Mastering Hypnosis: A Comprehensive Guide to Techniques and Applications

Hypnosis is a fascinating skill with applications ranging from therapeutic interventions to captivating stage performances. It leverages the power of suggestion to induce a trance-like state in individuals, opening the door to influencing thoughts and behaviors. Whether you aspire to be a certified hypnotherapist, a dazzling stage hypnotist, or simply explore self-improvement, understanding the core techniques is crucial.

Foundations of Hypnosis

At its core, hypnosis involves inducing a trance and then offering suggestions, thoughts, or actions. Getting the attention of the subject is a key to bringing someone into a quick trance.

Types of Hypnosis

Hypnotherapy: This focuses on helping people overcome fears and achieve goals.
Performance Hypnotism: This is aimed at street or stage performances. Street hypnosis requires you to talk quickly and sound convincing.
Self-Hypnosis: This is geared towards self-improvement.

Direct vs. Indirect Suggestions

Direct Suggestions: This traditional method involves explicit commands. Many street performers use direct commands.
Indirect Suggestions: This method uses metaphors and storytelling to build rapport and subtly influence the unconscious mind. Indirect suggestions involve a lot of metaphors and story-telling.

Learning Hypnosis Techniques

Formal Training

Classes and Certification Courses: Alexandra Janelli, a certified hypnotherapist and anxiety and stress management coach, suggests taking a class or certification course to learn hypnosis, or doing a mentorship with a hypnotist. You may be able to get certified through a week of classes. A good education is key to being a good practitioner.
Training Organizations and Practicing Hypnotists: Find one you like that fits your goals. Take the time to form connections at training courses. Many people offer training, but not all of them are legitimate. Type the person’s name into an online search engine.

Informal Learning

Books and Videos: Watching videos of hypnotists and reading books about hypnosis and hypnotherapy is also helpful.
Live Performances: There are no better resources for studying street performances than live videos. Practitioner videos on hypnotherapy are a lot less common than performance work due to privacy issues. Live sessions have way more to offer than books and videos.

Self-Practice

Self-Hypnosis: Start out by hypnotizing yourself with a few practices like controlled breathing and meditation.
Practice with Willing Participants: Once you have gained a few skills, ask willing friends or family members to let you try and hypnotize them.

Essential Skills

Engagement: Before you can put someone in a hypnotic trance, you need to get their attention. Find a way to engage them.
Relaxation Techniques: Many hypnotherapists do this through conversation or by having the subject look at an image. People go into trance-like states every day. Your unconscious mind is the part you don’t control and it becomes accessible once your conscious focus is distracted.
Suggestion: This is when hypnotists suggest ways for their subjects to act.
Conviction: Hypnotism is all about convincing people. If you don’t sound convincing, do not expect someone else to believe what you’re saying.
Hypnotic Language: Read up about hypnotic language and find words to adapt in your practice. In particular, look for “power” words or “hot” words that pack plenty of emotion. Choose words that pack a descriptive punch. Phrases like “beautiful lake” and “strong mountain” are a few examples.

Techniques for Inducing Trance

Palm Focus

A way to do an induction, which is bringing someone into a quick trance, is to make them focus on their palm.

Storytelling

Many practitioners do this by telling a story with a lot of powerful images and descriptions. For example, start out by saying, “Close your eyes and relax. As you relax, imagine yourself on a calm beach. Keep the images relatively vague to so the other person stays focused on the image.

Monitoring the Subject

Monitor your subject for some subtle cues showing they are in a relaxed state. Many people stop fidgeting and their breathing slows down. If you’re hypnotising yourself, notice when you feel loose and relaxed.

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Establishing Suggestions

The easiest way to establish a suggestion is by continuing the scene you created while bringing the person into a trance. For example, say, “Focus on my voice. As you relax into the trance, imagine an enjoyable day at the beach. As you relax, you notice the color of the water. Relax more deeply as you feel the sand between your toes. The scene needs to be meaningful to the subject. For instance, describe gaming or gardening if those are relevant interests.

Ending the Trance

End the trance with a final command. Try counting to 3, instructing the subject to open their eyes once you reach 3. Before you begin counting, tell them they will feel relaxed and revitalized when they open their eyes.

Creating a Quiet Atmosphere

Street or stage hypnotists create a quiet atmosphere by drawing eyes to themselves. With practice, they learn how to do this even in public.

Ethical Considerations

Consent: Hypnotism must only be performed on willing participants. For hypnotherapists, consent also involves discovering what a client needs to gain from the session. With performance hypnotism, you need consent, but you don’t need to spend time discussing the session.
Region Rules: Consult your region’s rules for hypnotism. In most places, hypnotism is an unregulated industry.

The Power of Conversational Hypnosis

Conversational hypnosis is a subtle yet powerful technique that involves inducing trance and influencing change through seemingly ordinary conversation.

What is Conversational Hypnosis?

Conversational hypnosis is a scientific and systematic method of putting someone in a trance by just talking to them. Covert hypnosis is exactly the same thing as conversational hypnosis. The only difference is, when doing covert hypnosis, you’d be more subtle and you would not openly disclose that you’re doing anything hypnotic.

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Conversational Hypnosis Happens Naturally

Conversational hypnosis is happening all the time! Just telling someone about your vacation, or talking about your childhood will cause hypnotic trance to develop and fade, like waves on a beach. That’s because trance is a completely normal part of life.

The Role of Storytelling

One of the ways our brains operate is to respond to a good story. A well-crafted story sweeps us along, as we experience a variety of thoughts and feelings, based on things we’ve already learned.

Words and Metaphor

Conversational hypnosis utilizes words to create trance, but does so much more casually than structured and rigid trance inductions. A skilled hypnotist can utilize language to guide a listener into a receptive state, where options may be considered, memories can be accessed, and change can happen. A classic example of this is the use of metaphor.

The Never Ending Sentence

One of the clever techniques is to use what we call the never ending sentence. This just means that once you start talking, you don’t stop. You’ll pause in the right places, and you’ll connect your words artfully. But the sentence never actually ends. And it’s quite hypnotic.

Conversational Hypnosis is Maternal Rather than Paternal

Conversational hypnosis is very indirect or maternal. Whereas a stage hypnotist might be highly directive; even commanding, conversational hypnosis is much more laid back.

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Hidden Hypnotic Commands

One of the most amazing techniques used in conversational hypnosis, is the use of embedded commands. Embedded commands are a covert way of getting suggestions into the mind.

Fundamental Hypnosis Techniques for Hypnotherapists

There are three fundamental hypnosis techniques people learn when training to become a hypnotherapist: rapport building, inductions, and regression.

Rapport Building

Hypnosis, aka inner focus, is 100% a matter of choice by the client. If they feel comfortable, they will allow themselves to let go and experience the state. For rapport techniques to work, you need to learn and understand things like linguistics and body language. Those are some of the many ways to build rapport.

Induction

Induction is a hypnosis technique that helps the client focus inward, ie. go into hypnosis or an altered state.

Regression

Regression means removing the purple-tinted lenses, ie. What’s required for regression techniques to work? Yup.

Self-Hypnosis: Reaping the Benefits at Home

All hypnosis is self hypnosis. All of these methods are about tuning out the external world and tuning into your own consciousness using focus, awareness, and some bodily sensations.

The Induction Phase

The first phase of self hypnosis is the induction phase. This is when you put yourself into a hypnotic trance. In this phase, you bypass the conscious part of your brain and sink into a trance-like state where you can access your subconscious mind (which some refer to as the “unconscious mind”). It’s here that you’re able to make lasting changes to your behavior and thought patterns.

Setting the Scene

Choose a time of day when you’re the least likely to be disturbed. To make hypnosis a regular practice, consider doing it at the same time and in the same place every day. Before you begin your self-hypnosis session, start by ensuring you have a clear goal.

Breathing

Just like you would during a conventional meditation session, just breathe and be. If distracting thoughts and emotions arise, acknowledge them and then try your best to release them.

Rapid Self-Hypnosis Techniques

Engage Your Senses: Become aware of your internal mind, and note three things you can see, hear, and feel.
Rub Hands Together: To do this rapid self hypnosis induction technique, rub your hands together to create friction, then focus on the feeling of heat and energy between your palms.
Focus on Breath: Focusing on your breath helps concentrate your focus, center yourself in the present moment, and strengthen your mindfulness skills-all of which prepare you for hypnosis.
Make Eyes Feel Tired: In order to make your eyes feel sleepy, try looking up at your forehead.
Visualize a Room: Start by visualizing (aka imagining) a room you’re familiar with. After you have a detailed image of this room in your head, move on to visualizing a room that you are not familiar with.
Count Inhalations and Exhalations: To do this technique, close your eyes and begin counting each inhale and exhale.
Imagine Arm Getting Heavier: Start by holding your arm out in front of you. Then, begin to imagine your arm getting slightly heavier with each second that passes.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: In order to do progressive muscle relaxation, begin by directing your attention to your forehead.
Use an Audio Guide: When you’re doing a self-hypnosis session, it’s best to use an audio guide that can lead you through each phase of the hypnotic process.

Applications of Hypnosis

Hypnosis is effective for a variety of everyday life situations-from addressing chronic pain and cultivating focus at work to overcoming phobias and recovering from a surgery.

Chronic Pain Management

Hypnosis helps manage symptoms by using imagery and self-regulation. Pills may offer some relief but often come with unwanted side effects.

Weight Loss

Hypnosis has a proven track record for weight loss. Hypnosis for weight loss is widely accessible. You can also effectively use self-hypnosis for weight loss.

Improved Sleep

Most women reported that hypnosis helped them sleep longer. They also noticed improvements in:quality of sleephot flashes and night sweatschanges in mood

Other Potential Benefits

Some research also suggests self-hypnosis could have some benefit for:boosting mindfulness and reducing stresseasing feelings of anxietyincreasing self-confidencequitting smoking

Additional Hypnosis Techniques

Visualization

Visualization can be used both to induce trance and to make suggestions. For example, ask your subject to recall a room they are very familiar with.

Arm Levitation

With this classic Ericksonian technique, the client begins by closing their eyes. They are asked to notice the difference in feeling between their arms.

Confusion Technique

Proceed with caution! Similar to the handshake technique, a subject finding themselves shocked can enter into a trance.

Eye Fixation

Have you ever found yourself “zoning out” and staring at an interesting item in the room while someone is talking? Did you completely miss what they’ve said? Any object of focus can be used to induce trance.

Body Scan

A popular method for self-hypnosis. Starting at the top of the body with your eyes closed, scan down slowly from the head to the feet.

Controlled Breathing

Using slow controlled breaths, countdown from 100. At the end you may be in a trance.

Indirect Suggestion

Erickson was a champion of indirect suggestion. It is a favorite of certified hypnotherapists because this method puts the control in the subject’s hands rather than those of authoritarian - respecting the patient’s boundaries and clinical ethics.

Direct Suggestion

In conversational hypnosis, a direct suggestion is an explicit command to perform a certain action.

Hypnotic Triggers

There are many forms of hypnotic triggers. A trigger reminds the subconscious of a desired action or feeling which was suggested under hypnosis.

Nonverbal Communication

Hypnotists are experts at nonverbal communication - from reading a client’s body language to conveying your own non-verbal suggestions.

Cold Reading

Though it’s generally too direct to use with a client, you might use cold reading at a party or a networking event.

Submodalities

Submodalities can be used in “the swish pattern” - a neuro-linguistic programming technique used to associate or dissociate the client with certain behaviors.

Misdirection

Here, a subject dealing with anxiety is misdirected to the visualization of themselves on a beach.

Reframing

Usually done as a metaphor, reframing allows you to change the perception of an experience in the client’s mind.

Future Pacing

The opposite of regression, when a subject is asked to visualize themselves taking the proper actions and behaviors in the future.

Anchors

When we record a memory, all of the senses and emotions are associated. These are “anchors” in your memory.

3-2-1 Technique

Betty Erickson was Milton Erickson’s wife. She developed her own method for self-hypnosis known as the 3-2-1 technique.

Small Increments

Making a tiny change is the stepping stone to a much large one.

Positive Intention

In theory, all behavior is positive in some way. The subconscious may justify one negative behavior with a positive one.

Parts Therapy

The mind is made up of multiple parts. With parts therapy, the hypnotherapist communicates with the behavior part to better understand why an action is being taken.

Metaphors

Metaphors are therapeutic and memorable.

Hypnotic Bind

The hypnotic bind is a favorite amongst parents and presents the “illusion” of choice with an either/or question.

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