After the summer vacations and after the New Year, people are often full of good spirits to improve their lives. To stimulate real progression in their lives for once.
But that is often easier said than done, fortunately hypnosis can help people improve their lives and achieve goals.
Ideal to know if you are a hypnotherapist or a coach helping people with a variety of goals.
In this blog article, we take a closer look at the progression technique in hypnosis and what it is all useful for.
Indeed, many people are familiar with techniques such as regression which is often combined with the inner child.
But what is also a very nice technique, the opposite technique of regression is progression.
Difference between progression and regression
The regression technique involves going back to the moment when a particular limiting belief arose. The regression technique often traces the moment where a problem in your life arose. The idea is that by solving this problem, your life will be better in the future.
A progression actually helps you move into the future. With a progression, you move toward a positive future and are given the tools to achieve that positive future. This in turn has all kinds of different benefits than a regression.
It deals more with looking forward in your life, rather than looking back. It also delivers a lot.
This is an ideal technique to use when you precisely want to improve your life.
Improving your life
There are all kinds of factors that can make you think about improving your life, think about:
- Physical rehabilitation.
- Recover from a mental problem, such as depression.
- Find a better job / become successful(er) as an entrepreneur.
- Become a better version of yourself.
All things that will cause you to improve your life and thus get "progression" in your life.
The progression technique thus gives people an idea of the future and the "route" to that future. Researchers say the technique can be used by therapists to give clients a picture of what their journey or recovery from a particular problem might look like. It can indicate in advance some "milestones" that you may begin to experience during treatment of certain problems[1].
This technique also often helps to boost clients' egos. Self-confidence and self-image often become stronger as a result.
You may think, yes but without knowing the cause of the problem, such a "milestone" is harder to achieve than with knowing the cause of the problem.
But it doesn't always have to be that way. Ultimately, the placebo effect is also something that makes people better, because they have the expectation that the pill will solve their problem in the future, after taking it.
So using a placebo is using a positive expectation about the future.
Progression in depression
In the case of depression, progression can even be incredibly important. The greater the feelings of hopelessness , the more important it is to give people hope again. To give people an idea in advance of how life can also be "fun" or "valuable."
Because people suffering from depression often find it difficult to imagine that life can be fun again, a guided visualization about that future is important to give.
For the success of the progression technique, it may be helpful for the client to be in deep hypnosis the first time, but light hypnosis may be sufficient the times after that.
In guided visualization, it is important for people to see that they are achieving a certain goal and also to feel how much pleasure and satisfaction it gives them that they have achieved the goal. In other words, they should feel that it is already so.
"It's already happened," I sometimes say.
Progression in pain and fatigue
Progression has also been studied to see if it helps people with pain and fatigue. In a study testing treatment with and without progression, it was found that people who did receive progression experienced less pain and fatigue as a result almost immediately than those who had to do without progression[2].
So in the short term, the progression technique can be very effective in reducing pain and fatigue. More research needs to be done on this particular technique for its long-term effects.
But research on hypnotherapy in general for people with fibromyalgia suggests that hypnotherapy also significantly reduced fibromyalgia symptoms over the longer term, think 12 and 24 weeks. Including fatigue and pain[3].
And since people are often given more than 1 technique during hypnotherapy to work through their problems, progression can certainly play a role in that. You can then enhance the long-term effects by combining progression with other techniques.
Progression for creating hope
Thus, the progression technique is ideal for creating hope in one's life and even giving people meaning for their lives.
For example, if a regression is painful because someone has been walking with a problem for decades, they may become unhappy that they don't realize anything until after their 50th birthday. In cases like that, progression is very important, after all, you can still live to be 80 or even 100, and that means you still have 30 to 50 years to organize your life in a fun and worthwhile way.
Progression is made together with the client
It is not that the hypnotherapist "determines" what such a fun future looks like. This is something you do together with the client. Specifically, you give suggestions that stimulate the client's imagination to be able to visualize an ideal future image for themselves[4].
You can also use a life event for this, such as:
- Look good and feel good at your wedding.
- Have work that makes you happy.
- Being able to run another marathon.
- Playing with your children/grandchildren during summer vacation.
So you determine that future hope event depending on your client's problems and goals.
Shaping a progression
When you help someone with the progression technique, it starts as always. You induce hypnosis and deepen the hypnotic state.
You can lead people to a room with a door and then when they open that door in their mind, they are in the future vision that is ideal. Where they will be completely happy.
You suggest that they feel good, that they have achieved their goals, that they feel strong, light and confident. These suggestions cause those feelings to be aroused.
You can ask what a client sees and what it feels like to be confident . Because of the hypnotic state, it is easier to imagine that than outside of that state.
Because in that hypnotic state, certain problems suddenly no longer play a role. Not the depression, not the obesity, not the pain and/or not the fatigue either.
By asking questions and giving hints about the feelings, you help the client to see, feel and experience the future picture in the best way possible.
You also want to anchor this feeling , so they can always call it up when they have a moment of difficulty making decisions in their daily lives. Like when someone wants to lose weight for a wedding, this feeling helps them turn down cookies and drinks so they don't eat unnecessarily.
Creating a roadmap for the future
For some practical goals, such as opening a hypnotherapy practice, you can also help people by taking steps back.
"What did you do before setting up the practice?"
Each time you help the client take a step back to the moment they are in the chair.
This also gives your client a clear plan with the steps they can take. Especially with larger goals, this gives them a foothold.
Consider, for example, the milestones named earlier in this blog article.
Then when people reach such a milestone in real life, it immediately triggers those good feelings, which is incredibly good for motivation to do what it takes to achieve their goals.
Progression Learning
When you take the training courses of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands you first learn the regression technique, in the third course, the Pathfinder, you also get the progression technique. We also call this one The Dream.
Want to learn more about hypnosis? Then come to the free online master class.
Or register directly for one of our events and trainings. You can attend the trainings in class on location or live online. Then you join the class via a web-cam and people can practice with you via a laptop.
Ideal if you can't make it on location for once, or don't live near the Netherlands.
Click here to learn more about our training programs.
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