Hypnosis in psychotherapy
When you read a novel, go to a movie or tell a story to a child, you are entering the world of the imagination. It can be extremely powerful. A scary film can have a visercal effect, and make someone curl up and hide their head under a friends’s arm. A funny film brightens your whole week.
Even a children’s story can be life-impacting. When I was little, so strong was the effect of “The kittens who lost their mittens” story, that to this day I am super-extra-careful with my gloves.
This imagination is a natural capacity of out minds. Really, what is termed hypnosis in psychotherapy is simply going on a longer journey in this direction than we normally do. We can imagine a rose. If you stay with that imagination for 10 or 15 minutes, exploring each tiny detail and overcoming any boredom, then you will be in a type of self-hypnosis.
Such hypnosis acts as a kind of passageway, build into our minds but rarely recognised. It takes us from the everyday mind which deals with cause and effect in physical reality ( “the conscious mind”) to the inner mind where feelings images and words shift form from one to the other and the ruling thoughts of our lives exist, floated free from physical objects (“the unconscious mind.”)
Since the inner mind is where causative thoughts and traumas and emotions live, all psychotherapies aim to bring this into awareness and do so in many different ways. Hypnotherapists therefore say that all therapy which works is hypnotherapy. This has truth. Some therapy methods use hypnosis without realising it; if for example you make a list of 30 good things about yourself slowly and thoughtfully, you’ll be entering a trance state as you do so. Others deliberately use hypnosis-type methods to access the unconscious. For example if you are invited to close your eyes and walk down a safe and lovely path until you meet someone significant in your life … then the person you meet is chosen by your inner mind, and may be a surprise to your everyday mind. And as you meet that person in an inner-mind state the meeting has an inner-mind truth on a deeper level which again may surprise the everyday mind.
Psychotherapists who mainly use these deliberate hypnosis techniques are called hypnotherapists. Hypnotherapists are flexible in their approach, and may use many of the methods on this page, empowered by hypnosis. When they use Freudian free association to discover hidden sources of conflict, that is strictly what is termed hypnoanalysis. More generally, hypnoanalysis applies to any kind of technique exploring the deep subconscious for hidden things, including inner child healing and past life recall. In an easy, relaxed state of dreamy imagination, it is possible to entirely bypass the conscious mind and its prejudices and discover key conflicts inaccessible by other means.
Direct suggestion hypnosis: the mind’s reset button
Many issues can be dealt with in many ways by many psychotherapies. But hypnosis leads the field with a certain class of situations. This is direct suggestion, where people are stuck in a repetitive habit loop of thinking and acting. “I mustn’t have another cup of coffee …” – but still do. These mental tape loops can be completely out of control for the everyday mind. It doesn’t matter how much you – the everyday mind – tells yourself not to, you do it anyway.
In these situations hypnosis famously gives repetitious hypnotic commands: “Say NO to that thought of coffee! You do NOT need it! You will IGNORE coffee! … ” etc. In the right situation this can be spectacularly effective in changing behavour.
In the right situation this can be spectacularly effective in changing behavour. Some hypnotherapists however give the impression that all aspects of all issues can be dealt with like this. That’s completely not true. However hypnosis is often useful at some stage of the therapy process for many issues.
Other advantages of hypnosis a stand-alone therapy
Able to work directly with the unconscious mind; routinely surprises clients by finding hidden conflicts and resources which other therapies can’t. Based on what works rather than academic theory; a rich treasury of practical psychology built up over more than a century and a half. Quick and powerful with all sorts of common problems. Able to easily incorporate the best in other therapies, and through hypnosis, make them even better. Enthusiastic and passionate about life and its possibilities. A good balance between inner process and outer action.
Disadvantages of hypnosis as stand-alone therapy
While passionate about life (a huge plus), no overall coherent therapeutic framework. Sometimes over-sells: some hypnosis marketing gives people the impression that it enables major change without effort, pain, or confronting the real issues. But for any but the simplest issues, what you get out of therapy is directly proportional to what you put in. And you can’t succeed without the conscious mind, conscious choices, conscious meditative presence. If you really too much on hypnosis, it’s possible for people to have fascinating experiences, but nothing changes because the experiences are too removed from reality.