Dehypnotizing the Already-Hypnotized Client

 In compliance with current WHO and CDC recommendations to minimize risk of exposure to and spread of the COVID-19 virus, I am temporarily suspending in-person hypnotherapy sessions with me in my office. However, phone and Skype/Zoom consultations ARE and WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE! 

 

 

(This blog was originally posted on July 27, 2014)

Photo by Rick Hustead

 

 

Every now and then, someone seeking hypnotherapy comes in for the appointment already hypnotized. Hypnosis is a completely natural state which every one of us experiences for approximately 30 minutes, at least twice a day—just before drifting to sleep at night and right after waking up in the  morning. As I have explained in previous blogs, we are also susceptible to experiencing a natural, environmentally-induced trance at other times of the day. (For more information about this topic, see: Have You Ever Been Hypnotized Before?; An Extreme Example of Environmental Hypnosis; and Hypnotized by the Grocery Store. And then there are instances in which we hypnotize ourselves. This is the state (and kind) of hypnosis I will address in this essay.

Psychologist and hypnotherapist John Kappas, Ph.D., observed that hypnosis occurs when an overload of message units disorganizes the inhibitory process, which triggers the fight/flight response to result in this hyper-suggestible state. Since we are more suggestible to ourselves than any other stimuli in our environment, we can get caught in a pattern of carrying beliefs or behaving in ways that do not work for us, but we continue to act that way because that is what we have always done. For example, someone who continues to accept work that is considerably below the individual’s skill and desired pay-grade may do this because the individual follows a subconscious mental script that says this is the best he or she can do. Now, despite expressing a desire to pursue a more lucrative career and possessing obvious skill to do that work, the person doesn’t even try to pursue a different career because he or she believes that original mental script.

To help an already-hypnotized client exit this state, Dr. Kappas advised deepening the person’s state even further and blocking his or her subconscious mind from accepting negative suggestions or influences from the environment. This must be done before proceeding with the regular hypnotherapy session to address the self-improvement goals that the client wants to actualize, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder said. If the client knows when, where and why these negative mental-scripts evolved, I will systematically desensitize the person to the environmental stimuli that trigger the undesired responses/behaviors.

However, if the client does not know how these negative mental scripts evolved, I do not employ age-regression therapy to explore and desensitize the origins of those negative beliefs. (For more information about this topic, see my blog titled “Age Regression…and why I Don’t Use This Technique. Rather, I use a technique called “rejection-proofing,” wherein I provide hypnotic suggestions to help increase the client’s overall self-acceptance, self-appreciation and self-approval. This process enables the individual to dismiss the negative self-talk (“chatter”) in the person’s subconscious mind and re-write a new mental script to reinforce the positive beliefs about his or her abilities to pursue those goals.

Finally, to increase the person’s ability to control entering the hypnotic state, I target the logical (left-brain) side of the client’s subconscious mind during this and subsequent hypnotherapy sessions. I also teach the person how to count out of hypnosis whenever the individual notices that he or she is naturally entering this state at home, work, driving or any other time.

 

 

Limited-Time Offer: Free Phone, Skype or Zoom Consultation

This is a great opportunity to find out why hypnosis is so effective and how hypnotherapy can help you achieve your self-improvement goals. Call/send me a text message at (661) 433-9430 or send me an e-mail at calminsensehypnosis@yahoo.com to set up your free, 30-minute phone, Skype or Zoom consultation, today! (Limited to one consultation per person.)

Offer valid through September 30, 2020.

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. In July 2019 she was voted the Best Hypnotherapist in Santa Clarita, California. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2020

 

 

Hyper-Suggestible States: Voodoo

(This blog was originally posted on December 7, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

People in hyper-suggestible states tend to want to “retreat” into a trance or disassociate themselves from themselves/the situation if they feel overwhelmed by the stimuli around them. The more suggestible the individual is the more easily he or she will drift into a trance state (hypnosis). This is particularly true of third-stage somnambulists, said hypnotherapist Dr. John Kappas. 

In one of his most interesting video seminars, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder worked with a client to remove the man’s frozen smile and nervous twitch. The client explained that these symptoms developed while he lived in Trinidad, where he had lived for many years. During the course of their discussion, the Dr. Kappas discovered that the client had participated in a voodoo ritual around this time. The hypnotherapist deduced that his client’s natural somnambulistic tendencies kept him in the hyper-suggestible state he experienced during that experience. 

In addition to chants/spells, voodoo rituals often include smoking or ingesting hallucinogenic drugs to overwhelm the participant and induce a trance to change the participant’s behavior, Dr. Kappas said. The more suggestible the person is, the more likely he is to go into that trance. Voodoo rituals are unfamiliar and especially frightening to Westerners, who have little first-hand knowledge or experience with its traditions and beliefs, he explained. “If the person believes voodoo spells (curses) work and is already highly suggestible, he may be particularly vulnerable to going along with any behaviors or beliefs the priest presiding over the ritual suggests.”

The small (pin-point) size of the client’s pupils indicated that he was already in a trance state. Therefore, before Dr. Kappas started to work on changing the unwanted behavior (twitch and frozen smile), the hypnotherapist had to de-hypnotize him and get the man out of the original hyper-suggestible state. “You have to recognize that the client is already in-state [and then] re-direct him. Take him in to get him out,” the HMI founder said. Next, Dr. Kappas desensitized the man to the previous suggestions and drew on aspects of hypnotic modality to assume an authoritative role during the hypnotic induction. These steps were imperative to make the client more amenable to following the hypnotherapeutic suggestions to remove the client’s suggestibility to the voodoo and change the unwanted physical behaviors, the hypnotherapist explained.

“You have to recognize the client is already in state, [and then] redirect him. Take him in to get him out,” Dr. Kappas said.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2019

Think It All Through

(This blog was originally posted on December 5, 2016)

Photo by Rick Hustead

You may have heard or read about a preponderance of fake news that was being shared on social media outlets recently. The sources of these erroneous reports and the reasons/motivations to share this information is of less interest to me than how and why people so easily accepted and believed what they read and heard.

The last few months have been very stressful for a lot of people, especially in regards to the contentious United States presidential election that we just went through. There was plenty of rhetoric to go around from both (all) sides of the electoral ticket. Between nonstop television advertisements and various political canvassers calling several times a day, every day, to encourage us to vote for their candidate, there was hardly a moment of quiet to collect our thoughts. It didn’t even stop when the election was over.

These days, a lot more people get news and other social information from the Internet compared to television or even newspapers. As most of us have experienced, once we are on-line it is like being sucked into a stimulation vortex. Video links automatically begin to play and pop-up advertisements for consumer products or holiday gifts flash across the screen—tailored to each user’s specific interests, no less. It is natural to seek sources of information or entertainment that resonate with our own beliefs and ethics/morals, so any “facts” that we read or hear are more readily believed and accepted because we want them to be true. If you don’t believe this, consider how often you change the television channel if you don’t like what a reporter is saying, or abruptly end conversation or on-line chat exchange if the other person challenges your beliefs. Such discord is painful to the subconscious mind. When we are on the Internet, it is much easier to simply tune in to someone or somewhere else that supports our view-point. Furthermore, the more emotionally and cognitively/intellectually invested we are in the subject, the more likely we are to react and respond to this information; the more we react and respond to it, the more invested we become. Of course, people who work in advertising/marketing and dissemination of information are very aware how this process works and possess the skills to draw our attention where they want it to go.

Fortunately, the fake-news schemes have been exposed and executives of the sites that allegedly participated in them are taking steps to correct the programs that allowed these transgressions to occur in the first place. But this experience has understandably left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths: We trusted ‘X’ to tell us the truth! They lied to us/I believed what they said! What does that say about me?

As I explained in my blog titled Time Flies When I’m On-Line, it is very easy to become overloaded by sensory stimuli while we are on the Internet or even watching television and drift into a state of trance (hyper-suggestibility). Here are a few suggestions to prevent this from happening:

·         Regularly count yourself out of the trance state by saying, “One, two, three, four, five, eyes open [say your name], wide awake.” This mantra will help you immediately return to an alert and less suggestible state of awareness.

·         Get in the habit of walking away from the computer, put down the hand-held device or turn off/change the channel on the television or radio and do something different for a little while. Take this time while you are off-line to think critically about what you have read or heard. Does it make sense to you? Consider possible flaws in that original argument. If necessary, give yourself permission to imagine there are other possible explanations and imagine what an alternative scenario might be. How does that picture feel to you?

·         Have a nutritious snack that includes some protein to stabilize your blood-sugar level and thus minimize potential irritability, frustration and over-reaction to what is going on around you. This step will help you remain more objective and patient to listen to and even consider opposite points of view as you come to your own decision about what you have heard, seen or read.

·         Remember, you are most suggestible to yourself. If you (your conscious mind) don’t like or do not feel comfortable with the information you are hearing and/or the way you are behaving, decide to make a change. That change may simply be to log-off the computer, change the channel/switch off the TV or radio, or learning how to relax and think/evaluate situations around you more critically rather than automatically react to them. Hypnotherapy is great for that, too.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2017