Marvel: an important step for hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy has something mystical about it for many people. It is quite unknown and unknown makes unloved. But this is fortunately less and less true, even in hospitals hypnosis techniques are used in some treatments to keep the patient as calm and calm as possible, which works very well to perform the treatment successfully.
So why is wonder so important to hypnotherapy?
Wonder meaning
If you look up wonder or wonder on the Internet, there are several meanings to it, namely:
- Request
- Strange
- Escape
- Look Up
- Amazing
- Astonish
And:
- Looking up because you don't expect it[1].
The significance is quite interesting, because what you’re actually doing with hypnosis or hypnotherapy is getting the client to question how logical his or her beliefs are. Just that act of questioning your beliefs is exciting—it’s something most people don’t consciously do. Because it’s scary for your ego.
So first you have to make the client compliant, so you can help him/her wonder how everything makes sense. You help the person because you don't want to break the ego either; not everything has to be illogical at once.
But that help requires docility.
Wondering is therefore important in the early stages and then it's just about the wonder of: "Oh, so this is hypnosis now."
Moments of wonder
You initially amaze your client during the induction of hypnosis. Getting the client into a hypnotic state requires a moment of wonder.
Especially if you are short on time or want to give someone a quick induction, that wonder is important.
If you have taken the training from Hypnosis Institute Netherlands, you will know several quick techniques to hypnotize people with.
Generally speaking, hand movements play an important role; you find a way to briefly throw the client off balance while simultaneously helping them relax. That imbalance creates a sense of wonder and the feeling that the client is in a hypnotic state—which is, in fact, the case.
That's the first moment of wonder. Research also indicates that wonder and dissonance are important in hypnotherapy[2]. This is important to get the client out of the delusion and focused on the therapy[3].
Next, during therapy, you want clients to marvel at how they have always seen certain things in their lives and for it to change.
At the end of the session, you want to create another moment of wonder—and that’s the moment when the client is often surprised to realize that his or her problem was actually a problem.
The problem must spring from the subconscious , so to speak.
Wisdom begins with wonder
You often solve a problem by gaining more knowledge or insights about the problem. You then build wisdom, so to speak.
As you can see, wonder is important in hypnotherapy to help your client build his/her wisdom.
In hypnotherapy, you often look at the root cause of a problem. That cause doesn’t necessarily have to be an event; rather, it’s a specific belief.
For a small problem, ridiculing the belief can already help take away the power it has over your client's life. Ridiculing an illogical belief and getting the client to go along with it can be enough.
You then amaze your client with how easy it can actually be if you just don't take certain things too seriously .
For medical issues, guided visualizations can also have surprisingly effective results. For example, visualizing the body being cleansed by a purifying color can release a great deal of tension from the client’s body. This is important for reducing stress, which in turn benefits the immune system.
You actually amaze your client with visualizations with the power of what their own thoughts can do for their bodies. That sometimes imagining something is enough to make you feel better and have a nicer vibe.
Sometimes, however, problems are bigger than what can be solved with ridicule or fine visualization. In that case, take the beliefs a step further.
Bewilderment of belief
Very often, the origin of a belief lies in a past event—usually an event from the client’s childhood. In that case, “wondering” can involve going back to that event and empathizing with the other people who were there at the time.
The amazement is then that finally with the adult knowledge, you assess the situation very differently than you did with the knowledge you had as a child. You then often hear "I had never looked at it that way".
Sometimes the events are traumatic, and the client’s inner child is still somewhat “stuck” in that trauma . In such cases, empathy alone may not yield sufficient results, so you can help the client by using imagination to change the situation.
For example, the client can have their adult self talk to their inner child in their imagination. This can be very emotional for the client. The client is essentially telling themselves that that unpleasant situation is now over, that they no longer need to be afraid , and that they can live freely.
It’s important to give the client the time they need to do this, as it can often be very difficult. You can also offer suggestions on what the client can say to his or her inner child to help that inner child grow and evolve to where the client is now in his or her life.
The therapist must also sometimes marvel
If the session goes on for a long time and you notice that the client is no longer going along with the suggestions so easily, it may be necessary to build in another moment of wonder.
Getting someone out of his/her default thinking requires wonder, but sometimes it's hard to pull that off. You can also achieve that amazement by being a little shocking or surprising.
For example, you use different language than the client expects, requiring them to open their thinking to something other than what they thought the therapy would be.
Perhaps the client already has experience with a psychologist, and coming out surprisingly can help break through some kind of barrier. For example, suddenly adding an abusive word into your language, such as "that's f*cking cunt" as compassion instead of "that's very nasty indeed," can cause the client to be open to the suggestions again for a moment.
Whispers and words such as sex and secrets can also cause the client to change the attention with which they listen, making the suggestions you give better[4].
Then you initiate wonder in the client, so to speak, by doing things differently than they expected themselves.
The problem eludes the client
The last moment when the client marvels is when you check to see if the problem has been solved. You then often suggest that the client take a moment to "feel" if the problem is still in the body or if they can bring up the problem in their mind.
Then, when it turns out that this is impossible, this is another miraculous moment.
Does the client succeed? Then you can look further for other beliefs that may have caused the problem.
But if the client can't find the problem, that's very nice. Sometimes they even feel like they don't even remember why they came to you. If that doesn't surprise you, I don't know what does.
Marvel Learning
So learning to wonder is quite important in Hypnosis Institute Netherlands training.
Would you like to learn more about hypnotherapy and Verwonder? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Or sign up right away for one of the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands’ training programs. The courses are taught online from a professional studio to ensure high-quality instruction. In addition, one-on-one support is available, so you can become a top hypnotherapist even from the comfort of your own home.
[3] https://discreplay.typepad.com/hypnotic_psychotherapy/docs/extRef/Milton%20H%20Erickson%20-%20Hypnotherapy%20-%20An%20Exploratory%20Casebook.PDF (page 20)
[4] https://discreplay.typepad.com/hypnotic_psychotherapy/docs/extRef/Milton%20H%20Erickson%20-%20Hypnotherapy%20-%20An%20Exploratory%20Casebook.PDF (p. 46)