Agreement and acceptance are vital for the use of successful hypnosis in therapy.
What Really Happens
The reality is that hypnosis is permissive. It is a two-way activity, requiring the full cooperation of the subject.
Nobody can be made to do anything against their will and most people enter this comfortable, tranquil state, with ease. You put your trust in the therapist and listen to their words. You allow their voice to be your guide on a journey into deep relaxation.
Hypnosis is calming and relaxing so that your imagination can come fully in to play. Stories, metaphors, analogies and imagery make it easier for the unconscious mind to absorb suggestions for beneficial change.
Through compliance and trust, hypnosis makes additional resources and creative capabilities more accessible, so change can be fashioned effortlessly. It is this ease of transformation that makes hypnotherapy appealing to people who have found that their individual will-power and conscious efforts have not achieved results.
Hypnosis is rather like a Captain handing over control a ship to the Pilot when it goes into port. You remain fully aware of what is happening but as you become more and more relaxed it is far easier to allow the therapist’s voice to guide you, freely and willingly.’ In this relaxed state, the mind offers other levels of operation beyond our everyday awareness. These other dimensions have been termed, the sub-conscious and the unconscious mind and they serve as a vast storehouse of experience. ‘We know far more, than we know we know.’ (Milton Erickson) When the mind responds from this deeper level, the experience often seems effortless…automatic.