Hypnotherapy For Transformation

This outstanding introduction to the field of hypnotherapy is excerpted by permission from Randal Churchill's BECOME THE DREAM: The Transforming Power of Hypnotic Dreamwork. Randal is Co-Director with Marlene Mulder of the Hypnotherapy Training Institute.

Within a therapeutic setting, hypnosis is often induced through various methods of relaxation. As a result of this process the critical factor of the conscious mind is bypassed, giving the hypnotherapist and subject direct access to the deeper mind, the subconscious, which has been called "the other 90% of the mind."

Generally, the most well known characteristic of hypnosis is increased suggestibility. Though there are varying degrees of this heightened responsiveness to suggestion, the potential power of this direct access to the subconscious should not be underestimated.

For example, I worked with a man named Gino who had been a three-pack a day smoker for over 20 years. He had never been able to quit for even a day since his early years as a smoker. After his first hypnosis session, he called his wife from work later that day. "I can't believe how easy it is. It's like I never smoked," he exclaimed. "I can remember smoking, of course, but there's no desire at all!" While I cautioned him during our follow-up session not to be overconfident, he continued to do fine, including no negative side effects. To the contrary, he was constructively redirecting his energy, and had dramatically increased confidence and vitality.

I remember Gino vividly because after referring many of his friends and acquaintances to me for hypnotherapy, he came back a few years later to take my training to become a hypnotherapist. He introduced himself to the class with a twinkle in his eye, saying, "Randal helped me quit smoking, but I've never been hypnotized." In spite of his results, he had a hard time accepting that he had entered hypnosis, even though he knew he must have, because his hypnotic experiences were so subtle to him. Initial doubts about the hypnotic state are not unusual. What was unusual was the immediate ease of his results, although such a response is not rare in the practice of an attentive, skilled hypnotherapist.

While varying degrees of initial struggle are the norm for addiction or habit cessation through hypnosis sessions, my experience has been that more than ten percent of such clients will achieve the desired results and more, with astonishing ease from the beginning.

It is not rare for a skilled hypnotherapist in rapport with a motivated client to produce such profound suggestibility that it can have the effect of an imprint. An imprint is a powerful, emotional, single impact learning experience that can affect a person (or an animal) in many cases for a lifetime. But even when results are not exceptional, responsiveness to suggestion is routinely greatly heightened during hypnosis.