Can I be hynotised?

Of course you can!

There are many benefits of being a hypnotherapists, one of them is that I am always a very welcomed dinner party guest.  Almost every time I will be surrounded by curious co-guests, regardless what the audience’s background is, sometimes business, sometimes education, sometimes artists, and without exception, the first question will be “can I be hypnotised”, or in an statement format “I don’t think I can be hypnotised”.  It is entirely understandable, as hypnosis has had a very mixed reputation, many hold misconceptions of hypnosis and the most common one is that “I will lose control”, which is usually the reason for suspicion or even resistance to hypnosis. 

To that question, I always answer with another question in return, “have you ever lost track of time as you concentrate intensely on an issue in mind?”  The answer is inevitably a YES, understandably, who wouldn’t have had that experience? Whenever something really important is on our mind, being enjoyable, painful, intriguing or puzzling, it seems to have consumed us, and we are lost in our own little world.  

That, is effectively “trance” state, and we are effectively under self-hypnosis. We CAN be hypnotised.

If so, why not all people are under the spell on a stage hypnosis performance, and why some might even have had failed hypnotherapy sessions? 

The answer lies in factors other than that person, namely the hypnotist/hypnotherapist and the environment. 

Before we go any further, let me explain the difference between stage hypnosis and hypnotherapy. 

Stage hypnosis is ultimately a show, in nature is not dissimilar to magicians when it comes to the purpose of the show, which is to entertain and awe the audience.  There are of course very important skills involved, it is not easy to be a successful hypnotist or a magician, it requires years of training and practising, and often talent at birth.  However, putting aside the possibility of faking such as pre-selected audience either implicitly or explicitly, the stage is fundamentally different from the therapy room.  On the stage, things happen fast, and the subjects are under a lot of peer/social pressure to comply with what the hypnotist suggests, would you really want to ruin the audience or the hypnotist’s night when on the stage by standing up and say that this is totally crap? Probably not.  And those who might do that would never be selected by the hypnotist, who can smell trouble makers miles away. 

In the therapy room however, it is just you and the therapist, if you have doubt, you probably would open your eyes and say so, or at least do so after the therapy session, or just never come back to the therapist again.  So it is a lot more honest and straight-forward setting. 

So please don’t conclude that you can’t be hypnotised after seeing a hypnotist show while thinking to yourself that you will never behave like those people on the stage.

Let’s now concentrate on the therapy setting.  Whether or not you will be hypnotised by the therapist is effectively dependent on two things. 

Firstly, your own will.  There is a famous saying that you can take the horse to the river, but you CAN’T make it drink.  It very much applies to hypnotherapy.  People come to the therapy room usually because they have an issue to solve, however, any responsible therapist will first try to evaluate how willing the patient is in solving the issue and the will has to come from inside.  For example, quit smoking, you might think of course the patient wants to quit smoking!  Well, the truth is, not necessarily.  The patient might be under pressure from the family or one’s own sense of guilt, but secretly thinking that smoking is really not a big deal.  If the patient do not wish to be hypnotised deep down regardless what might be said, the therapy session is almost destined to fail.

Secondly, the relationship between you and the therapist.  In any talking therapy, being counselling, psychotherapy or hypnotherapy, there is an important concept all therapist will be working hard on, “rapport”, in other words, how the patient feels about the therapist.  Ultimately, we are human beings, and we behave differently in front of different people, we might tell the truth with people we trust and respect, but bite our lips otherwise.  We also feel differently about the same person, an artist might think someone is creative and fun, a businessman might think of this same person as strange and inefficient.  A talented and skilled therapist should be able to gain trust from all types of personalities, however, it is easy said than done.  We all have our value systems, and therapists are no exceptions.  Training can only reduce such biases but not completely eliminate them.  Therefore, the patient will form different types of bonding with the therapists, sometimes it is instant like and trust, sometimes dislike but trust, sometimes like but distrust, hopefully never dislike and distrust, but it could also happen.  

So if you have had failed hypnotherapy session, before reaching the conclusion that hypnotherapy is not for you, reflect on two questions, did you really want to do it deep down? Did you trust the therapist?  And make sure the answer to both questions are yes.