HYPNOSIS IS GOING MAINSTREAM

Nevertheless, although it’s nonsense to say that 30% of people can’t be hypnotized, the fact is that we’re seeing referrals from doctors skyrocketing!  I recently had a call from a doctor who actually wanted to know how many of my clients failed to enter trance because he had a patient he wanted to refer, but that person had attempted hypnosis unsuccessfully in the past.  Having used hypnosis himself, the doctor was unclear on whether his patient was one of those who “can’t be hypnotized” or simply had a less skillful practitioner.  The truth is that it could be none of the above.  Maybe he was just having a bad day or was not a good fit for that particular practitioner.  Maybe he had an expectation that he would be unable to scratch his nose and was disappointed. Many people think they’ll enter some weird and uncomfortable state of helplessness.  Maybe he was in trance and assumed that he failed because some secret (and incorrect) criterion was not met.  Because EVERYONE enters trance states on a daily basis.  Of course you can scratch your nose and still be focused on an idea.  

If “trance” is defined as being focused and absorbed in one’s own thoughts, (and truthfully, there IS no actual definition of trance) who hasn’t experienced that?  I do it every time I move over into the left lane and hit the cruise control.  It doesn’t mean that I’m asleep or unaware of what’s happening around me.  But the “highway hypnosis” phenomenon is so prevalent that we all know what it is.  

So why does a client like the insomniac mentioned in this article sometimes receive immediate benefit and then experience waning results over time?  First, a client’s insomnia is very likely an effect, not a cause.  Lasting results are rarely achieved by attacking effects in any arena.  Then too, for some clients, the desired result actually violates a deeply held belief that must be eliminated.  If you have a belief that money is hard to come by, you won’t allow it come any other way; you won’t notice opportunities or exploit them.  If money does land in your lap without sufficient effort on your part – and you’re the only one who decides what “sufficient effort” means – you’ll get rid of it as quickly as possible and probably in a way that punishes you for having acquired it in the first place.  If you have an internal mantra that says “Omg, I’m so fat.  I don’t look good.  My body is hideous,” how much weight do you think you’ll allow yourself to lose?  If you believe that no one wants to be with you, a generic script is probably not going to change that opinion over the long term.  It might have a temporary effect, but you’re going to reassert that core belief unless we actively get underneath it and dismantle it.  

The most effective learning comes from within.  NOTHING I say is going to radically change a belief like “I’m unlovable; no one wants to be with me.  I’m always alone and lonely.”  I could argue with it, point to all the evidence that your belief is false, and it will not change a thing. Guess what?  You’re already in a trance.  You are ENTRANCED by the idea that you are alone.  My job is to help you locate the other internal storylines that you’re not paying attention to and be able to hear them.  Not my stories.  It’s not happening in MY head.  I want the other truths that you DO hold and are just not aware of as a general rule.  Those are the stories that matter.  

Most of our deeply-held negative beliefs about ourselves are based in trauma, and the truth is that it’s very unlikely that someone else’s thoughts and words will override the trauma response.  No matter how much sense I might make, there’s a part of the mind – an unconscious part – that is reliving that trauma on a tape loop.  It’s just stuck there.  It’s entranced.  Like Princess Leia repeating “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  You’re my only hope,” over and over again, it’s caught in the hologram of that moment.  It doesn’t know that you survived.  It doesn’t doesn’t have access to any of the learning that occurred after the event. It only knows what went before and it is disconnected from the larger personality and awareness, as well as from any other traumatized parts.  The tape loop just plays on and on, creating a trance state – at the unconscious level – to that story.  So in order to achieve permanent results, we have to reintegrate that part and bring it back online so that it knows that the event is over and that all is well.  

When people say “I can’t be hypnotized,” what it usually means is “I’m not going to cooperate.”  And that’s fine.  It’s an entirely voluntary process.  But I can promise you that they DO enter trance states regularly, and for most of us the trance states are such a normal part of our mental and emotional lives that we don’t notice them.  

When people say “Hypnosis doesn’t work,” it’s usually because they’ve received a casually written, generic script that didn’t even begin to address their unique experience or relieve a chronically limiting belief. In the case of complex trauma it would be wildly misleading to say that hypnosis offers a one-hit quick fix.  But because of the wealth of trauma models and strategies we employ, an experienced and well-trained practitioner can often provide a faster, more direct route to healing the root cause of the problem, instead of being mired in trying to relieve the effect.

At Hypnosis Frederick we work with our clients to reach the underlying cause of the thought, belief, or decision no matter how simple or complex it is.