Learn Hypnosis
If you want to learn hypnosis, you should contact hypnotherapy centers that provide materials and possibly certification in this field. The materials that they offer such as books, CDs, DVDs and scripts are extremely useful in figuring out what sessions are like and what is needed to do in order to remain in control of the session. The sessions usually consist of five phases, introduction, induction, deepener, therapy and awakening.
The more you learn hypnosis, the better you will understand what instructions need to be given in order to make each phase of the session a success and in order to ensure success of the whole therapeutic process. The first phase is all about building rapport with the patient. There are few scripts available for this since there are really no rules that impose themselves on the therapist and his or her subject at this point. However, when you learn hypnosis, you will realize that experts lay a great deal of emphasis on establishing eye contact with and smiling to the subject. This is extremely important because you need to build confidence in the person you are interacting with in order for the rest of the session to unfold efficiently.
The next phase that is insisted upon when you get to learn hypnosis is the induction. This is the part when you ask your subject to close his or her eyes and to find enough relaxation to be able to continue with the activity. The deepener is the next stage and it involves meditation. The subject is expected to fall in a trance which will prepare him or her for the therapy. The various methods that can be applied during these two stages of the session are numerous and some more effective than others; all these will be discovered while you learn hypnosis and train yourself practically by following certified courses.
Then, the most important stage of the hypnotherapy session is the therapy. This is the part for which you can find most scripts available on the Internet; all you need to do is figure out which are truly high quality and effective ones so that you can achieve your goals during the sessions. The possibilities to tackle a problem during the therapy stage of a session are countless and they will increase in number by the day, offering a wide variety of chances to deal with various types of personalities.
And last but not least, when you learn hypnosis, you will find that the fifth and last stage of the session, called awakening, has a crucial role in how the subject reorients himself/herself to the surrounding reality. Counting down from 10 to 1 is the most common method of awakening a patient.
Hypnosis Technique
More than one hypnosis technique are used in hypnotherapy in the various stages of hypnotic practice. The phases of a hypnotic session include introduction, induction, deepener, therapy and awakening, and there is at least one hypnosis technique for each of these. While in the past, the general belief was that hypnosis was pretty much a form of sleep, modern research indicates that the hypnosis subject is fully conscious. The only difference in mental status is that the attention is focused elsewhere not on the periphery of the mind corresponding to the perception of the outside world.
For the induction method, the most popular and generally known hypnosis technique was the original ‘eye-fixation’ strategy as created by Braid. Staring at a bright, colorful object induces a hypnotic state known as trance to the patient within which he or she becomes susceptible to the hypnotic suggestion. After Braid, many other specialists came up with eye-fixation hypnosis technique variations. At the moment, most hypnotists agree that the hypnosis induction technique was not mandatory for the success of the hypnotic suggestions.
For the suggestion stage, metaphors, insinuations and all sorts of rhetorical figures of speech can become a hypnosis technique. There are also types of non-verbal suggestion such as mental imagery, physical manipulation and voice tonality that can be used here. Some suggestions are made in an authoritarian manner while others are uttered permissively. Normally, the response to the suggestion is immediate or post-hypnotic, depending on the case. When hypnotherapy aims at producing long lasting behavioral responses that would remain around from a few days to a lifetime, the emphasis falls on the post-hypnotic response to hypnosis.
The applications deriving from the practice of hypnosis, regardless of the hypnosis technique are remarkable. So far, hypnosis has been used for entertainment (stage hypnosis), medical and cognitive-behavioral therapies, self-improvement and military purposes. There are also applications for rehabilitation, the treatment of addictions, education, sports and forensics. In the history of hypnosis, there are examples of the creative use of the practice.
A fine example is that of the surrealist Andre Breton who used hypnosis technique variations for automatic writing and sketches. Hypnotic methods represented for Breton a form of re-experiencing mystical or drug states. We should also mention that you should be careful with the use of any hypnosis technique on your own, because you may cause an imbalance or a reaction at the level of the unconscious.
