Hypnotherapy is using the state of hypnosis (from Greek, hypnos, meaning to sleep), and using this trance state to influence your own or another’s internal reality.
What is the difference between Hypnosis and hypnotherapy?
There isn’t much difference and you can inter-use the terms. You could say that hypnotherapy is the therapeutic use of hypnosis (hypnosis being the state). Or that Hypnotherapy utilizes hypnosis, a state of altered consciousness in which the therapist can help you to access the deeper levels of awareness, to which you are usually oblivious in your normal day-to-day functioning.
Hypnotherapy is a brief strategic therapy – one that is aimed specifically at finding a resolution to your problem as quickly, safely and efficiently as possible.
More often than not, what you are experiencing as a problem, whether emotional, psychological or psychosomatic (i.e. actually producing physical symptoms) is only a surface EFFECT of a deeper underlying mental/emotional CAUSE. It is at these deeper levels of consciousness that hypnotherapists work.
If left untreated, problems can sometimes create a ripple effect into other areas of your life, and what many people find is, on completion of effective hypnotherapy, other problems melt away.
Hypnosis can be used to learn how the unconscious mind really works- allowing you to fully understand why some important messages get through and others don’t, learn verbal and non-verbal suggestion – so you can control and direct conversations more effectively, induce deep mind states using fantastic hypnotic inductions, therefore accessing the power of yours and your clients’ unconscious minds, utilize deep mind states for healing, and structure post-hypnotic suggestions – enabling direct commands to be used in business, meetings and for healthy clients.
What does it feel like to be hypnotized?
Everybody experiences trance differently – it is a unique experience, but the client is always in control. In general a hypnotic trance is a pleasant, relaxing and tranquil experience. While hypnotized you will be aware of all physical sensations around you, perhaps even noticing sounds you wouldn’t otherwise be aware of. After a traumatic incident such as a car accident or violent robbery, a subject under hypnosis may be able to recall with extreme accuracy, car numbers, details etc that their subconscious mind has remembered but their conscious mind has overlooked. When you are fully aware again you may be able to recall everything that happened while you were in your trance, depending how deep your trance was.
