It is a fact that effective induction is crucial to the overall success of a hypnotherapy session. You can do or undo the entire session. To understand why this happens, it is important to know what an induction is and what we are trying to accomplish by doing a hypnotic induction.
Induction is the part of hypnosis in which the subject enters a trance. Now, while there is such a thing as instant induction (handshake), what we’re going to talk about is gradual induction. This is the type that therapists use because it is more comfortable for clients and is done by gradually relaxing the subject. What we effectively intend to do is move the client from a state of alertness to one of selective attention in which his subject can focus closely on the hypnotic session. Our two key objectives then are to generate relaxation and focus our clients’ attention on the objectives of the session in question.
Without it or with an infectious version of it, your subject could be in a light trance or none at all. This means that the unconscious minds of your subjects will not be open to your suggestions, diminishing the effectiveness of the treatment by a considerable amount.
So how do you carry out an effective induction?
There are effectively 4 steps. If you use each of these steps the way I describe them, you will find your subject falling into a deep trance in no time.
1. Relaxation
2. Create confusion
3. Vivid visualizations
4. Steps down
Let’s look at each step in turn.
1. Relaxation
We start by getting our client to relax. There are several ways to do this and some hypnotists will even do some relaxation before the hypnosis. This is where they have their client perform a series of actions so that he is in a more relaxed state for therapy. An effective way to do this is to instruct your client to tense and then relax the muscles in each part of their body. While this is effective, it’s really only necessary when dealing with customers who are more nervous.
When the hypnosis session begins, the easiest way to begin this relaxation process is to instruct the subject to take deep breaths. This is a highly effective technique and is used in a variety of medical fields to calm people down. In fact, anxiety sufferers are taught to help them stay calm when anxiety strikes. Tell them to take about 3 or 4 slow, deep breaths. If you wish, you can also tell them to visualize the air flowing into their lungs like water flowing through a stream.
The second method to accomplish this step is to have your client fixate on a certain object. Tell them to distinguish each part of the object, all the details, and how the texture would feel if they touched it. This calms the mind and begins to eliminate external stimuli.
The final form I will explain is progressive relaxation. Begin by telling your client to pay special attention to each part of their body and feel the muscles in that area relax. It can start at the foot and work its way up the body. You could tell them to imagine a ball of light or a certain color moving through them and relaxing each body part it touches.
Regardless of which approach you choose, your client should now be relaxed and ready to move further into the process.
You’ll want to tell your client to close their eyes at this point, if they haven’t already. People love to be directed when they are relaxed. She also removes worry. People think you close your eyes when they hypnotize you, but if you don’t tell them, they’ll worry that they’re doing it wrong and that it’s not effective. Your goal is to make them feel as relaxed and comfortable as possible.
2. Confusion
Next, we are going to create some confusion in your topic. This distracts them and allows us to access their unconscious so that we can continue with the session. To do this, ask your client to start counting backwards from a high number like 300. While doing this, you will continue to the next step, giving further instructions and causing them to lose focus on the task. It is important to tell them not to worry about losing their place and to just continue from the last number they can remember.
3. Vivid display
Now you are going to set up a scene for your subject to imagine. You want a bright and calm scene that conveys tranquility, such as a beach, a forest, a park, or a walk in the garden on a hot summer day. You’ll want to tell them to imagine this scenery in every vivid detail from the feel of grass or sand under their feet, the smell of flowers and the vastness of the ocean in front of them, the feel of a gentle breeze brushing them to the sound of the sea or the birds in the sky.
This is where your customer knowledge comes in handy. If you know of one, you can use an experience you’ve actually had to strengthen the process. If not, just use what you think works best based on the personality of the customers.
What we are doing here is strengthening relaxation and focus before putting them into a trance.
4. Lower
Next, it’s time to take them into a trance. This is where we fix your attention in the session. This is where you tell them to imagine walking down some kind of path or stairway. Just make it relevant to the scene you created above. You can have them walk the garden path deeper and deeper, more relaxed as they go. Then you will start counting down from 10 or even up from 1 to 10. With each counted second, you will tell them that they have taken another step and are sinking deeper and deeper into the trance.
Resume
Let’s go through the process again. First, you will make your client relax and feel like you understand their problems and can help them through them. You will then go through each step of the 4-step method in order. This entire process should take about 5 minutes and will leave your subjects’ unconscious open to suggestions. Keep in mind that if you write your script, you should rehearse it and make it sound natural instead of reading it out loud, otherwise it won’t be effective.