Myth-conceptions About Hypnosis
By Linda-Ann Stewart, Ct.H., Thu Dec 8th
Much of my initial work as a hypnotherapist is to dispel some ofthe myths about hypnosis. Many people, even when they come in tosee me, have a lot of misconceptions about the process. Theythink I'm going to wave my hand in front of their face, andthey'll go into never-never land. Then they think I'm going totake control of their mind, and erase all their problems in onesession. Some people want me to do this, and some are afraid ofhaving me in control. So the first thing I do is explain whathypnosis is, what it isn't, what it can and can't do.Periodically, I even hold a free hour long mini-class, open tothe public, to educate about hypnosis.
Some years ago, I was at a party. A man came up and we startedtalking. What do you do? he asked. I'm a hypnotherapist, Ireplied. Oh. Well, you can't hypnotize me, he said, as he beganscanning the party for someone else to talk to. You'reabsolutely right. I can't hypnotize you. I don't hypnotizeanyone. By following my instructions, they actually hypnotizethemselves. That got his attention.
That's the first thing I tell my clients. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. If they don't follow my instructions, they won't behypnotized. And if they try too hard, they won't be hypnotized.It's sort of like falling asleep at night. If you try to willyourself to fall asleep, you'll just wake up even more. Hypnosisis a letting go. Letting go of the details of the day. Lettinggo of the concerns. Letting your analytical mind let go of itshold on you. Just being in the here and now. Some people areafraid of letting go. They think it means that someone else willbe in control. I reassure them that they are always in controlof the process, and that they only go as deeply as they feelsafe doing. Generally, a client will drift into a light statethe first time. The second time I see them, they go deeperbecause they realize that I'm not going to do anything weird,like make them cluck like a chicken.
In hypnosis, I'm merely a guide. I can lead a client where theywant to go, but only if they want to go there. If they're notdedicated to the change they want, then I can't help them. I'vehad smokers come to me and say, I'd really like to want to quit.But I still love smoking cigarettes, even though I know I shouldquit. Take away the craving. I send them on their way and tellthem to come see me when they've decided to quit. Hypnosis is atool that can help them through the process of quitting, but itcan't make them quit. It's not a magic wand. I can help a clientmove from point A to point B, but they're the one that gets towalk the path. Hypnosis can make it infinitely easier. It canmake a mountain into a molehill, and make changes happen veryquickly. But the person has to really want the change, and bewilling to deal with all of the other aspects of that change.For instance, a woman wanting to lose weight decides to reduceher consumption of sweets. After hypnosis, she loses her desirefor them, but finds that it was an enjoyable part of the mealwith her husband. She gets mad at me because I took away theenjoyment.
Many people erroneously think that hypnosis is some otherdimension of consciousness. It's not. It's a very normal,natural awareness that we're moving in and out of all the time.When you're driving down the road on autopilot, and your minddrifts off, and all of a sudden you're aware that you've drivenpast your turnoff. Or when you're at the movie theater, and getso involved with the action on the screen that you're barelyaware of the rest of the people in the audience. Or if you're anartist or writer, and when you get so focused on a project thattime just speeds by, and outside distractions fade away. Theseare all examples of the state of mind that we call hypnosis.It's just that I know how to help a person reach that level ofconsciousness deliberately, and know what to do once we getthere.
Hypnosis is really just being able to focus on one idea. Back inthe mid 1800's, Dr. James Braid coined the term hypnosis afterHypnos, the Greek god of sleep. But after more experience withit, he realized that the word hypnosis was inaccurate. Dr. Braidthen tried to rename it to mono-ideaism, for one idea. But itwas too late. Hypnosis had already caught on, and the otherreally is a mouthful to say.
So many people think that hypnosis is magic. Strange thingshappen with hypnosis. If a subject is told that an ice cube is ahot coal, a blister appears. A person is told that they're stiffas a board, and their head is placed on one chair, and theirfeet on another. Then several people stand on the person'sstomach, and he doesn't collapse. These things look like magic.They aren't. All that happens in hypnosis is that we accessabilities we naturally have, but that we don't seem to be ableto connect with while in our normal analytical state. Forinstance, a stage hypnotist may ask a shy woman to perform bysinging "Over the Rainbow." Generally, she'd shrink into acorner. However, because her self-imposed inhibitions have beencircumvented, she belts out the song. The critical part of usthat says, "I can't do that" moves onto a shelf in the corner,and lets the power within us come out to play. Hypnosis simplyfrees us from self-imposed limitations. Hypnosis is a process ofallowing the subconscious to be more in control than ourconscious mind. Our subconscious is the storehouse of all ourthoughts, actions, beliefs, attitudes, memories, decisions. Inother words everything. It's been programmed like a computer.We've been conditioned with our beliefs that "I can't." Ourconscious mind is the logical part of us. It sifts and analyzesinformation, draws a conclusion on that information, and thenpasses the conclusion to the subconscious mind. The subconsciousthen processes the information, comparing it with all the otherinformation it has. Then the subconscious takes the strongest,most powerful idea, and acts on that. For instance, two smokerswant to quit. The first one decides "That's enough. I don't wantto do this anymore. I have a lot of reasons to quit. No matterhow difficult it becomes, I'm done smoking." He's made a finaldecision to quit, and knows that nothing is going to talk himout of it. He throws out his cigarettes and that's that. He hasvery
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little trouble. We've all heard of people doing this. Thesecond smoker wants to quit, but thinks "I want to quit, but Ireally like to smoke. And it's going to be so difficult. I don'tknow if I can do it." He puts his cigarettes in a drawer. Assoon as the craving hits, he's digging them out.
The first smoker made a determined decision. It was strongerthan the desire to continue smoking, and he committed himself toit, no matter what. His subconscious mind picked the mostdominant thought. His choice to quit was stronger than hisoutdated choice to smoke, therefore his subconscious made theprocess relatively painless. The second smoker's belief that itwas going to be hard set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. And hewasn't dedicated to quitting smoking. His subconsciousrecognized that he hadn't decided to quit no matter what, so itfigured that the old programming was what was really desired.His cravings were overwhelming, and he gave into them, to thefamiliar path and to his old conditioning. Our subconscious goeswherever our attention is. Just like driving a car. When ourintention is to drive straight ahead, then our reflexes aim thecar along that course. If our attention wanders to look at thebeautiful mountains to our right, and continues to gaze at them,the instinctive impulse is turn the car in the direction ofwhere we're looking. With the smokers, their subconscious mindsdelivered to them whatever their attention was fixed on. The onesmoker had decided to quit no matter what, so he got to quit.The other smoker was afraid it would be difficult, that hewouldn't succeed, and he was giving up something he liked. Hissubconscious gave him what it thought he wanted, to continuesmoking.
With hypnosis, we focus on one idea, such as giving up somethingwe don't want anymore, and keep our attention on what we dowant. This is a process that we use in our daily life all thetime. Whenever we break new habits, learn new skills, change theway we think about life, are creative, we are focusing on whatwe want. Hypnosis just makes use of the process that we'realready using. It's like inputting data into a computer. We usethe keyboard (conscious mind) every day to enter new informationinto the hard drive (subconscious mind) of the computer. Thehard drive has all the old information, and the new information,in it. Hypnosis is simply an auxiliary keyboard that bypassesthe conscious mind to place new data into the computer.
Sometimes, a client may be afraid that hypnosis means that mywill, my mind, dominates and overpowers theirs. That no matterwhat I say, they'll have to dance to my tune. Hypnosis doesn'tunplug their will. With hypnosis, the conscious mind, which isthe willpower, and the subconscious mind, which is theprocessor, co-operate to bring about a desired result. If thewill, which filters all information, doesn't agree with aparticular suggestion, change won't occur. For instance, I maytell a client that if she smokes, her cigarette is going totaste absolutely awful, and the subconscious complies by makingthe smoke taste vile. But if she really wants to continuepuffing on a cigarette, then her conscious decision cancounteract my suggestions, no matter how disgusting the tobaccomight taste. However, if that same client really wants to quitsmoking, then she must make a conscious committment to follow myinstructions. Such as taking three deep breaths, and gettinginvolved with something else, to take her mind off smoking. Herdecision reinforces the suggestions to carry out the resultshe's chosen.
Hypnosis balances the conscious and subconscious. The conscious,analytical part of us quiets down and quits picking thingsapart, while allowing the subconscious to come out and play.Have you ever looked for the answer to a problem, and startedthrowing out solutions, no matter how silly they were? Manytimes, there's a seed of an answer in one of the silly ideas.That answer would never have been found if the critical partthat says That's nonsense had been involved. There's a time forthe logic, and a time for unrestricted thought. Writer's andcreative people are very aware of the analytical part versus thecreative part. Our critical aspect sabotages our work by tearingdown every idea we come up with. When we get immersed in ourproject, and set the critical voice aside, we are able to beinnovative. This is hypnosis. Later, we use the critical part toassess what we've done, and decide how to make it better.
Hypnosis helps a person get in touch with abilities they havethat they haven't been able to contact consciously. A person canquit smoking cold turkey, but hypnosis makes it much easier. Weall know of people who have put down their cigarettes and nevergave them another thought. They've convinced themselves thatwhen they quit, that was it. The subconscious mind knew that,and it followed their decision. Another example is that everyonehas the ability to block pain. Consider the person who was in anaccident, and saved others without realizing he was injured,too. Only later, when the crisis was over, did he begin to hurt,and discover that he had a broken leg. With hypnosis, a personcan access that natural ability that we all have. Usually, ourconscious, critical I can't gets in the way. Hypnosis moves thatself- defeating thought aside.
We've been hypnotized all of our lives. You're stupid, I'llnever succeed at anything, Life is hard, Quitting smoking isalmost impossible, Every time I even pass a bakery, I gainweight, I'm a klutz, and on and on. We've been using hypnosis toprogram ourselves every day of our lives. Review the beliefs andattitudes you have. You probably accepted them without question,without your logic evaluating whether those concepts were truefor someone else with your abilities. All hypnosis does isde-hypnotize a person of self-limiting beliefs, and impress theideas they choose. Hypnosis is simply a process that we'realready using anyway. Why not use the process to achieve theresults we want?
About the author:Linda-Ann Stewart is a nationally known hypnotherapist, writer,and workshop facilitator with over twenty-five years backgroundin metaphysics. At her website at http://www.cedarfire.com, sheoffers personal development articles, affirmations, onlinespiritual growth courses, audiotapes, and a free newsletter. Shecan be reached at linda-ann@cedarfire.com.
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