Most people think they know what hypnosis is, even most practitioners. Merriam Webster Dictionary says this:

“Hypnosis (from the Greek hypnos, “sleep”) is often thought to be “a trance-like state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject.”

Notice the part that says “is often thought to be.” The simple truth is that there is no one universally accepted definition for hypnosis. Terms like altered state of consciousness, heightened suggestibility, dissociation, trance, auto-suggestion, even role playing have been used and fiercely defended. Perhaps the broadest definition and the one I find most helpful comes from The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis’s web site, which says ” Hypnosis is a state of inner absorption, concentration and focused attention.

While this definition of hypnosis pretty well describes what most of us think of as hypnosis, it also describes states caused by various forms of meditation, drugs, ritual, rhythmic percussion and dancing, even intense concentration induced by competition and involvement in movies, music, dancing or other forms of entertainment, or deep conversation. Even driving can alter our awareness. Have you ever passed the turn-off you wanted only to realize later that you missed it, or had driven safely for long distances with no memory of having done so? That’s termed highway hypnosis.

So with all these varying ideas about hypnosis, is it real? Scientific American believes so. The Truth and Hype of Hypnosis, cites positive clinical evidence for the use of hypnosis in the management of pain and finds that hypnosis can boost the effectiveness of psychotherapy for obesity, insomnia and anxiety. A compilation of clinical studies by the Institute of Noetic Sciences suggest that similar benefits can be achieved through the use on non-religious meditation, which also induces an altered state of consciousness. I’ve had excellent personal results using meditation based Stress Reduction Program developed by the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Hypnosis is Real and Effective

Yes, hypnosis is real and effective for use in a wide range of situations: from pain management to removal of warts – especially with children – to enhanced sports performance. However, as you would expect with anything as shrouded in mystery and urban myth as hypnosis, there is also an awful lot of misinformation floating around. This misinformation ranges from marketing BS to misunderstanding, to wishful thinking, to superstition, to anti-medical establishment rants, and the list goes on.

Self-hypnosis

Some people claim that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. That statement is unprovable either way. What we do know is that self-hypnosis, practiced regularly can provide many of the benefits offered by hypnotherapy and is also useful in helping to achieve peak performance, focused attention and relaxation.

While the ability to be hypnotized seems to be innate and follows a bell curve, skill with self-hypnosis needs to be learned and practiced. Just because you can be easily hypnotized does not mean that you will achieve immediate results. It’s the age old difference between talent and skill. A less talented person who practices regularly will out perform the more talented but less practiced one. Self-hypnosis, meditation, or auto-suggestion works best when used regularly.

There are two basic methods for practicing self-hypnosis. You may maintain active control of your state and use imagery or auto-suggestion. This works for many people. Others prefer to record their suggestions and play them back for their hypnosis sessions. As I tend to go quickly into a pretty deep trance the latter method works best for me. By the time I’ve achieved trance my mind has trouble focusing enough to do what I intended to do while in hypnosis.

Some things to watch out for when considering hypnosis

Hypnosis is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological care. If you have a serious problem see a professional. That does not mean a “Certified Hypnotherapist.” It means finding somebody who can treat your problem without hypnosis but who can use hypnosis as an extra tool. Used in combination with other therapies, by a qualified practitioner, hypnosis often improves or speeds positive outcomes.

Hypnosis training is not standardized

As helpful as hypnosis can be as a therapeutic or self-help tool, we have to be very careful what claims we listen to. With a field in which anybody with a couple hundred dollars can attend a weekend workshop and come out a “Certified Hypnotherapist”, we have to expect a lack of critical thinking and exaggerated claims. Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) which is partly based on the hypno-therapeutic work of Milton Erickson has, in particular, contributed to a great deal of controversy and accusations of exaggerated claims. A Google search of “NLP controversy returns almost seventy three thousand pages. I suppose in our instant-on world any person promising quick and easy solutions to life’s problems will attract a lot of interest. It’s not that hypnosis and hypnotherapy aren’t useful tools, we just need to examine self-promoting claims. As with most things in life, if it seems too-good-to-be-true, it probably is.

The Problems with Regressions

One particular use of hypnosis is especially controversial, memory retrieval. Hypnosis can be used to uncover repressed memories. It can also be used to implant false memories. It takes a clinical practitioner of great skill who maintains great ongoing awareness to cleanly expose memories. Even then there is still a question of the validity of those memories. False Memory Syndrome is real. Recollections “uncovered” by hypnosis can be very vivid. They can also be induced by suggestion.  Unless recovered with the help of a skilled forensic hypnotist, such memories should be treated as therapeutic metaphors, not facts. They may be useful metaphors within the context of therapy but the likelihood of those memories being historically accurate is small.

Past Life Regressions

Another controversial use of hypnosis is for past life regressions. Past life regression (PLR) is the alleged journeying into one’s past lives while hypnotized. This practice is at least fifty years old and has been used both therapeutically and for self-exploration. Popularized by Brian Weiss M.D. in his book Many Lives, Many Masters, PLR is something that every hypnotherapist gets asked about. Again, considering how easily supposed memories can be induced by the phrasing of the hypnotist, the “truth” of most PLRs is questionable, at best, though they may seem very real when experienced.

”A marked emotional experience during the hypnotic regression provides no assurance that memories of a real previous life were recovered. The subjective experience of reliving a previous life may be impressive to the person having the experience, and yet the “previous life” may be a fantasy, like most of our dreams.”

Ian Stevenson, M.D., University of Virginia

That said, there are therapists, like Dr. Weiss, who do achieve positive outcomes using the technique. Whether the benefits are a side effect of a good therapist being a good therapist or PLR specifically is responsible is unknown. It might be helpful to consider that there are many schools of psychotherapy, but statistical surveys show similar positive client outcomes, regardless of the type of therapy the therapists use. PLR outcomes fall into low end of the standard outcomes range.

PLR can be entertaining, though. Whether we live multiple incarnations or not is a religious question that I’m not remotely qualified to address. It is interesting to note that in an extremely small number of cases people undergoing PLR, such as the woman recorded in the Bloxham Tapes, do seem to recall accurate historical details. And their recollections cannot be adequately written off as due to cryptomnesia (you learned something previously but forgot you know 

Popularity: 1% [?]

We take meaning from our experiences, this is what NLP is about. As a sales professional being able to change the meaning your customer has about your product is extremely advantageous. You can do this with NLP. Following are a few of the many NLP techniques and how they relate to sales.

Sales with NLP Rapport

Building responsiveness in your customer is what NLP Rapport is really about in a sales contecxt. Beyond ordinary matching and mirroring is building anticipation loops, covert hypnosis and pacing and leading styles to build responsiveness.The advantage of a good NLP practitioner course is developing processes that are unique for you and you can apply directly to your environment.

Emotions through NLP Training

You can have a choice over how you feel about particularly events. There are many NLP tools that can show you how to do this. Turning negative feelings into positive motivation would make a difference in a sales environment.For instance you could install states of confidence in yourself, the product and the process whilst banishing low self confidence, desperation and fear of rejection.

Whilst having these NLP techniques would be immensely useful for everyone think about how much more useful they instantly become when you realise that you can apply the same techniques to other people whether your sales team or customers. Would you want people to get excited, curious or interested in you, your product or your company?

Understanding the Customer with NLP Technqiues

A route to more and better sales would be to understand the values, beliefs and motivations of your customers. The basics of NLP are about being able to uncover just these sorts of things. Underneath a person’s behaviour is the answer to why they might buy one product and yet reject another. If you could attach your product to your customer’s deepest needs how many more sales would you make? A good NLP Practitioner Course could teach you to be able to do this.

Convert NLP Hypnosis in Sales

There is much about hypnotic language patterns and covert hypnotic techniques talked about on the internet. If you take away all the hype and false expectations there are some exceptionally good uses for this in a sales situation.

In basic terms language is just one filter that operates on our experience of the world. By understanding how this filter operates we can use it to capture and lead the imagination to where you want it to go. This could be getting excited about buying, bypassing objections or even changing beliefs. Having NLP hypnotic persuasion processes as part of your tool kit will allow you to lead the thoughts of your prospects in a buying direction. For example, you might lead your prospect away from the expense of your product and towards the massive return of investment. You might completely do away with buyer’s remorse through a hypnotic technique such as future pacing or just attaching good feelings to your product. Future pacing is a simple technique where you can get your prospect to imagine themselves with all the benefits that your product or service brings.

Sales, the perfect NLP Application

NLP Practitioner Courses will teach you all of this and much more. For instance modelling techniques to learn from masters and accelerated learning techniques to pick up new knowledge such as information about markets, products and competitors. The modern sales professional needs a full tool kit and NLP can give them that.

Popularity: 1% [?]

There are many misconceptions of what hypnosis is. Most of these misconceptions are perpetuated by the popular media. The truth is, hypnosis has been used throughout history and continues to be used today, both legitimately and fraudulently. I decided to write this article to clarify just what hypnosis is exactly and what it is not for inquiring minds and to help those that could truly benefit from the true, legitimate practice of hypnosis.

I will start by addressing the misconceptions of hypnosis and tell you WHAT HYPNOSIS IS NOT. Hypnosis is not a form of mind control despite its portrayal in movies as such… you know, the guy dressed in the black tuxedo with big, bushy eyebrows that can swing his pocket watch as a pendulum before people’s eyes to make them cluck like chickens upon the snap of his fingers… No, hypnosis is not capable of taking over another’s free will. Hypnosis is not brainwashing and is not capable of controlling a person’s behavior and judgment. Hypnosis is not caused by the hypnotist’s “power”, as this would allude to the possibility of “mind control” of which there is no hard scientific evidence.

It is also a big misconception that hypnosis is possible only upon weak-minded individuals. In actuality the ability to enter a hypnotic state has nothing to do with one’s intelligence. The hypnotic state can be reached by any individual through self-hypnosis techniques however the ability to be hypnotized by an outside party (hypnotist) is dependent more upon genetic factors. Neither is hypnosis dependent upon individuals with vivid and overactive imaginations.

Hypnosis as a process is not necessarily time-consuming nor does it require the subject to be completely relaxed. And although named for the god of sleep, hypnosis is not sleep. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, hypnosis is “a trancelike state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject”.

Now I will delve into what hypnosis is and real world applications of hypnosis. There is a plethora of ways in which hypnosis has been and still is used today in treating mental, physical and social problems.

Hypnosis is used to treat obesity, anxiety, depression, phobias, fears and habits such as quitting smoking. Hypnosis is used to alleviate the pain associated with cancer and other chronic illnesses. Hypnosis is also used in dentistry (hypnodontia) to decrease anxieties and make patients feel more comfortable with the dental experience. Hypnosis is used to treat skin diseases through a practice known as hypnodermatology.

Mental health applications of hypnosis include the treatment of dissociative disorders, depression and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Hypnosis is used in the educational field to increase memory and learning capacity as well as focus and energy. Hypnosis is also used to improve self-esteem and confidence.

Altered states of consciousness such as relaxation, meditation and sleep have been achieved through hypnosis. Self-hypnosis with binaural beat audio is used to achieve states allowing for astral projection, remote viewing, past life regression, ESP and telepathy. Of interesting note, binaural beats have been used by top secret members of the US government to utilize remote viewing tactics.

Hypnosis has been used in the past to suppress pain during medical procedures before the advent of chemical pain killers and anesthesia. And let us not forget a very important use of hypnosis… entertainment. Unfortunately entertainment is one of the prime sources leading to the many misconceptions involved with hypnosis.

Despite the misconceptions of hypnosis perpetuated through popular culture and the entertainment industry, hypnosis remains a powerful tool that continues to be used today in the medical, mental health and self-help fields to help people to live better, live longer and enhance their lives.

If you are interested in learning more about using hypnosis to achieve altered states quickly and easily to enhance your life, you may want to look into brainwave entrainment. Brainwave entrainment is the process of using audio frequencies, called binaural beats, to achieve altered states of consciousness. Binaural beats can achieve almost any state of consciousness in about 5-10 minutes. Binaural beats are available for relaxation, meditation, sleep, astral projection, ESP, telepathy, remote viewing, past life regression as well as quitting smoking, losing weight, increasing energy and confidence and enhancing healing power.

If you are interested in learning more about hypnosis and achieving self-hypnosis through binaural beats Click Here to try out free audio samples for meditation and relaxation. Or, you can Click Here to learn about covert, conversational and self-help hypnosis.

Popularity: 1% [?]