Hypnotherapy: What You Can Expect

By Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D.

After over 20 years as a Licensed Professional Counselor, Hypnotherapist and Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I continue to find that clients come to me with misperceptions and uninformed expectations about hypnotherapy. The purpose of this paper is to clear up some of those misperceptions, so that you know what to expect in working with a hypnotherapist.

First, some clients expect they can just walk into my office for the very first time, sit down, be instantly hypnotized, and walk out 60 minutes later a changed person. I wish that were the case, but it isn’t. Like most therapists and medical specialists, I want to interview my clients to learn about their issues and concerns and about their personalities. During your first session, I ask these questions in order to develop a plan that will best serve each client’s needs.

Second, some clients have a very antiquated and narrow definition of hypnotherapy. They think I am going to wave a watch before their eyes and I’ll say, “Go into a deep sleep,” and they will instantly lose consciousness. This expectation is due to the influence of too many Hollywood movies. I am a solution-oriented therapist and counselor. I use several methods to help clients get results. I draw upon traditional hypnosis, guided imagery, visualization, metaphor, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, eye-movement therapies, client-centered methods, cognitive psychology, reframing, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming to meet my clients’ needs. I incorporate trance-work into all these therapies to some degree, even though my clients may not be aware of it, and many clients don’t recognize some these methods as “real” hypnosis.

There are many approaches to hypnotherapy. Some are structured and direct, while some are more creative and indirect. I select the methods from my repertoire that I think will best work for each client. However, it is a trial and error process. If one method doesn’t work, perhaps another will, or a client might benefit from a combination of methods. Like any other form of therapy, hypnosis is a learning process and clients sometimes have unconscious concerns they need to work through, or they may need to hear the message more than once, in various presentations, before hypnosis is effective. For this reason, I cannot always predict with accuracy the number of sessions that will be optimum for any given individual.

Third, many clients expect trance to be some magical, mysterious state in which they will experience strange sights, sounds, and sensations, like being on some mind-altering, hallucinogenic drug. Or they might expect to have no memory for the experience at all because they equate trance with being unconscious. Let me explain that trance is not an all-or-nothing experience. Trance is just part of the continuum between alertness and sleep. Therefore, trance is a naturally-occurring state, and people access trance every day. See the table below for a description of the continuum.

State of Consciousness	Description
Wide Awake and Alert	This is normal wakeful awareness.
Light Trance	This is a state of curiosity and concentration, like daydreaming. I may ask you to close your eyes and visualize or remember something. You don’t have to close your eyes if you don’t want to. You remain aware of your surroundings. You can carry on a conversation. You still have complete control over your actions. You can hear every word and remember what happened during the session. You won’t feel weird or spacey or zoned out.
Medium Trance	You will feel more relaxed with a deeper concentration. Questions or new ways of thinking may enter your mind, because it’s easier for you to make new associations, imagine, entertain new possibilities, and obtain insight. You still remain aware of your surroundings, although you may lose track of time. You may or may not notice that you feel more compliant and suggestible. You won’t feel weird or spacey or zoned out.
Deep Trance	At this stage, your mind is so free of distractions that you can ignore anything not relevant. You can have spontaneous amnesia, and not remember what happened, and rationalize later that you were asleep. Suggestibility is highest at this stage, in which the conscious mind is resting (not participating) and the subconscious mind is most active. You might enter that twilight stage between waking and sleeping known as the “hypnogog.”
Sleep	You are in a light or deep sleep.

Any stage of trance might be appropriate for the issues you want to address with hypnotherapy. A minority of hypnotherapists say people achieve results only with deep trance. This is not always true. Many people get results from hypnotherapy and were not even sure whether they were hypnotized because they felt so “normal” during the process. Other experts say that each individual creates their own experience of trance, and that your subconscious mind will take you to the level of trance that adequately solves your problem.

Hypnotizability is a factor in one’s ability to achieve trance. People vary in their susceptibility to hypnosis, just as they vary with regard to other human traits. Most people can be hypnotized, if they want to be hypnotized. However, not everyone will easily reach deep trance. Most clients experience light and medium trance during their first few sessions of hypnotherapy. Some clients exhibit a natural capacity for trance work, and they readily reach deep trance.

If you think you will meet your outcomes more effectively with deeper trance levels, I will work you in that regard. However, if your susceptibility to hypnosis is low, it may take several hours of one-on-one conditioning for you to become accustomed to the degree of relaxation and concentration required to reach deep trance. This approach works for many people, yet there are some for whom it does not work—they just cannot enter deep trance, even after training and instruction.

Finally, some of my clients expect that I will take control over their thinking and actions, and after hypnosis, they will behave as an automaton—achieving results without any conscious effort. The purpose of hypnosis is not to take away your control—its purpose is to give you back control, so that you can have the results you want. The purpose of hypnosis is not to stop you from thinking, but to enhance your ability to think in productive, healthy ways, so you can make a decision about what you want to accomplish and carry it out faithfully.

The task of a hypnotherapist is to convince you of the truth about you, that you haven’t yet begun to believe about yourself: You already have within you all the internal resources (strength, power, motivation, determination, creativity, intuition, insight, intelligence) you need to solve your problem and get the results you want. All hypnosis does is help you find and tap into those resources that have been there all the time.

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Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D. is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a counseling and coaching practice in Springfield, Virginia, specializing in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Hypnotherapy. Visit her web site at www.engagethepower.com.