Nick Kemp Explains: What is Hypnotherapy?
The term "hypnosis" conjures up all kinds of different associations for people from the stereotypical
idea of a person swinging a pocket watch to stage hypnosis in the style of Paul McKenna, to picturing
a Hypnotherapy session where a person imagines "being put under" I always wonder to myself "under what
exactly?" but appreciate that until clients experience hypnosis for themselves, they will only have
impressions of what they imagine it may be like!
Many people don't realise that we experience trance states very often during the course of our normal
lives. Drifting into sleep is one kind of trance state. The experience of hypnosis is similar in that
the individual is neither asleep nor awake, a bit like a state of daydreaming where you are relaxed
but always still fully aware. This more relaxed state often allows the client to discover insights
that they normally would not be able to access through busy cognitive thinking and analysis. In my
own client sessions I primarily use Ericksonian Hypnosis.
Ericksonian Hypnosis
Ericksonian hypnotherapy uses what it is called indirect suggestions rather than direct suggestions
to a client. These indirect suggestions in my experience often totally bypass the client's conscious
faculty for thinking and can be presented in the form of stories and metaphors. When working with a
client I may talk about a situation or scenario that appears unconnected with the client's "problem"
but which indirectly offers a range of possibilities to the client to assist in useful change.
In 2000 I used my awareness of Ericksonian Hypnosis to create the first in the series of Human Alchemy
audio CDs, titled "Adventures of Well Being Now" I was pleased to receive a number of glowing reviews
about this CD including this one from Anglo American Books, who then requested to be the international
distributor for all my products...
"This is a very interesting CD using hypnotic language techniques to take
you on an adventure discovering deep relaxation as well as facilitating change. We are sent many CDs
and audiotapes from therapists for review, but it is truly unusual to come across a product that is
as effective and professional as this offering from Nick Kemp. As well as being a useful tool it
should be of great interest to those who wish to use the more complex language techniques inherited
from Milton Erickson's great work. Highly recommended!"
Anglo American Books
Definitions of hypnosis
In "The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson, Volume I" page 113, Dr. Erickson is quoted as stating:
"The hypnotic state is an experience that belongs to the subject, derives from the
subject's own accumulated learning's and memories, not necessarily consciously recognized, but possible of
manifestations in a special state of non waking awareness".
And one of my favorite explanations can be found within The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson,
Volume IV of the same series, page 224,
"It is a state of consciousness - not unconsciousness or sleep -
a state of consciousness or awareness in which there is a marked receptiveness to ideas and
understandings and an increased willingness to respond either positively or negatively to
those ideas. It derives from processes and functioning within the subject. And is not some
mystical procedure, but rather a systematic utilization of experiential learning's - that is,
the extensive learning's acquired through the process of living itself."
Hypnosis is a natural state of mind with special identifying characteristics:
- An extraordinary quality of relaxation.
- An emotionalized desire to satisfy the suggested behaviour: The person feels like doing what
the hypnotist suggests, provided that what is suggested does not generate conflict with his belief system.
- The organism becomes self-regulating and produces normalization of the central nervous system.
- Heightened and selective sensitivity to stimuli perceived by the five senses and four basic perceptions.
- Immediate softening of psychic defences.
Gil Boyne
"A state of intensified attention and receptiveness, and an increased responsiveness to an idea or to a set of ideas"
Dr Milton Erickson
Hypnosis describes a range of naturally occurring states of altered awareness which may vary from momentary distractions and
'absences' through much enhanced states of relaxation to very deep states of inward focus and awareness.. The mental processes
which can occur in any of these states, appropriately utilised, are generally far more flexible and potentially far more
powerful in effecting change than those we can achieve in most everyday states of active conscious awareness. These states
may be induced quite formally or quite naturalistically, in an almost unnoticeable way, depending on the requirement of the
problem, the capability of the practitioner and the needs of the client.
The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
A temporary condition of altered attention in the subject which may be induced by another person
and in which a variety of phenomena may appear spontaneously or in response to verbal or other stimuli. These phenomena
include alterations in consciousness and memory, increased susceptibility to suggestion, and the production in the subject
of responses and ideas unfamiliar to him in his usual state of mind. Further, phenomena such as anaesthesia, paralysis and
rigidity of muscles, and vasomotor changes can be produced and removed in the hypnotic state.
[BMA, 'Medical use of Hypnotism', 1955]
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