A lot of people have a strange idea about hypnosis and although I am not in favor of going into detail to explain hypnosis, it is good to briefly mention them in this article. I will also explain how to tackle these misconceptions and how I tackle them.
Hypnosis and Anxiety
For now, I won't explain why I think you shouldn't start explaining hypnosis to your client at all as a therapist, I'll write an article about that later. First, here are the biggest misunderstandings and also the biggest fears people have about going into hypnosis.
The first fear is: Losing control
I lose control and you then completely control me. That's what you often hear when you tell people you're going to do hypnosis. Hypnotists know that can't happen, but people don't know that. Where do you think that fear comes from?
You probably know. When you've seen a hypnosis show you see it happen. People lose control and the hypnotist snaps his fingers and he has you in his power.
This image is in our collective consciousness and many people unconsciously carry this image with them. This image is not accurate, but show hypnotists like to keep this image that way. This allows them to play with people's expectations. Perfect for entertainment, but often not useful for therapy.
Often people are already afraid of going into hypnosis. However, they don't realize that their idea of hypnosis is only a perception and therefore incorrect. They have studied the phenomenon from the outside and do not know how relaxing, nice and refreshing a good hypnosis session can feel. A session in which you have all the control. In fact, you often take back the control you gave away to your problem.
With hypnosis, you actually take back the control
that you’ve given away to your problem…
The second fear is: I'm all out....
This, too, comes from show hypnosis. You see people lying on a chair or on the floor and they seem completely out of it right? As if they are asleep and don't remember anything.
Some also don't remember anything after such a show, so it's not surprising to think you're completely gone and don't hear, see, feel, smell or taste anything.
But if you no longer hear, see, feel, smell or taste anything then you are probably in a different state of mind. That state of mind is called death... And you want to stay away from that for as long as possible... ;-)
You begin to understand that, again, this comes from studying the phenomenon from the outside. When you are in hypnosis you will find that you are actually much more present. There have been cases where people heard things in three rooms away that could not normally be heard.
I too have trainees who when they go into hypnosis can hear much better and know exactly what you are saying. It is incredibly important that you give the right suggestions, because a person under hypnosis takes everything said to him very literally.
You are actually much more present, focused and even your hearing is a lot better in hypnosis than when you are not in hypnosis....
The third fear is: I'm all going to do things against my will
This one also comes, it almost becomes monotonous, from show hypnosis. You all see people during a show doing things they seemingly do against their will. Otherwise, you wouldn't do that on a stage, would you?
Some time ago I saw a hypnosis show and the hypnotist instructed everyone to dance. It was the end of the show and lastly he wanted to close with a nice music to which all the stars of the show would dance.
The biggest star of the show, who followed all the suggestions, did not dance. No matter how many times the hypnotist gave the suggestion to dance, she did not dance. That may not seem all that strange, but when you spent the rest of the show talking to aliens, showing off as a bodybuilder, and going all out as a drummer, that's pretty unusual. So why wouldn't you dance?
Afterwards, the hypnotist asked the lady in question this and she said, "Dancing is not allowed by my religion...
Interesting isn't it? So if you really don't want to and it goes against your values, you will never do things you don't want to. Then you just can't, but this fear is often strongly entrenched in people.
There's another reason for that, by the way, but I'll get to that in a moment.
The fourth fear is: I'll never get out....
This fear also comes, you guessed it, from show hypnosis. 1 in 15,000 people spontaneously go into a very deep hypnosis, called the hypnotic coma, because on the outside it looks like a coma.
So when you study this only on the outside and you have seen this once you get very scared. Especially if during a hypnosis show the hypnotist cannot get the person who happened to get into this out. That used to happen sometimes and maybe still does, although I can hardly imagine it.
Because that used to happen and people would sometimes stay in hypnosis for hours and not come out, people became afraid of hypnosis. Especially if they had been at that particular show. Somewhere this is also still in our collective consciousness apparently, because people are still afraid of this.
Today we call this state the Esdaile state. We can now generate this one and we can easily get people out of it. It is interesting, though, to know the reason why people did not come out of it.
Do you have an idea? Why you would stay in hypnosis for hours? Wouldn't come out of it?
Actually, there is only one reason to think of and that is because it feels so good. It feels so good, you just want to stay in it. When the hypnotist says "open your eyes," you simply think "I don't think so...
What do you mean no control...
You stay in that state because it feels so good and you decide when to get out. You understand that this must have been pretty scary for hypnotists in the past. Often your career was immediately over when you happened to have someone in your show who didn't want to come out. Fortunately, this is no longer an issue and we know exactly how to get those people out.
1 in 15,000 spontaneously go so deep into hypnosis that they don't come out when the hypnotist tells them to. That's because it feels so good that they want to stay in it
When you study this on the outside you get scared. If you were to study it on the inside and so you go into that state yourself, you suddenly realize how wonderful it is and that's a big difference.
Other fears and ideas
Other fears include getting all weird, telling your deepest secrets or becoming a completely different person.
Of course, this also all came from studying from the outside and not the inside.
Walking past them briefly, you could also say that when you have a problem, you are already doing weird things. You don't want to do it and yet you are doing it, against your will. You are essentially already a completely different person you want to be thanks to that problem.
You have absolutely no control over it and no matter how you consciously try, you don't get out of it. You see a problem is essentially hypnosis....
Your problem is your hypnosis. So when I bring you out of that hypnosis you call your problem, you no longer have a problem. So I don't have to put you into hypnosis, I just have to get you out of it....
Do you find this interesting? Then also download my report hypnosis 2.0 below.
