Hypnotherapy is based upon the use of the state called trance. A trance is a state of heightened relaxation and inwardly focused attention. But why trance?

In fact, many systems and philosophies preach the virtues of a state of relaxation and inwardly focused attention.

NLP: Trance is the basis of nearly every NLP technique. NLP techniques guide a person into a light trance as part of the process.

Meditation: The practice of meditation is all about turning inward and relaxing the body and mind.

Yoga, Massage and Acupuncture: Yoga, massage and acupuncture all put the client in various states of light to deep relaxation.

EFT: EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) also puts a client into a state of relaxed inner focus.

Shamanism: To perform healing ceremonies, shamans in tribal cultures around the world and throughout history have entered altered states of consciousness in which they tune out the outside world and “trance out”.

Esotericism: Study any form of esotericism, such as Wicca or Ceremonial magick, and you’ll consistently find that every system teaches a method for entering a light state of relaxation to perform ritual work (typically called the “Relaxation Ritual”).

But why trance? Why do so many approaches center around the trance state?

On many occasions while coaching clients, I was confused as to why they might defend a belief or behaviour that clearly wasn’t working for them, why they seemed unable to understand something we were exploring or why they seemed unable to make a change.

What was I doing wrong?

Well, nothing and something. The key was the state the client was in.

To Trance or Not to Trance

Most of the time, we try to solve problems with our logical, rational mind. Our conscious mind tries to figure out what is going on and find a solution. But it doesn’t always work, and rarely works when we’re faced with some kind of emotional or psychological problem.

When we’re in a state of eagerness or urgency about change, the sympathetic nervous system is activated. This is the stress response, and it’s not effective in helping us change. Effort usually gets in the way. What’s more is that in a state of conscious awareness, consciousness is not malleable. Instead, we need to be able to let go, activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the relaxation response, so we can learn and change. Trance makes consciousness plastic and changeable.

When I’d get stuck with clients, I kept having a sneaking suspicion that what was missing was trance.

What would happen right now if the client was in a light state of trance?

For most people in out society, its the rational and analytical side of us thats most developed. But theres so much more to human experience than logic! In sessions, When I sensed that a client’s conscious, rational side was keeping them stuck, I’d have them do something simple: I’d have them close their eyes.

Many times, asking clients to close their eyes and go inside would lead to almost magical changes and realizations. It was as if we had done and explored what we needed to do and explore consciously, and now it was time for the next step. Having clients enter trance led to the next step in the process of change.

Why would trance have this effect?

When people have problems, what they usually don’t do is slow down enough to understand what the problem really is. They are so eager to change that they rush and hurry… and miss the real issue. Add to that that they’re trying to change and exerting effort, and that effort prevents change from happening. Trying to change is about as effective as trying to sleep: the more you try to sleep, the more you stay awake.

Trance helps us slow down enough to decipher what’s really going on, and trance also puts us in a comfortable state of letting go. Relaxed letting go makes consciousness malleable and creates space for us to learn and change.

One of the basic tenets of NLP is this:

All learning, behaviour and change is unconscious.

What does this mean? It means that to learn and change, we must get the conscious mind out of the way and let the unconscious do its thing. And this is just what many systems do by putting a person in a state of trance.

• What is it that characterizes us as people?
• What is the nature of human nature?
• What explains the commonalities between problems people face

What the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Freud and so many others had in common was one key element: conflict.

Plato and Aristotle presented ancient theories of personality that characterized man as driven by conflicting forces. According to their writings, mankind had a dual nature. On the one hand we are driven by reason, they taught. Each of us has a logical, rational side, a side of us that can reason and is reasonable. But underneath is what the ancients called the “appetitive” aspect of man. This other side is driven by desire, craving and emotion. It is our instinctual and animal side. To Plato and Aristotle, our every moment was characterized by the conflict between the sides of this dual nature as our faculties of reason work to curb our emotions and appetites.

Along similar lines, central to Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis centuries later was the idea of conflict. Psychoanalysis proposed three parts to the personality. The Id contained our basic and instinctual drives which the superego, the seat of morality and conscience, was to keep in check (with the ego stuck in between). To Freud, each of us, day by day, lived out an eternal conflict.

Are we really so conflicted?

On the surface, these theories ring true. We must each control our emotions and appetites to function in society. We all have emotions, impulses and desires we might like to indulge in, but we make the choice daily to behave as society dictates. We keep our appetites in check and live by society’s rules. But is there more going on?

Our Two Minds

We like to see ourselves as rational, logical and intelligent creatures. We think we make decisions by means of reason and that we are in control of our behaviour. Yet the neo-cortex, the part of our brain that has given us the gift of reason, is a fairly new technological advancement in our evolution.

Through the majority of human existence, it was the reptilian brain that dominated. This other side of human nature evolved over millions of years and helped us survive. Our primal side kept us avoiding danger, defending our territory and has us keep to what was safe. It evolved and adapted so matters of survival were ingrained. And it was this primal and instinctual programming, the seat of our instincts, emotions, impulses and cravings that has dominated human history.

And here we are today, with two brains.

Conscious and Unconscious

In the history of psychology, two terms have come to dominate the lingo for our two brains: conscious mind and unconscious mind.

The conscious mind is our logical rational side. It is the side we use to analyze, reasons and calculate. It let’s us discuss philosophy till the wee hours of the night and bequeathes us the faculty of language.

The unconscious mind is our more primal side. It is the seat of our emotions, impulses, urges and instincts. It stores our memories, knowledge and habits, runs the body and is responsible for our automatic behaviours and reflexes.

Which one is in control?

Although we pride ourselves on reason, most of our behaviour is driven by the unconscious mind. Marketing 101 teaches that people buy with emotion and justify with logic, though nearly everyone will claim that they’re the exception. Throughout the last couple centuries, when groups, corporations and governments have tried to influence the masses, it’s been found again and again that using logic doesn’t work.

And it’s for the same reason that we struggle to change.

When I began working with clients, a common theme quickly emerged in nearly every case. People came to me thinking the problem was one thing, but when they left they their ideas about it has completely changed. They’d gotten beneath the surface, beyond what they thought the problem was and discovered what was really going on. It was such a common experience with people that I drew up a work sheet that said:

What I thought the problem was:
What I now know the problem is:

Today, I know that when someone has been unable to solve a problem, this same thing is going to occur. Somehow they get fooled into thinking they know what the problem is while the truth is hiding. In reality, they are aware of the symptoms, but they can’t see beyond to the true causes.

What is the nature of human nature?

The reptilian brain that evolved over millions of years to ensure that we meet our needs and survive. It is this part of us that drives much of our experience. Now, the logical brain has come along and is helping us quite nicely, but there’s a problem:

The two brains don’t speak the same language.

Our two brains think in different ways, aim for different things and have different functions. They are like people from countries on opposite sides of the world joined as twins but with no common language, interests or aims. What does that equal? Conflict.

Our Two Minds, Problems and Change

Many of our problems arise from a conflict between these two parts of us.

• While we want to go enjoy the party, something in us is terrified and keeps us locked in a pattern of social anxiety.
• While we want to shed off those extra pounds, something keeps piling those chocolates in our mouth night after night.
• While we want to get those items checked off the to do list, something chains us down in front of the TV for one more night of reruns.

The conscious mind wants one thing, the unconscious mind wants another, and you’re stuck in the middle. What’s worse is that neither really knows the other exists and so they can’t even sit down at the negotiation table to talk. They each pull in different directions and you wonder what the heck is going on.

When problems arise, when we feel something we don’t like, when we can’t get ourselves to stop an unwanted behaviour or start a desirable one, we try to understand what is going on. We do our best to interpret the symptoms rationally, the conscious mind tries to interpret what’s occurring, but does a bad job. It gets it wrong! Often we do succeed at coming up with reasons, explanations and justifications, but they miss the mark. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is up to. The conscious mind doesn’t speak “unconscious” and there’s no interpreter around. Conflict and miscommunication.

What then?

A Vicious Cycle…

If we’ve misconceived the problem we’ll misconceive the solution. Based on our misunderstanding of the problem we’ll launch into a solution, but the solutions we try won’t work. Usually, knowing us humans, we’ll keep trying to impose those same ineffective solutions because reasons tells us it should or will work.

Unconscious Communication

How do we decipher the unconscious? 

It might sound surprising but the unconscious mind actually makes a hell of an effort to communicate. In fact, this is just what symptoms are: communication from the unconscious mind.

When we slow down and give the unconscious a voice, we can begin to decipher the symptoms and uncover what they’ve been trying to say. We can begin to listen to our “other mind” and understand what it wants us to know.

What do those symptoms mean?
What do you want me to know?
What’s the purpose of this?
If you could talk, what would you say?

When we begin to listen to our unconscious and understand what’s been lost in translation, we most often find that it’s actually been trying to do something valuable and has something valid it wants us to know.

The greatest healers of history and therapists of today are masterful interpreters of unconscious messages. They can decode the primal language of the mind and translate it into something the patient or client can understand. They find a way to negotiate between our two brains and bring harmony. And often, what therapists who are known for their results do makes little logical and rational sense. They talk to the unconscious.

How could all that time money and effort have made things worse?

I remember feeling deeply that life was against me, as if I had been cursed, and that maybe suffering was who I was.

I was always extremely driven, motivated and ambitious. I knew what I wanted and I went for it with full force. I was always willing to do what it took… But I was failing miserably.

Little did I know I was making a fundamental error.

Years earlier, at just 19, I had moved from Alberta to Montreal when I was accepted at McGill. The extent of my French was made up of two words: poulet and cerise. But something amazing happened.

As soon as I arrived I began looking around, reading signs, listening to people talk. One night I met some people and started asking questions; How do you say this? What does that mean?

Just six months later I was working downtown in French. Not long after it would happen that I’d be speaking to someone and after 5 or 10 minutes they’d suddenly pause and say, “Where are you from?” They’d tell me they hadn’t realized I wasn’t a Quebecer… And often people would ask if I was from a New Brunswick. My accent was so small then thought I was francophone. Wow!

How did I do that?

When most people try to learn a language they’ve already got preconceived notions. “This is going to be hard,” “I’m too old to learn.” These beliefs act as powerful commands to the mind and body and govern the learning process.

I didn’t have any of that. I actually believed that my mind was going to put the pieces together on it’s own! I believed that just by being exposed to the language my mind would learn the rules of grammar and pronunciation by itself. I didn’t have to do much except pay some attention and key my brain do it’s thing. And it did!

Speed forward to years later and my desperation and misery. I had been trying for years to overcome negative beliefs, depression, fears, and other disempowering patterns… And it had all gotten worse because of a fundamental error:

I was trying to change with my conscious mind!

NLP and hypnosis are based on the idea that we have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. According to these approaches it is by accessing and guiding the unconscious mind that we can make changes. Change does not happen at the conscious level, nor does it happen through thinking, intellectualizing, rationalizing or trying to figure things out.

Change is not a conscious process. All learning, behaviour and change are unconscious.

To change, I was trying to bludgeon my unconscious mind into submission. I thought I could push and force my unconscious to change. But it failed miserably.

To learn languages, I deeply trusted my unconscious mind to do the work. I set the objective and let my mind carry it out. And it worked brilliantly! What if I did this for the other changes I wanted?

When I began to apply the principles of hypnosis and allow my unconscious mind to resolve problems and find solutions, things began to get better quickly. I would have more flashes of insight, come up with better ideas out of the blue, and think of solutions without even trying 

Who knew that I was actually stopping myself from changing by trying too hard.

I now know, and really know, the the unconscious mind is smarter, wiser, more intelligent and more resourceful than I could ever be consciously. I let it get things done while I do more enjoyable things.

This didn’t surprise me, as many who want to be practicing therapists leave trainings in hypnosis or NLP with the idea that what they have learned is going to work with everyone, it’s going to work quickly and easily, and if it doesn’t it’s the client’s fault.

But none of this is true.

On the surface, it’s easy to think that NLP and hypnosis claim that everything is going to be fast any easy, but it’s not that. Depending on the problem or condition and the client, many things are possible. Skill with NLP and hypnosis allows a therapist to adapt their approach to different clients and different conditions, to provide help in the most appropriate way possible while respecting their client’s needs.

Simple vs. Complex Problems

Some problems can be considered simple. They can be resolved fairly quickly using NLP techniques or hypnotherapy. A phobia is one example of this as anyone who is familiar with the NLP model knows about the phobia cure, a process that can be completed in 10 or 20 minutes. But many other problems don’t fit into this category. Instead they are complex problems. Complex problems take longer to resolve, can be very confusing, and are problems that most hypnotherapists and practitioners of NLP are not trained to deal with.

Clients with complex problems can find themselves extremely lost and confused. The methods they try don’t work or the problem comes back. Therapists may get frustrated, begin to feel that they are not ready to change, and end up pushing them or blaming them. Often, when not getting the results they expect, I will hear a coach or therapist say to the client, “What does this problem give you?” as if to say that if they are not experiencing change, they must want to have this problem. Once I even heard a practitioner of NLP tell a client that she kept her problem because she was addicted to melodrama. This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of human psychology and the complexity of certain conditions.

Hypnotherapists and practitioners of NLP need to be able to distinguish between simple and complex problems. If they aren’t trained to deal with complex problems (such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, dissociative disorders and sexual or physical abuse) they need to refer that client to a skilled therapist.

Change: An Individual Process

A skilled hypnotherapist requires a fundamental ability: the ability to know where their client is at any point in the process and determine what they need at that point to move towards what they want.

Unfortunately, I have found that this is an ability that most hypnotherapists and practitioners of NLP lack. Because of their enthusiasm and optimism, they want to provide their client with total transformation now!, with little regard for the complexity of the client’s problem, or their rate of change.

Everyone has their own rate of change. Some people can make changes very quickly, while other people prefer to or need to take their time. In the case of a complex problem, which may involve a history of abuse, trauma and a great deal of suffering, the person will be more likely to want to take their time, think things through and make sure that each of the changes is right for them. They want to grow and evolve, but at the pace they choose, not one chosen for them. Too help them, a therapist will need to be slow and thorough just as they are.

A hypnotherapist can only be effective if he or she understands what is right, comfortable and desireable for the client at any point in the process. Since change happens in steps and stages, the therapist needs to be able to break the process down into bite -sized pieces and help the client deal with what must be dealt with at each stage before moving into the next. Each step sets the stage for the next.

Got Resistance?

By trying to do too much too fast, therapists encounter “resistance” and then say the client is “not ready to change.” Most often “resistance” is really an ecological concern. What this means is that the person feels that either they will lose something important by making this change or be unable to meet certain needs (such as the need for safety and security). A skilled therapist can spot concerns of ecology or objections to change and will back up and slow down to help the client develop any skills, access any resources or make any other changes that are necessary before the change they are going for.

When working with clients, the question in the back of my mind is always, “Where is this person now and what do they need at this moment?” Often, it may not be what I thought at the beginning of the session and in any effective intervention, it will change throughout the process as the client clarifies their objectives and becomes aware of different aspects of the problem. Only by staying tuned to what is occurring with them can I zero in on where they are in the process and respect their rate of change.

What’s in the way of change?

One of the most important things I’ve learned about helping people is that when people want to make changes, there’s usually lots in the way; fears, concerns, worries, unfinished business from the past, internal objections, misperceptions, limiting beliefs, old patterns etc… and it’s all jumbled up together keeping them stuck. Because there’s so much complexity, it’s important to be thorough and cover all the bases step by step so the process is safe, comfortable and what the client learns can last a life time.

With complex problems there are many many things that can be in the way of change. It takes skill to know why what you’re doing isn’t working and determine what to do instead that will be more appropriate. Often, if what you’re doing isn’t working, it means something’s been missed. We need to back up and find out what it is, not push forward.

Lasting change doesn’t happen by pushing someone, or even by pushing yourself, to change. It happens by finding out what’s going on behind the scenes that’s in the way, finding all the things in the way, and dealing with them one by one. When done effectively, one is is left with greater peace, alignment, self-knowledge and resourcefulness.

Does this mean that the process of change is slow?

Not at all. It is by intervening in the right way at the right time, dealing effectively with what is present, addressing any and all fear, concerns and objections thoroughly that change will occur.

This is why the NLP methodology can be so effective. By combining the different tools, techniques and process, a practitioner can follow the client through different levels of experience, in trance and out of trance to truly help them make sense out of their experience, remap old mapping and grow in the way they desire.

But is there really such a thing as “hypnotizability”?

The word “hypnotizability” has some interesting implications in the world of hypnosis. It implies that being able to enter trance (the state accessed during hypnosis) is an ability. Is it really? It is something one either has or doesn’t? Is it really something innate, meaning some people can be hypnotized and some people can’t.

What if the assumptions on which scientific studies of hypnosis are based are incorrect?

During the experiment, we were seated in a room early in the morning and a recording was used to induce hypnosis and guide us through the process. The recording was the same one used in the famous Hildegard tests of hypnotizability in the 1960s that showed that only some people are hypnotizable (Yes, a fifty year old recording still being used, poor sound quality and all).

The experiment led me to consider the factors involved in hypnosis and hypnotherapy… factors that go far beyond whether someone is or is not hypnotizable.

The Successful Practice of Hypnotherapy

Any experienced hypnotherapist knows that if they were to rely on a fifty year old generic recording their wouldn’t get very good results. One’s experience of hypnosis depends on the therapist’s ability to respond to them directly, to tailor an approach and to alter what they are doing based on the client’s responses in the moment. Hypnosis is an individual process.

One’s experience with hypnosis depends largely on their relationship with the hypnotherapist. How much does the client trust the therapist?Do they feel the therapist is qualified? Do they believe the therapist is qualified to help with their specific problem? Without that trust and co-operative relationship, hypnosis won’t lead to much.

There are other very important issues to consider when it comes to hypnosis. One’s experience will be greatly affected by their expectations about the process and any fears they may have. Two studies on hypnosis could show completely different results merely as a result of how people are prepared for and educated about the process. In this experiment, I remember feeling like the people running things didn’t really know much about hypnosis. Of course, I am biased, but I wonder what studies on hypnosis would show if they were guided by the greats in the field like Dave Elman, Richard Bandler or the late Milton Erickson.

How Hypnotizable Are People Really?

What about this whole idea of being hypnotized? Hypnosis is a process that guides one into a state of trance. This state can be likened to the state one is in when they are deep meditation, deeply relaxed during a massage or yoga, or the state you’re just as you doze off at night. It’s nothing nagical and mystical, but rather a natural state. You’re in this state when absorbed in a book, lost in a movie or watching the numbers flash by while standing in an elevator. What this means is that there is no such thing as being hypnotized. This is not something that someone does to you. It’s more something you do to yourself.

I didn’t used to believe in hypnosis. Why? Most likely because I saw it as something someone did to another. It seemed forceful. You sit down and the hypnotherapist’s office, puts you under and does something to you so you’re different after. Bit it’s not like that at all.

A skilled hypnotherapist knows that he or she will help a client access a state in which thinking and perception become more malleable. It allows one to access unconscious material, the causes behind their symptoms, so that is can be processed and resolved. The trance state allows one to step out of the problem, see things from other perspectives, make insights and access resources. Hypnosis doesn’t work because someone does something to you, it works because it allows you to access a state of openness and flexibility which is perfect for learning.

Milton Erickson said that “trance is about learning to go into trance.” In his view, everyone could enter trance. It was not an ability per se, but more a skill that people could develop through practice and experience.

Many in the field of hypnosis would say there is no such thing as hypnotizability. Instead, there is a person’s willingness to experience hypnosis because:

• They know what it is and isn’t
• They know what to expect
• They know what their role is
• They trust the hypnotherapist
• They are willing and able to follow instructions

The famous hypnotherapist Milton Erickson said to therapists that “Patients will be patients because they are out of rapport with their unconscious mind.”

Many approaches to change try to help us rationalize our problems to overcome them… but often it doesn’t work or simply makes things worse.

Time and time again I have heard clients say, “I know it’s not logical, I know it’s not rational, but I just can’t help it.”

Modern day society values rational, analytical thinking, emphasizing the intellect and the conscious mind. When we have a problem that needs to be solves we try to figure it out, we try to think of a solution and find a way to change… but it doesn’t work.

Throughout history geniuses have relied on a deeper awareness to solve problems. How many breakthroughts have come out of a flash of insight or a dream? What happens when you have a problem and you sleep on it?

Working with thousands and thousands of clients, Milton Erickson produced impressive results where all others had failed. He became famous for his “miraculous cures.” Through tens of thousands of hours of experience working with people, Erickson concluded that problems were a function of conscious processes and that solutions were a function of the unconscious. By getting people’s conscious minds out of the way, he was able to help people free themselves of all manner of conditions.

Trying to solve problems is a bit like trying to sleep. The more you try, the longer you stay awake. If you let go, you fall right to sleep.

So many times I have watched a client struggle with a problem. “How do I solve this?” “I just don’t know how.” They fall into the trap of overthinking, obsessing, trying so hard that things get worse. But what happens when they give the conscious mind a break?

The conscious rational part of us is limited… The unconscious mind is a storehouse of resources and information. When you trust in this deeper part of you, solutions arise by themselves. Trusting in your unconscious you access creativity, new ideas and allow your unconscious to process, synthesize and integrate information leaving you with new ways of seeing things.

If ever I try to write something I end up with writer’s block. But if I have an idea and simply plant it in my unconscious, after a day or two everything just flows right out on it’s own within a matter of minutes.

Trust your unconscious mind and you’ll experience greater harmony and alignment. Plus, when you trust your unconscious, your conscious and unconscious work together so you can trust yourself. The result? Confidence, peace of mind and a better life.

So trust your unconscious…processing.

Can hypnotherapy help?

To answer this question, we have to back up to understand what anxiety really is.

The word anxiety shows up all over the place. We use it daily, see it in the news, on TV… but do we know what it is?

We talk about it like it is a thing (“my anxiety”) and we wait for it to attack (panic attack)… but these are tricks of language. Anxiety is not a thing, you don’t trip over it on the street or find it in a drawer. Anxiety is a process of the mind.

The Trance of Anxiety

If you were walking in the woods and were suddenly faced with a bear, you’d feel fear. This is a natural response. It keeps you safe, prevents you from getting yourself in unnecessary danger, and without it, you probably wouldn’t have made it this far in life. But anxiety is different.

Anxiety is fear of fear.

Almost every anxiety sufferer I have worked with can track back their anxiety to when it all began. When I ask, “When did this all begin?” They may say something like, “I have always been an anxious person,” but then they’ll tell me about the event that sent the whole thing out of hand. It’s almost always an intense experience of fear: a major life change which provoked intense fear and uncertainty, a panic attack, or even a bad experience under the influence.

What happens after this event?

The triggering event was so uncomfortable that the person wants to avoid re-experiencing it any any cost. They become terrified of the possibility of it happening again. They become afraid of fear itself.

The fear of fear sends the mind into the future, playing movies of frightening future scenarios of what could go wrong: the person will see themselves panicking, embarrassed in front of others and in other kinds of uncomfortable situations. The vivid mental imagery sends a powerful signal to the body: be afraid!

The person’s internal voice gets going: “What if I panic?” “What if others see? “What if I can’t get out?”
This internal chatter is loud, fast and the tone is one of worry and panic.

And the body listens to the words and pictures.

Anxiety is a physiological response in the body, but could not be produced without the vivid fearful thoughts and scenarios.

Anxious thoughts —–> Anxious feelings

Once this pattern gets going, it takes on a life of its own. No matter how much people tell you to relax, to take it easy and that everything will be fine, your mind and body won’t listen. You are convinced at the unconscious level that you’re in danger.

Anxiety is a mistake of the mind.

The experience of anxiety is a powerful form of self-hypnosis. No matter how much medication you take, no matter how much you talk about it, breath deep or relax, unless the pattern is broken and updated, the experience will continue. The more one fights against the feelings of fear, the more they persist. The feelings are the symptom. The cause is the mental programming.

If we were to hire NASA’s best scientists and give them the task of creating a robot with anxiety, what would happen? They would fail miserably! Why? Because anxiety is a complex feat of the mind. Anxiety is a human achievement… It takes a massive amount of energy to have anxiety. You have to get yourself all worked up, heighten your body’s arousal and it can almost be like a full time job. What if you could you all this energy and mental focus for something useful?

Breaking the Pattern

Anxiety is a mistake of the mind and when a mistake has been made, there’s only one thing to do: go back and correct it.

Most people keep asking, “Why do I feel this way?” What they don’t realize is that anxiety is a process. The question to ask yourself is, “How do I do this?”

Once you understand how anxiety works, you can begin to take back control of your mind. Each time I work with someone suffering from anxiety, we explore how it works, what keeps it in place and uncover the causes behind the symptoms.

I help them break the pattern, like scratching a record until it won’t play anymore. They learn to play different movies in their mind, speak to themselves in more empowering ways and they transform their relationship with fear.

What I discovered was something I repeat all the time in workshops and presentations: hypnosis is not some magical, mystical phenomena. It is based on a workable model of how the mind works.

Imagine you step into your kitchen and walk to the fridge. You pull open the door, hearing the sound it makes and feeling the burst of cool air. You reach in a pull out a lemon, place it on a cutting board and chop it in half. Next, you pick up a half and bite right into it- a nice juicy bite.

If you do this, what happens? You salivate. Your saliva glands increase production of saliva. But why? Because you told them to.

In hypnosis, this is known as suggestion and the above is one of a large number of so-called ”suggestibility tests.” Suggestion not mystical either, but a pretty straightforward phenomenon that the functioning of the mind is based on.

If we were to talk about sports and then I were to mention cars, statistics show that you’d be more likely to think of a sports car than any other type of car. This is called priming and one form of suggestion. If I talk about the superb slice of pizza I just had, fresh out of the oven and extra cheese, you just might begin to want one (especially if you like pizza).

Advertising works based on the principles of suggestion. By portraying products in certain ways, associating positive emotions to them and repeating the process, advertisers hypnotize millions of people to buy. It’s not mind control and they can’t force people to buy their product, but they can be influenced.

If I tell you not to think of blue, what do you think of? This is another form of suggestion, and there are many.

Here’s how it works:

The mind is constantly taking in information, processing it (through a number of filters) and then acting on that information. By perceiving the world through your senses and then thinking and feeling, you are giving send signals to your mind and body. You are constantly giving yourself suggestions. Your beliefs are a powerful signal that acts as a command to the nervous system. If you believe carbohydrates make you fat, you avoid them like the plague. The belief dictates the behaviour. If you believe you have to enjoy life because we only live once, you dive into the plate of spaghetti.

In every moment, you are hypnotizing yourself to act and feel in certain ways through the suggestions you give yourself: your thoughts, beliefs and internal self-talk. And the mind obeys because that’s how it works. If you decided to get up right now and walk away, your legs obey!

The problem is most people have never learned to give themselves suggestions consciously and deliberately. They are on automatic, giving themselves suggestions to be anxious (don’t panic!), eat too much and procrastinate on that important project without even knowing it.

Hypnosis is a process that teaches us to take back control of our minds and to give ourselves the suggestions that will make us happier, healthier and more effective in life. When you can do that, you’re in the driver’s seat of your life.

What is fascinating about this list of hypnotic phenomena is that these are precisely the phenomena required to create and experience psychological problems.

Any psychological problem, be it anxiety, panic, depression, more severe types of psychosis, is created in the mind through the combination of various hypnotic phenomena.

Amnesia

Each of us has moments where we forget something or our mind goes blank. In cases of hypnotic amnesia, a person forgets or is mentally “cut off” from certain experiences, states and resources. In states of depression, a person will have amnesia for everything good in their life. When depressed, it is as if they are cut off from positive resourceful memories and happy times and as a result will even revise history: “I’ve never been happy. Things never work out.”

Just this morning I spoke to a client on the phone who said, “I’m sure nothing is going to work out.” As we spoke and I asked her some questions, she stepped out of this trance and into another where she said, “Ya, just the other day I was on the phone with someone about a new job. I felt fine, like things were really going to work out.” She then became aware of how she was mentally cutting herself of from certain information to put herself in a state.

Ideosensory behaviour

In ideosensory trance, a person vividly experiences sights and sounds in their mind. What is known as ideosensory behaviour occurs as someone thinks about a sensory response, creating vivid mental imagery, and then experiences the imagined response.

An anxious person thinks, “What if I panic?”, then imagines panicking and feels feelings of panic and anxiety. By creating a mental movie of panic, they give a powerful signal to their mind and body of how to feel and respond. The mental experience is so powerful it creates an actual emotional experience the person will feel is out of their control.

Age regression

In many cases, the person with the psychological problem has, without knowing it, regressed into a younger self. Suddenly, without knowing why, they feel helpless and powerless. In my work with clients, some have even spoken about feeling like a child, not wanting to take responsibility, not wanting to face reality and merely wanting someone to take care of them.

At certain times when working with clients, suddenly their voice tone will change to that of a young child, or they will begin to make childlike movements like swinging their feet. At moments like these I have simply asked the direct question: “How old are you right now?” Each time I do this, I get an immediate an automatic answer of an age. When recently one client’s voice tone suddenly shifted, I asked this question. “7,” he said. At that point, when this occurs in a session we then dialogue together. From here, we can explore the thoughts and feelings that come up so the person can make new learnings and evolve that younger self.

Identification

As we progress through the states of childhood development, we learn through role-modeling. In a way, we mentally become like others as we learn patterns of thinking and behaviour.

In his book “Beliefs: Pathways to Healing,” Robert Dilts tells the story of a woman talking about how her mother would grab her by the neck and shake her violently. As she gives the details, she reaches out her hands as if she were strangling someone. She is not remembering the event as the little girl that she was, rather, she has switched places with her mother. She has identified with her mother and thus repeats a behavioural pattern that is not hers.

We are all master hypnotists and our problems are trance states. To resolve psychological problems, we must move from one trance to another; we must unhypnotize ourselves from our depressed and anxious trances so we can step into trances of joy, peace and power.

What we have never learned is to use our mental abilities in ways that give us a better quality of life instead of ways that undermine our best efforts.

According to this line of thinking, we have two minds: One is our conscious, rational awareness. The other refers to everything out of our awareness and all that which is unconscious.

The conscious mind is our logical and rational side. It pays attention to the present moment, analyzing and interpreting our experience through the eyes of reason. Conscious thinking is intellectual, using effort and thinking to solve problems and come up with answers.

The unconscious mind is, well, unconscious. Unconscious mind refers to everything that is out of our awareness. We could think of it as a vast storehouse: it stores our memories, experiences, and knowledge. It contains our habits, skills and ability. It contains everything we have learned and holds our conceptions, attitudes and beliefs and organizes them. The unconscious is intuitive, able to take in vast amounts of information and synthesize that information.

In reality, we do not have two minds. The terms “conscious mind” and “unconscious mind” are figures of speech, and useful ways of referring to different types of thinking and different states of consciousness.

Milton Erickson, who is known as the world’s greatest hypnotherapist said that a therapist’s patients will be patients because they are out of touch with their unconscious mind. I never gave this much thought, until I began to see evidence of it everyday while working with clients.

While guiding clients into various states of relaxation, or trance, they would have insights and realizations, discover solutions they weren’t seeing before, and express feeling greater peace and wholeness inside for weeks and months to come.

Was I missing something, I wondered?

Indeed I was. I too had dismissed the idea that there is something deeper within each of us, a deeper intelligence we can tap into to solve problems, come up with solutions, heal and transform.

Most of us try to do everything with our conscious mind. We use our limited awareness and rational thinking to change and solve problems. But the conscious aspect of our experience is the smallest portion. That deeper intelligence holds all your memories, is the seat of creativity and inspiration, and contains a resourcefulness the conscious part of us simply does not have.

As I explored the idea of an unconscious mind, I noticed that each time I was working with a client who had a problem, they talked about getting rid of the problem or emotion or pushing it away. They talked of fighting and battling with thoughts and emotions that were coming from a deeper level. Were they at war with themselves?

Since they were sitting there in front of me for my help, it was safe to assume that what they had already done to resolve the problem was not working. I suggested we try another angle. When I explored with them that they had an unconscious mind, a deeper intelligence, it seemed like a revelation. It seemed to many that it was common sense, but they had forgotten it.

I explained that the conscious mind is like the captain of a ship, whereas the unconscious mind is like the crew. If the captain is trying to steer the ship, sweep the deck and busy cooking down below, what will the crew do? Without the direction of the captain, they will start to do their own thing. If they are ignored and mistreated, they will mutiny.

As the captain, I explain, you need to take back control of the ship. It is your job to give clear orders to the crew. and first you’ll have to win back their trust. When they are back on board with you and you give them clear directions, the ship can get to its destination.

We would then do work to enter into trance and connect with this deeper intelligence. Both in the session and after, they would tell me of feeling stronger, more balanced, more peaceful. I even had clients who would open there eyes at the end of the session and say, “All the answers are inside.” I liked that.

So why does our culture not teach us that there is something more to us than our intellect? Why do we not learn to tap into this deeper intelligence to solve problems and access resources?

More importantly: What would happen if we did?

I leave you with one question: Are you conscious of your unconscious?