Believe…

I have been thinking and analysing my approach to some of the street hypnosis that I do as well as watching the attempts of other hypnotists and there is one thing that I noticed in those occasions when a hypnotist fails to hypnotise someone in public: authority.

There are generally thought to be a two approaches to hypnosis: direct and permissive.

• Direct is the confident, rapid stuff that you will find all over places like YouTube. It is what modern stage and street hypnotists use to rapidly get a subject into a state of trance. It has its place in the therapy room as well as it gets the client into the right state much more quickly and so leaves you more time to fire in those positive hypnotic suggestions and work with the subconscious mind.
• Permissive hypnosis is the more classic approach with long progressive muscle relaxations and very much a maternal approach to guiding a subject into trance. It is often described as: Conversational hypnosis, Ericksonian hypnosis or the Maternal approach.

I’d like to briefly discuss some of my thoughts on how learning both techniques can actually reduce your effectiveness as a hypnotist.

When using the direct approach, the hypnotist must issue instruction with absolute authority and direction and the subject must follow, unquestioning, the suggestions given.

With direct hypnosis, there is no room for “would you mind…”

In other words, there is no room for phrases like “allow your eyes to close…” which is very much the Ericksonian or permissive school of hypnosis. instead, it should be “now close your eyes.”

Instead of: “you may find your hand getting lighter…” it is: “and your hand will lift!”

Its amazing how many times I’ve seen a new hypnotist do a hand shake interrupt and start beautifully with a “Look at your hand!” to then go and throw it all away by adding “…and allow your eyes to close…”

It’s almost as though the hypnotist has suddenly realised that they might be pushing their authority a bit so feels that they need to back off a bit.

Now the reasons of why we do this fascinate me and I will be blogging on Mitigated Speech and Power-Distance Indexes in a separate post, but briefly its all about how we perceive our social and economic seniors and how that is actually influenced by the culture that we grow up with. But as I said: that’s for another post

In conclusion then; when using a direct technique for hypnosis, it is essential that the hypnotist remain the authority figure no matter the social and economic status of the subject.  You are in command. They need to follow your instructions. You are not asking: you are telling.