for the future.

Thought Alchemy’s Transformational Hypnosis approach understands consciousness in the same way that it is taught and understood by the Ericksonian model of hypnosis.  We understand the self-conscious and subconscious mind and their respective use of language, symbols and senses, and thereby increase our probability of success with you as a client immensely. Change and transformation is what every human being seeks when they encounter difficulties in life. For the most part humans are lucky that so many positive imprints have been instilled in us by our parents and various influential figures in our life, but we have all had life experiences that have been imprinted into our subconscious mind indirectly as faulty beliefs and goals. And because of the way we think with our concrete mind, we simply don’t make the connection to the behavior and problem in hand, and if we do, we find it almost impossible to change them on our own.  Lack of understanding about how these two creative parts of our consciousness interpret life events is the challenge for everyone, and unless an event comes in that is powerful enough to set off the right image, thought and emotional mindset to force a reset, the battle will continue.

Call us and take control of the direction of your life now!