Building rapport: The most important step of hypnotherapy

Whether it’s conventional therapy or hypnotherapy, success hinges on building rapport. Rapport is the bond you, as a therapist, have with your client and the sense that that bond is strong. Your client must trust you enough to tell you everything that is important for the treatment and to be willing to follow your guidance.

So it's all about the click, the feeling of the other person understanding you and that if the situation were different there might even be room for developing a friendship.

In this blog, learn more about report building and how to do it professionally.

What is report?

Rapport is about the therapeutic relationship between the therapist and client. Building rapport is often the first step that must be taken by the therapist in order for treatment to go well.

The goal, therefore, is to create a kind of connection that signals to the client that the therapist can be trusted with his or her problems.

Building rapport is not something you do 123 and may invest time in as a therapist. It starts during the exploration session.

How you communicate with clients is also important for building rapport. For example, research shows that warm, friendly, affirming and understanding communication helps build rapport[1].

The client also plays a role in the bond that develops. This involves mutual respect, collaboration, and communication.

The importance of report

Having a good rapport with the client helps keep treatment satisfaction high. It helps the client stick to the treatment (for example, if you give homework in the form of audio recordings for self-hypnosis to be listened to regularly) and it improves treatment outcomes.

It is important for effective communication (source 1). For example, a good rapport encourages the client to open up more, allowing you, as a hypnotherapist, to resolve the problem even more effectively.

The exploration session

The exploration session is the first time the client actually interacts with a therapist and this is a very important time for rapport building.

A good first impression is also worth its weight in gold for report.

In fact, if you manage to build rapport in the first few minutes, this builds trust with your client (source 1). It is then helpful to gradually move from the "smalltalk" - unnoticed by your client - to the questions you want to ask to start shaping the treatment.

You may take your time with this. For example, research (source 1) shows that treatments already work better if you take 10 minutes to build rapport compared to treatments that take 7.5 minutes.

For this reason alone, it is wise to schedule time per session liberally, especially if it is your first time seeing or speaking with a client.

If you have spoken to the client before, but have not yet seen the client, make sure you review the client's file before the client arrives and do not do so when the client is already there[2].

Report building and retention

A quiet environment, letting the client talk out, avoiding interruptions (such as someone knocking on the door), and appearing non-hurried creates trust with the client and can cause the client to talk more (source 1).

In the beginning, it can help to talk with your client about everyday life and how the problem becomes evident in everyday life, such as when someone wants to quit smoking. Then you can ask more about the smoking behavior[3].

In addition, you can also attune yourself to your client. This is also known as mirroring. You will match your body posture, way of talking and moving to that of your client. Do this subtly and not too noticeably.

You can also briefly summarize what your client has told you. On the one hand, this shows your client that you are listening; on the other, it is a good way for yourself to check that you have understood everything correctly. A real win-win situation.

While summarizing, you can also use words your client uses to reinforce and hold the report.

A little double-check if the report went well is to make your behavior different again compared to your client, to see if they are already following you or not.

Also, don’t act as if you’re taking on some kind of parental role. The relationship between you and your client must be one of equals in order to establish rapport. There might be someone sitting across from you who, at that moment, is still stuck in the archetype of the rebellious son, and in that case, a “parental” attitude won’t help at all. It’s wiser to set goals together, rather than having you assign goals to the client, in order to build and maintain rapport.

The chair also plays an important role in retaining and obtaining rapport. The more comfortable the client feels, the better for the report. This is why we also pay attention to the chair during Hypnosis Institute Netherlands training.

In addition, important to retain are:

1. Reliability
2. Enthusiasm
3. Interested in client concerns
4. Objectivity
5. Attention
6. Eye contact (for the induction of hypnosis)
7. An open body attitude

Use open-ended questions. Explain up front what hypnosis is, how things work and possibly why you approach certain things a certain way.

Also, pay attention to your client's body language and possibly respond to that as well, such as if the client seems tense for a moment or looks sad or very happy. This is a way to show your empathy. This can cause someone to open up even more than they otherwise would.

It is also important to be mindful of your own thoughts during treatment. For example, if you notice that you start judging, even if it is only in your thoughts, you can stop that sooner, so that it does not affect the treatment or ruin the report (source 2).

Client signals on the report

If the client relaxes well and the conversation flows naturally then you know the report went well.

However, is the client avoiding eye contact, dropping silences, getting very short answers and closed body posture? Then something is going wrong with rapport building (source 1).

Report in small children

What is interesting with children, however, is that report building is then precisely something more convenient to spend the shortest amount of time on. Indeed, taking a long time to do this can backfire on 3.5-year-old children (source 1).

When children are older, more time can also be spent on report. What you do depends on the child. As with adults, every child is different and it is important to observe carefully so that you can adapt techniques for getting report to the child[4].

With children, building rapport is about getting their trust and cooperation. It is important that a child also feels good rapport so that they can deal freely and honestly with child hypnosis, for example.

With young children up to age 5, it is best to start a conversation about a general topic rather than a specific event. For example, discussing the favorite color is then more convenient than how the last children's party went. With children older than 5 through 8, it matters less whether you initiate a conversation on a general topic or a specific topic to build rapport (source 4) before you begin the actual work.

Asking open-ended questions also works better for building rapport in children up to age 9 compared to asking closed-ended questions. Also with children, you may summarize what they have said on report retention and reinforcement.

Building rapport is an important step in hypnotherapy and often the first step you take. It doesn't matter if this is for someone who just wants to quit smoking, or someone who wants to process a trauma with hypnosis.

After building and achieving rapport, you can actually begin using hypnosis techniques to solve the client's problems.

Would you like to learn more about hypnosis? Then join our free online masterclass.

Or sign up for one of our seminars or training programs. You can take the courses in a classroom setting or live online. In the latter case, classes are taught live from a professional studio with sufficient support to provide one-on-one attention online, just as in classroom settings.

Choose a form of training that suits you.

Classroom classes are held in Assendelft (village above Amsterdam).

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