Hypnosis is a tool increasingly used to solve mental and even physical problems. People who receive hypnotherapy quit smoking faster, are more successful at losing weight and overcome their fears. Hypnotherapy is thus ideal for helping people. Unfortunately, only not everyone can be helped with hypnotherapy. 8 out of 10 people are hypnotizable and 1 out of 10 is even highly hypnotizable. But how do you know which 2 of those 10 you cannot help? How do you recognize the person who is "cured" after only 1 session and what do you do with the people who "just" go under hypnosis?
In this blog, I address how to recognize in advance who is and is not hypnotizable and what that is because of.
Numbers about hypnosis and people
In many scientific studies of treatments with hypnosis, you see that researchers are looking for subjects who are highly hypnotizable. This already shows that there is something to hypnosis and that it does not have exactly the same effect on everyone.
About 80 percent of people, that's 8 out of 10, can be easily put under hypnosis, but 20 percent of people do not allow themselves to be easily put under hypnosis. 10 percent of people, that's 1 out of 10, actually allow themselves to be hypnotized very easily.
In general, children and young adults are easy to bring under hypnosis because they are still the most open to suggestion and because their imagination is not limited by "how things are done."
Being easy or reasonably easy to bring under hypnosis means that you are responsive to suggestions for changes in how you experience experiences. In doing so, you are also open to changes in perception, feeling, emotions, thoughts and/or behavior.
Personal characteristics and hypnosis
How well you can be hypnotized can be related to personal characteristics. For example, people who respond well to some kind of visualization of smell, having you imagine a particular smell, may have traits of borderline.
Forgetting things through hypnosis, during hypnosis, has a correlation with people who have traits of schizoid personality disorder. On the contrary, there is a negative correlation with narcissism.
In people who do not suffer from disorders, characteristics such as perseverance, mirroring other people's emotions and self-sacrifice are a sign that they are easy to bring under hypnosis.
In the process, people who are easy to bring under hypnosis are also more open to experiences, more open to fantasy, aesthetics and feelings.
Someone with an extravagant personality, on the other hand, may not always be easy to bring under hypnosis and may therefore be unexpectedly difficult to treat with hypnosis.
People who are not easy to hypnotize often do have better results in regression than those who are easy to hypnotize.
In the process, it also appears that the brains of people who come under hypnosis faster are developed differently. Areas that deal with conducting business and attention have more activity than people who come under hypnosis less easily.
Steps you can take to determine how easy it is to do
To determine how much effort you need to put into bringing someone under hypnosis, there are a number of steps you can take, namely:
- Make eye contact and make sure their gaze is totally focused on you.
- Ask them to stand somewhere, if they do this promptly they are often a willing client.
- Smile, be confident and ask to grab them by the shoulders. Then take a step with them forward to backward and sideways. This helps them relax and with this you gain more control.
- After the induction of hypnosis, you can first test how well things are going by making a small suggestion that they can implement immediately.
Do these steps go fairly easily? Then you have a client who is easy to bring under hypnosis, if not you need a little more.
What makes people more susceptible to hypnosis?
Relaxation is very important for people to easily go under hypnosis. The mind and body must be relaxed. Therefore, provide a comfortable place if you have clients who are difficult to bring under hypnosis. A nice soft couch and removing a television can help tremendously.
Also, have people turn off the phone. Unless this is exactly what makes your client very anxious due to a phone/social media addiction.
In addition, you can also do breathing exercises to promote physical relaxation and to get the thoughts to your treatment instead of the other things they are still working on that day.
Conscious relaxation of muscles in the body is another way to promote hypnosis. For example, you can then perform a guided body scan . A body scan can take up to half an hour if you take your time and slow down.
Is this your client's first time using hypnosis? If so, explain what hypnosis is first. Because of television shows, they may have the wrong beliefs about what hypnosis entails and to what extent they have control over what they do.
Why hypnosis sometimes doesn't work (the first time)
Despite all the preparatory work and extra effort to get people to relax, it can happen that you may not succeed in getting your client into hypnosis. This can have many reasons, with different solutions.
The client doesn't believe in it
Because he/she has already tried everything, he/she is knocking on your door for once, but actually you are the last one because the conviction that hypnosis works is not there. If someone doubts its usefulness you can try hypnotizing all you want, but not much will happen.
Therefore, you need to be really confident and have their attention so they believe you can do what you say you will do.
Client resists therapy
Sometimes something is just plain scary. Instead of your client relaxing and joining you, he resists the state of hypnosis and the suggestions. The body is then often not relaxed either.
In this case, it is important to perform a few more relaxation exercises first.
Client tries too hard to be in hypnosis
Actually, almost the same thing happens here as in resisting hypnosis. The client wants to be hypnotized so badly that they almost turn it into a physical activity.
Even in this case, it is important to perform some relaxation exercises and indicate to them to get comfortable in the flow.
The client is totally not trying to be in hypnosis
A common complaint from doctors is that people expect everything to be solved with a magic pill and people don't have to make any effort themselves at all. This is a complaint you can also suffer from as a hypnotherapist. People sit down and expect you to do your trick.
The realization that they themselves can also direct certain thought processes, guided by you, for example, is then not there. Therefore, additional explanation of the collaboration between therapist and client may be wise to increase the chances of success.
The client hears things that are totally contrary to his/her reality
Your beliefs determine how you see the world and the reality you live in. Hypnotic suggestions try to change that reality and therefore sometimes create dissonance. The suggestion "You are now completely relaxed." Can create confusion if that person is not relaxed.
Because the client's tense state does not match the suggestion and thus she/he's reality is not acknowledged, this may be just enough to resist hypnosis.
Then you can start all over again. The more experience you have as a hypnotherapist the sooner you will know what not to say to avoid the last problem.
If you want to learn more about hypnosis and other mental techniques to help people overcome problems come to a playshop or check out Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training courses.
The courses are suitable for beginners and advanced to very advanced.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5388343/
