Let’s look at the Hypnosis client
This article was first posted November 18, 2007
If any of us who have been hypnotized can look back to the time before that happened we would see that we had a lot of misconceptions about how hypnosis might feel or what we might do under hypnosis.
New clients are courageous
They come into our offices not knowing what is going to happen to them. They are probably under the impression that they are turning some amount of control over to the Hypnotist.
It is my opinion that the one thing people fear the most is the unknown. When a person who has never done hypnosis comes to my office they are entering unknown territory.
Once person has done hypnosis, they understand that all fear is unfounded.
A couple of stories
Actually, I guess there is a story to be told with each new client that walks in the door but
here are a couple that stand out in my memory.
A man came to me for smoking cessation. We did the pre-talk and everything seemed to be going normally. He agreed to do hypnosis but after several efforts and several different inductions he did not do hypnsois with me. We discussed the problem and he claimed to not know why it wasn’t working. We made an appointment for the following week but on the way out the door he said “You didn’t use a watch”. He then explained to me that you couldn’t be hypnotized unless the Hypnotist swung a pocket watch in front of your eyes.
I explained to him that that wasn’t true but he didn’t return for the next session.
Now that wasn’t fear but it does show how misconceptions get in the way.
Another example is that I bought a block of radio advertising time. When I found out which of the radio announcers was going to make my commercial, I offered to give him a free session of hypnosis so that he could experience the process and have a better idea of how to work the ad copy. He refused and later told the ad salesperson that he was afraid that I would hypnotize him and have him write a check for all of the money he had in the bank.
Every new client that walks in the front door has their individual fears about hypnosis. It is my job to discover the fear and explain the process. Hypnosis is about communication between the client and the Hypnotist. That starts with the pre-talk.