Thank you to my colleague Stuart who is both a stage performer and a therapist who defines the two as so:
“A stage hypnotist has his spiral wheels, goatee beard and posters advertising mind control. We have our whale music, cardigans and websites depicting happy smiley people flying kites. Both approaches use appropriate imagery to broadcast intentions and promote specific outcomes.”
What Stuart is actually trying to say here is that we utilize the trance state – which is focused attention – we are able to guide expectations.
In the case of Stage hypnosis, the person is expecting to take part in something fun, magical and possibly slightly embarrassing. The person wants to engage, if they didn’t they would put up barriers and the hypnotist would move on to the next person wishing to participate. The stage hypnotist can break thought patterns by interrupting the casual flow of conversation by giving a handshake. This breaks the train of thought in the volunteer and it can induce focused attention – which is a way of engaging your business client too. The client is no longer thinking their thoughts, they are considering yours!
We have expectations that a stage hypnotist is all spangly suits and fake tan, but this adds weight to the claim that they can do what they claim they can do – it’s all suggestion, just a visual one. They may even whip out a watch on a chain to emphasise the stereotype. They stride up and down the stage snapping their fingers telling the volunteer to sleep and they comply. Because they expect it and wish to comply.
The thing about focused attention is that we don’t always remember what happens during it. If you drive along a road and suddenly think “oh I’m here” and you’ve lost the last 20 minutes of the journey – you’re there in the same trance state as you would be on stage, and on the couch.
Regardless of whether a person volunteers for a stage show, or contacts a hypnotherapist for help, their general intention is the same: they want to be hypnotised in order to experience/promote change in their subconscious.
They get to make changes in their lives simply because the idea that something could be altered or re-evaluated was offered to them whilst experiencing that natural state of trance. They want something to happen to change a situation or problem or they may find that it helps them to change the way they think about a certain problem.
There is no mind control there – the reason being it’s the subconscious mind – based around the limbic system – that reacts to certain stimuli. If it’s negative then our automatic reaction is to want to run away (fight, freeze or flight). But we don’t run away. We tense up, hold the stress in, it then manifests as tension headaches, vocal distonia, not being able to swallow, shortness of breath, fast heart beat, shallow breathing, panic attacks, irritable bowel, migraines, tremors, hot flashes, blushing etc. If you are not aware you’re doing it and it becomes a habit, then it can develop into more serious problems like a phobia, generalised anxiety, depression, anger, jealousy, binge eating, weight gain etc – you get the picture?
The logical, conscious part of our brains know something is out of kilter, knows this problem is not effecting anybody else but is stuck in the “freeze” mode of thinking the threat is real.
Using hypnosis as a therapeutic tool is all about lowering the hold the limbic system has over the client and help them give back the control to them. We do this by utilising the trance state to suggest to this part of the brain to focus on the changes, how you might make those changes, solutions which may help and utilise other tools we may have taught them along the way.
However, you wouldn’t want to go to a stage hypnotist to help you with a phobia or mild depression as they wouldn’t have had all the background training in psychotherapy, the cognitive behavioural therapy or solution focused therapy. Understanding how the brain works and neuroscience are part of our training*
* When choosing a hypnotherapist check to see which school they trained at, and if that school is recommended by the various societies and associations that come under the umbrella of the CNHC.