Instruction Sets In Hypnosis

I've heard it said that hypnosis is a skill and an art. But as a full time hypnotherapist I tend to believe that I’m more of a programmer than an artist.

In my experience for the vast majority of clients they fall into very similar categories of behavior.

• Redundant or unconscious habits with no drivers
• Anxiety and/or depression
• Anxiety and/or depression and pacification habits
• Limiting reality frames and/or beliefs
• Lack of knowledge/insight

I’m a firm believer in therapy that is both repeatable and also has a high degree of success. When I was in corporate life I remember the saying “there is no need to reinvent the wheel”. And this is also true of hypnotherapy sessions. It makes no sense to do a different induction every time.

It makes no sense to have a different therapy for everyone.
I’ll put my hand up right away and declare myself as a results focused hypnotherapist.

So what do I mean by results focused?

I seek not only to significantly resolve the clients issue but to also give them a good experience whilst doing it.
Very early on in my therapy career I sought out protocols that I call instruction sets that I believe could be used over and with different clients and have a high degree of success. To develop these instruction sets I had to develop a model of how the issue was functioning.

Now let’s be clear for a moment. I have my own model of how I believe hypnosis works. I have my own model of how the clients issue works. I’m not saying my model is the be all and end all of models. I just find that when I use my model I do have a high degree of success.

From that I developed instructions sets. These instruction sets comprise of a number of reality frames and hypnotic suggestions. To resolve issues sometimes these are delivered across multiple hypnosis session.

For instance a person may seek resolution to an ongoing habit. If there is a driver of the habit such as anxiety then typically a session would be done on significantly resolving anxiety. Then a following session would be focused on removing the habit.

Whilst a small percentage of clients will spontaneously stop the issue without a strong instruction set (a la placebo), the vast majority require a subconsciously agreeable ‘how to’.

For instance, if a person is biting their nails and they suffer from anxiety, then typically the biting of the nails is driven by the anxiety. If we do not address the anxiety then the person may either;

• Continue biting their nails
• Stop biting for a while but go back to the habit
• Find another pacification method for their anxiety

So to address this issue we need an instruction set to resolve the anxiety and one to handle the biting of the nails.

They key of course to all of this is having the right instruction set for the issue(s) being addressed. This either comes through years of experience or is learned from someone who has.