What Is Hypnosis? What Hypnotherapy Really Is (and Isn’t)

To give you an idea of what hypnosis is, let me tell you two brief stories.

One involves a woman who went to a hypnotherapist to stop smoking. The session was a great success and she found that she could not smoke after it. Unfortunately, she later decided that she wanted to smoke again because she missed it too much. She returned to the hypnotherapist to have the suggestions removed. This was successful too, and several years later she was still smoking.

There are several things to be learned from this. First, hypnosis can be very powerful. Secondly, the individual ultimately remains in control and can make their own decisions about what they want to happen. For this reason, I do not refund the fee for smoking cessation hypnotherapy. When clients are properly informed, responsibility for change ultimately lies with them.

The second true story illustrates this point about control even more clearly.

A man was given the suggestion under hypnosis that if he ever held a cigarette without thinking, he would crumple it up. He left the session feeling it had not worked and reached for the emergency packet of cigarettes he had kept. As soon as he took one out, he crumpled it up. He tried another — the same thing happened. Every cigarette in the packet met the same fate. He bought another packet, assuming the suggestion would wear off. It did not.

When he returned to the hypnotherapist, he was told that his subconscious mind had accepted the suggestion, even though his conscious mind doubted it. Once he understood this, he allowed the process to continue and did not smoke again.

Although hypnotherapy is always under your control, it can still work even when you are not consciously aware of it. Suggestions can be modified at any time — they are only permanent if you want them to be.

WHAT IS HYPNOSIS?

What hypnosis can realistically achieve? Hypnosis has become so familiar through television and popular media that it is often taken for granted. While figures such as Paul McKenna have popularised hypnosis, it is also the subject of serious research within universities and major hospitals.

One definition of hypnosis is that it is a state somewhere between being awake and asleep. At its most effective, it involves deep relaxation and mental calmness, often accompanied by altered or heightened awareness. It is similar to guided daydreaming.

The person remains aware of what is happening, while being able to focus attention inward. I often describe hypnosis to clients as a state of “making no effort” — similar to how we naturally fall into a comfortable sleep.

Most research suggests that hypnosis is best understood as self-hypnosis. You always retain the freedom to accept or reject suggestions, and therapist and client work together as a partnership. At any point, you can leave the hypnotic state just as easily as you entered it.

DOES HYPNOSIS REALLY EXIST?

This may seem a strange question, but it has been debated by psychologists for decades.

One explanation is known as social compliance theory, which suggests that people behave hypnotically because they do not wish to disappoint the therapist or an audience. However, this theory does not fully explain clinical outcomes.

Brain-imaging studies using MRI scans show that people in hypnotic states display different patterns of brain activity compared with normal waking consciousness. Certain areas of the brain become more active, supporting the idea that hypnosis is a distinct mental state.

We also enter trance states naturally every day — when watching television, daydreaming, driving on autopilot, or drifting between wakefulness and sleep.

THE CONSCIOUS AND SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

The mind is divided into the conscious and subconscious. This division is not a very firm one as what is not in our conscious mind can easily come in if it is important for it to do so.

Most things we do depend on our not being conscious of them such as driving, walking, cycling, eating. If we had to be conscious of everything we do we would be wasting an enormous amount of energy.

The same applies to smoking. At first it is a conscious activity which involves thinking about each cigarette we have (or pipeful or cigar). This is especially true when you may have felt sick when you first started. However, especially with cigarettes, you start to be automatic when you smoke them and during the day quite a few are smoked without being aware of them. This is particularly true for a chain smoker.

So a lot of it is habit rather than plain addiction. This means that most of the smoking behaviour is controlled by the subconscious mind. The addiction too is controlled by the subconscious mind because it can’t be true that people actually want to be addicted after they are “hooked” and the original high from a small amount of the substance doesn’t work any more.

This is where hypnosis is particularly powerful because it communicates with the subconscious mind. The idea is to make the behaviour of the smoker into that of a non-smoker and this has to be learnt over a period of time by most people. The behaviours have to go into the subconscious mind and start to work from there.

The main proof that it is happening is through our feelings and behaviour. A good example is the one I give about myself when I was in New York City and other places in the USA for a month in the summer of 1990. I thought to myself that I could have a large, cheap, cigar if I wanted to because in the year and a half since I had stopped smoking I had actually had five cigars. None had started me on regular smoking again so I felt safe.

However, I was amazed to find I felt no urge to go into a shop and buy a cigar even though, consciously, I still thought I could have one if I wanted. In fact I don’t even remember thinking about going into a shop. I knew at that point that the behaviour of a non-smoker had gone into my subconscious mind.

THE ICEBERG THEORY

The analogy that Sigmund Freud made is that the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind is like the tip of an iceberg (the conscious mind) and the rest of the iceberg (the subconscious mind) which is under the water.

It is impossible to know how much of the mind is in the conscious and how much is in the subconscious. However, just like the iceberg analogy it is safe to say that vast majority of the mind is subconscious. This is why hypnosis is so powerful because it is like talking to the largest part of the mind, i.e., the subconscious mind.

I use other analogies to illustrate the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind. It could be a bridge with two way traffic between the two parts of the mind. The conscious mind can be used to feed suggestions to the subconscious mind and the subconscious then gives a feeling about whether these suggestions are acceptable or not.

COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT HYPNOSIS

These are the most common questions that people are likely to ask:

What is hypnosis?
At its best hypnosis is a state of deep relaxation and mental calmness. It is a state of altered awareness even heightened awareness, a sort of guided day-dreaming. You are aware of everything which is taking place, but able to concentrate effectively and intensely without undue anxiety.

How will I be hypnotised?
There are many ways of inducing hypnosis but the most common one nowadays is the verbal method. This involves sitting comfortably in a chair or on a couch. The therapist then gives suggestions of progressive relaxation in a soothing voice.

Will I lose consciousness in hypnosis?
Under hypnosis people are not unconscious, but in a state of relaxed attention. Because of this awareness lightly hypnotised people may think they have not been hypnotised at all. People who fall asleep during hypnosis may think that they have gone “deep” but sleep is not the same as hypnosis. Using the word “sleep”, therefore, is misleading.

Could I be hypnotised to do anything against my will?
Most research shows that any form of hypnosis is self-hypnosis. This means that what happens under hypnosis is under your control. You have total freedom to accept or reject suggestions but the client and therapist form a partnership in which any given suggestions are first agreed too. As you are in charge of the hypnotic session you can leave the hypnotic state at any time just as easily as you entered it.

Are there any dangers?
No… as long as the hypnosis and therapy are carried out by a properly qualified, properly trained and experienced and competent therapist.

The prehypnotic session

I developed the prehypnotic session to find out what suits the person I am dealing with. In my early days as a hypnotherapist I would go through a complete session of hypnosis only for people to tell me that they could not do some of the things I was suggesting.

An example of this is the calming, relaxing, enjoyable scene or memory that I would ask people to bring vividly into their minds. Some people could do this but others who were less visual just couldn’t. I found too that what they visualised could be another person or even a pet the person felt very close to.

Clients also mentioned that they had gone to another hypnotherapist, before me, who had attempted to take them on a very long journey through the countryside, or by the sea, or along a river and that they could see none of it in their own mind.

The prehypnotic session, then, is a practical introduction to hypnosis but I emphasise to the client that I am not trying to hypnotise him/her when I do this session. The person is asked to see in his/her mind a warm soothing colour, if she/he can, that is linked to breathing in relaxation. Most people can do this. Fewer people though relate anything to breathing out tension on the out breath except for a physical feeling of relaxation. As far as I am concerned this is fine!

I test the degree to which the person is relaxed even in this short time by lifting the hand on one side first shaking gently then dropping the arm and hand back to the arm of the chair. I do this for the hand on the other side of the body too. By the time I get there most people are aware of what is supposed to happen so they feel more relaxed at that point.

I suggest to the people that they can feel twice as relaxed now as they have up to that point. If they are trying to help me as I lift then I ask them to relax and not help me the second time. A few people will help me in lifting their hand no matter what I say. I make the assumption that they will need to practice more to relax using hypnosis. A tape is especially important therefore for those who need to practise to get the feeling of how relaxed they can feel in the hypnotic state.

After this, if the prehypnotic session has shown they can do it, I ask them to imagine in their minds a place or scene which is very calming, relaxing and enjoyable for them. If it involves something like a nice warm beach then I ask them to make the scene vivid enough so that they can even get feelings of warmth in their body as if they were there. The feeling of the warm sand on their feet or the water as they wade into it is managed by some people who have a vivid imagination.. What, at least, they should be able to manage is the feelings of calmness and relaxation.

Finally, I ask that they see within their mind a symbol of concentration to focus their mind. I often give them a symbol called the “Third Eye”. I do this by putting the flat part of my thumb in the middle of their forehead above the eyebrows. I explain to them that the third eye comes from mythology and is a symbol of concentration but it is also where the light sensitive centre of the brain is that is sensitive to light and dark and thus controls our daily rhythms.

Other symbols can be used whether they are abstract or they could be a word or even a person or an animal that is important to the person. Its function is to give concentrated focus to the sessions of hypnosis which will follow the original one. This may just involve practising at home listening to the tape I did for the client or doing self-hypnosis.

When the session is finished I remind them that I was not trying to hypnotise them but just introducing them to what is involved in hypnosis. However, if they are highly hypnotisable then even a short session like that could induce a full hypnotic state in them.

Stage hypnosis versus the therapeutic use of hypnosis

Hypnosis is much misunderstood and because of all the hype that comes from stage and pub shows it is frequently seen as something dangerous and at the same time mysterious. But all it is really is a state between awake and asleep.

If the person being hypnotised is good at relaxing and has often been in this sort of state when going to sleep or waking up in the morning then they will be very familiar with this state. It is a pleasant feeling where the person does have control (again unlike stage hypnosis).

For example, when the hypnotherapist asks you to close your eyes you should feel you could open them again if you want to but you are either in a very pleasant state of relaxation where you don’t particularly want to open your eyes or you are focusing on what you are doing and don’t think about opening your eyes.

Because hypnosis is such a natural state people are often disappointed by the first experience of it. Remember your first experience of sex and whether it was the best you ever had. Well hypnosis is like that because the longer you practice it and repeat it, the more powerful it can become for you.

You will find that some hypnotic experiences are very deep and memorable. At other times you will question whether you have really been in a state of hypnosis or not. It is quite likely though that your first experience of hypnosis will not be your best one just like your first experience of sex.

Another point is that the hypnotherapist is really talking to your subconscious mind so you don’t consciously know whether the suggestions are being accepted and worked on. If there is any underlying resistance to them working then this will be shown in a negative reaction to the suggestions.

The idea of hypnosis is to reduce the need for conscious willpower in something like becoming a non-smoker, in weight loss, drinking, etc. It is obvious that only a positive feeling will indicate that the suggestions are working.

High hypnotisables and low hypnotisables

There are high hypnotisable and low hypnotisable people with the vast majority of the population between these two extremes. It is thought that now there is even a genetic component to hypnotisability.

High hypnotisable’s make up about 15% of the population and are very receptive to the right suggestions. They can use hypnosis in ways that others can’t, for example, in surgical operations — even extreme ones such as open heart surgery.

Low hypnotisables can only be hypnotised with a great deal of difficulty. This doesn’t eliminate the idea of using it but they must practice a lot if it is going to be effective for them. When people don’t succeed with hypnosis it usually is because they don’t persist with it long enough.

Conflicts arise when short-term desires override long-term wellbeing. Hypnotherapy helps align these internal forces so that healthier choices become natural rather than effortful.

HYPNOTHERAPY AND INNER STRENGTH

Since hypnosis works on the subconscious mind then I emphasise that the subconscious mind is the source of mental strength, power and energy and how hypnosis works through suggestion. It can communicate these resources through symbols, flashes of inspiration, feelings of motivation, commitment.

When the subconscious mind is 100% behind what you are doing then nothing, but nothing, will stop you from doing it. It has so much potential and power that if you could use all of it then probably the brain would short circuit as it sometimes does with drugs. However, under normal circumstances we use just part of the power of the subconscious mind and usually this is enough.

If, for some reason, it is against what we consciously want then this makes it much more difficult and we have the feelings and thoughts of, for example, “I want a fag.” If the clients who come to me develop their own symbol, which has a powerful effect on them, then it will reinforce the idea that they are a non-smoker.

I use the analogy that the conscious and subconscious mind are like a dam that needs to control the energy of the water that comes through. It wouldn’t help to let all the water come through at once because that just leads to flooding.

So the conscious mind is the dam that helps to control how much energy comes through from the subconscious mind. It allows enough for the purpose of the real world that the conscious mind does know about but the subconscious mind doesn’t know.

The symbol in hypnosis

Often the symbol in hypnosis to concentrate the mind can be abstract such as a triangle, star, circle, etc. The idea of a symbol is that it acts to motivate in the same way that a flag with its abstract pattern is meant to stir emotional or national feelings.

The subconscious mind does respond to symbols and in dreams it creates its own symbols and metaphors. The symbol also conditions the mind to become accustomed to linking the goal of doing what you want to do with the required motivation to do it.

I emphasise that there is a great deal of power, energy, strength in the subconscious mind and that it is really just a question of using it in a productive way. There is a thing which can be called our “Inner Strength” which is closely tied in with our survival instinct.

Whatever hurdles, problems, challenges we have had to overcome the fact is that we are here now and something in our subconscious mind has allowed us to use our inner strength to overcome our difficulties.

People can call it different things such as the survival instinct, “I am a survivor”, your real self, or as I suggest your inner strength.

Conflicts in the subconscious mind

If you feel there is a clash in the mind, especially at a deep level, then what is happening is that there is a battle between the part of your mind that is responsible for your health and survival and a part that seems not to care in this way.

This part of the mind works in the short-term and thinks the most important thing in the world is to have a quick fix. The other part of the mind is concerned with the long term. It is what I have called above our survival instinct or the source of our inner strength.

It is the part of you that wants a long, healthy and rewarding life. Although the survival instinct is strong in most people for some reason in some people it is very weak. When the mind puts short term pleasure of a quick fix in place of the real pleasure of long term good health then it will be difficult to solve the problem that exists.

Understanding what hypnosis really is helps people approach hypnotherapy with realistic expectations. In my clinical work as a hypnotherapist, I regularly help clients understand how hypnosis works before beginning therapy. If you are considering hypnotherapy in Newport and would like to discuss whether it is appropriate for you, professional guidance is always recommended.

CONCLUSION

It has been said that 15% of the population is highly hypnotisable and 70% of the population is somewhere between highly hypnotisable and incapable of being hypnotised. So if about 85 percent of the population can be hypnotised to varying degrees and 15 percent cannot this means the majority of people can use hypnosis to their benefit.

With the 15 percent who cannot this is because they are sceptical or in some cases they have brain damage, low intelligence or are overly careful to be in control all the time or are afraid to go into a trance. They live mostly in their conscious mind.

It is important to understand the subconscious mind and the fact that it is the vast majority of our mind. It has a great deal of power, strength, energy and creativity in it. It helps us to solve problems but it is also responsible for our health and well-being and even our survival.

When suggestions which are given through hypnosis go into the subconscious mind and are agreed by the subconscious then because there is so much power in the subconscious we would never have any difficulty fulfilling aims which we are convinced are right for us.