Since the beginning of recorded history, hypnotism has been used across all cultures, under a variety of names and guises, to affect healing and change. In the 19th century, hypnosis emerged as a science, becoming the first western form of mental therapy. Hypnotism was crucial to the work of Sigmund Freud, Ivan Pavlov and numerous other figures in the history of western psychology and medicine.

Most mainstream religious communities approve of the use of hypnosis by their members, for therapy and self-help.

Often the results obtained by hypnotherapy are little short of miraculous. While hypnosis often works like magic, it is not. It is a science with a well-documented history.

The hypnotherapist does not hypnotize you. You hypnotize yourself through his or her direction. The hypnotist is the steering wheel to the client’s motor. In hypnosis, all the power is within the client.

Modern scientific hypnotism is a recognized and respected science. Hypnosis is an indisputable and self-evident fact of the human mind. The science of hypnotism is universally recognized throughout the civilized world. Much documentation and explaination of its use and success is widely available for you to explore.

Hypnosis is a natural state of mind with special identifying characteristics. They are: 1.) An extraordinary mental and physical relaxation. 2.) Heightened and selective attention. 3.) Temporary passivity of the analytical part of the mind. 4.) An intense and emotionalized desire to satisfy the suggested behavior.

The subconscious is the largest and most dominant part of the mind-the level you are generally unaware. It is the seat of our memories, dreams, emotions, and habits; and it automatically regulates all of the functions of the body.

A suggestion is simply an idea that reaches the mind and can originate from within or outside the individual. A hypnotic suggestion is a suggestion offered by the hypnotist to the client’s subconscious mind for acceptance.

It is a suggestion given during a hypnotic trance, designed to be carried out in the subsequent waking state.

Suggestibility is not gullibility. It is the measure of intensity with which the brain and nervous system accept and respond to incoming ideas. In hypnosis, both body and mind are more suggestible.

Induction is the procedure the hypnotist uses to induce hypnosis. It is used to relax the client’s body and clear his or her mind, preparing it for the hypnotic suggestions.

Any person of normal intelligence can be hypnotized. This mental state exists, and you can definitely learn to achieve it.

Most people don’t think they can be hypnotized, but once they try, they find it very easy. Any normal person willing to be hypnotized and wanting the results will be an ideal hypnotic subject.

No. Men and women are equally hypnotizable.

Yes. Once children have acquired the ability to use and understand spoken language, they can benefit from its use. Children generally make excellent hypnotic subjects. Hypnotherapy can be used safely and effectively with many childhood problems including- but not limited to – bedwetting, sleepwalking, fear, problems with school and/or studying, pain, and nervous habits.

No. Hypnosis is just as natural a state of mind as sleep or wakefulness. Most people go into and out of this natural state of mind several times a day without recognizing they are doing so or knowing how to harness and use it.

No. While clinical hypnosis is intrinsically safe and often recommended as the approach of choice for many types of problems, it is not meant to substitute for standard health care, but to supplement it.

You wouldn’t be able to hear your instructions if you were asleep. You are not asleep during hypnosis your body and mind are lulled into an extremely relaxed and passive state, allowing the power of your subconscious mind to take charge and to achieve the results you find difficult during ordinary states of consciousness. The feeling of hypnosis is very similar to the way you feel just prior to sleep. You will hear your hypnotist’s voice, finding it very easy to do what his voice suggests.

Just the opposite. The purpose of the hypnosis is to help you to have greater, rather than less, control. The idea that one can be made a slave to the hypnotist is a common myth popularized by late-show movies and novels.

No. In hypnosis, you can’t be made to say or do anything against your wishes. However, if you have a sincere desire to change, your subconscious motivations can be activated and enhanced to support, rather than hinder, your goals.

No. A person under hypnosis is not an automaton and will not violate any religious, ethical, moral, or political values.

People do not say things in hypnosis that they do not want to say. A part of the hypnotized person’s mind is always in contact with reality. When confronted with an embarrassing or incriminating question the subject will either refrain from answering the question or awaken.

People do not say things in hypnosis that they do not want to say. A part of the hypnotized person’s mind is always in contact with reality. When confronted with an embarrassing or incriminating question the subject will either refrain from answering the question or awaken.

No. The hypnotist must have the cooperation of the client in order to induce a state of hypnosis.

No. Most people who don’t go into a state of hypnosis are those who have the mistaken notion that hypnosis will hurt them. Weak-mindedness and strong-mindedness have nothing to do with the ability to experience hypnosis. A weak-minded person who resists suggestions is an ineffective responder. A strong-minded person who cooperates is an effective responder.

In hypnosis, there is no impairment of mental discrimination or the ability to detect threatening stimuli. The instinct of self-preservation does not leave the hypnotized person. If a fire broke out or some other threat developed while the person was in the hypnotic state, his or her reactions would be similar to those prior to the trance, and he or she would do the utmost to save himself or herself.

It is impossible to get stuck in hypnosis. A person can come out of hypnosis anytime he or she wishes. Have you ever seen a credible news story or article where someone got “stuck” in hypnosis? This is becuase it has never happened.

No. Hypnosis provides you with a period of rest and relaxation. You will leave the hypnotist’s office rested, refreshed, and fully alert and aware ready to do whatever comes next.

To become hypnotized there are only three things you need to do: Concentrate your mind, relax your body, and imagine what the hypnotist suggests to you is absolutely true. Hypnosis is primarily a learning experience: learning how to let go and let the suggestions take hold without any conscious effort to help or to hinder them.

No. Even if your mind wanders occasionally during hypnosis, it is only your conscious mind that is wandering. You will continue subconciously to hear, understand and accept the suggestions of the hypnotist.

The hypnotherapist can recognize whether you are hypnotized because he has been trained to recognize the signs a person gives off when hypnotized. Initially, be content to simply feel pleasantly relaxed. At first, you may not be aware conciously of the changes that take place when you go into hypnosis at first. Please do not be preoccupied about whether or not you are hypnotized. If you follow your hypnotherapist’s simple instructions you’ll achieve the desired results. That is really the only important thing to remember.

Some of the time you may remember, the remaining time you may experience amnesia either spontaneously or in response to a suggestion to do so. Amnesia is a natural phenomenon of hypnosis and it is a sign of a deep hypnotic state. Be thankful if you experience it. No matter how little or how much you forget consciously, your results will be equally beneficial.

Hypnosis works even if you think you don’t have any willpower. If you were able to use willpower, you wouldn’t need the hypnosis. Most people consciously accept the need for change. However, their subconscious mind, the source of automatic habits, continues old ways despite their best conscious efforts to change them. Hypnosis is a way to reach the subconscious so it can be directed to work for, instead of against, your conscious objectives. As a result, the need for conscious willpower is greatly reduced or eliminated entirely. You change naturally and easily without struggling with the issue of willpower.

Clinical hypnosis is hypnosis that is done for the purpose of resolving problems or for the purpose of helping achieve goals.

The hypnotherapist first consults with the client to determine the nature of the problem or goal. Next, he prepares the client to enter hypnosis and tests the client to determine the pattern and degree of the client’s suggestibility. The therapist induces the hypnotic state, then utilizes it to alter behavior patterns or bodily sensations, or to increase motivation, depending upon the purpose of the therapy. The hypnotherapist may also train the client in self-hypnosis.

We know from direct observation that all people function on at least two levels of awareness: the conscious and subconscious. These two levels of awareness are complimentary and operate simultaneously. The conscious mind is the analytical mind, the seat of our critical faculty that filters and analyzes incoming ideas to determine their truth content. The subconscious is the part of your mind you are generally unaware of. It automatically controls most of our activities, emotions, feelings, sensations, and habits. In comparison to the conscious level of mind, the subconscious has limited reasoning capabilities. It believes what it is told and proceeds to act upon it as if it were true.

When the analytic conscious mind is inactive and is not filtering incoming ideas, suggestions bypass the conscious mind and register in the subconscious as true. Believing the idea, the subconscious acts spontaneously and automatically through the brain and nervous system to fulfill the suggested idea in thought and action.

Hypnosis induces a temporary passivity of the critical faculty to allow suggestions, to bypass it and go directly to the subconscious. However, hypnosis is not the only way ideas can bypass the critical faculty to reach and influence the subconscious.

The critical faculty of the conscious mind goes into abeyance during moments of strong emotion, confusion, physical pain, trauma, and unconscious states. Childhood is another condition that allows ideas to reach the subconscious without being filtered through the critical faculty. Difficulties can arise from false, misleading, or harmful ideas subconsciously accepted as true. Whatever has been subconsciously accepted as truth becomes the critical faculty’s basis for judging all other future incoming ideas. Information to the contrary is rejected or ignored, while data that supports preexisting subconsciously held beliefs is recognized and accepted.

This is why it is seldom possible to modify deeply-held subconscious beliefs by appeals to conscious reason and logic. Harmful, false ideas subconsciously accepted as truths result in problems that occur in life over and over affecting health, happiness, or level of accomplishment, often without the person consciously recognizing what is causing the problem. Hypnotherapy is a safe, rapid and highly effective way to locate and permanently remove the negative subconscious programming that has been causing suffering and artificial limitations.

Yes! Scientific research has solidly documented the effectiveness of clinical hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy works directly on the source of the difficulty to permanently resolve it. This is why hypnosis is highly effective with many problems that have stubbornly resisted all other helping approaches.

Hypnotherapists are clinicians interested in getting results. While many theories exist about how hypnosis functions, the clinical hypnotherapist has no need to know why hypnotism works, only how to use it for maximum effectiveness.

It is true that hypnotherapy does not work for everyone, but it does work for most people. The people, the times, the places, the circumstances and the hypnotherapists are all different, so in all likelihood the outcome will also be different for each client and treatment.

Yes, because hypnotherapy involves retraining and reeducation. When new positive habits of thought and behavior are firmly established they tend to be self continuing and self reinforcing just as the unwanted patterns were.

Although our success rate varies with different people depending upon their individual circumstances and motivation, our success rate with people completing their hypnotherapy program as recommended is approximately 85%.

Once the conscious mind has mastered new learning, the subconscious comes into play, allowing us to perform particular tasks without conscious effort; freeing our conscious mind to attend to, and learn, other habits. Habits are, for the most part, useful to us. In doing many things automatically, we save a great deal of time and effort. However, occasionally we find ourselves with a habit pattern that we would like to modify of eliminate. We may try to change on a conscious level. However, our subconscious mind, the source that governs our automatic habit patterns, may cause the habit to persist, despite our best conscious efforts to change. Hypnosis is a way to reach the subconscious so it can be directed to work for, instead of against, your conscious objectives. Hypnosis works directly on the source of the problem, with little or no need for the use of conscious willpower.