5 Tips for Success With Hypnotherapy
Are you afraid of hypnosis?
Hypnosis is always self-hypnosis, and the client plays a central and active role in hypnotherapy. This is important to understand when you choose hypnotherapy to resolve any issues.
Here are 5 tips for you, as a (potential) hypnotherapy client, to avoid common pitfalls and achieve great success with hypnotherapy. Those pitfalls negatively influence results or even prevent you from achieving any results, although hypnotherapy is a promising path with various issues, even and especially when other therapies have failed.
1. Take responsibility for your results
In contrast to many other therapies, where the patients get treated and fully rely on the therapist, as a hypnotherapy client, you play an active and central role in the transformational process. Therefore, you need to be open and committed.
The most effective results you will get from hypnotherapy are if you are aware of the following:
- something needs to change
- that something needs to be me
- the change must be now!
Hypnotherapy is a good choice for you if, given your life situation and the issues you face, you are aware of your active role and see your potential to change rather than expecting others to change.
The feeling of urgency adds up to your commitment and the power to change.
2. Recognize positive changes
Hypnotherapy causes permanent changes in thinking, feelings, and behavior. Such lasting changes require reprogramming of the brain/subconscious mind. Neuroscience has shown that adaptation and reprogramming of the brain occur through neuroplasticity and take an average of 21 days.
One client of mine was telling me in our second session that she had a very bad week and nothing has changed. Certain upsetting things happened and caused much upset. When she was telling the most dramatic part of the story, she said: “And when I was about to do what I always do, I paused, turned, and made a better choice.”
The further transformational work became easier after she became aware of this first change that she created. She had many more aha-moments.
In hypnotherapy, you work with your unconscious mind. And the transformational changes that take place are driven by the unconscious. They will feel easy and natural, and you can easily miss them.
But if you miss them out, you might be disappointed, which will negatively affect the transformational process. Becoming aware of positive changes helps to build up further positive transformational results.
3. Allow yourself to make mistakes
Habitual negative thinking or undesirable behavior does not disappear immediately, nor does it disappear completely and forever. The same negative thoughts may pop up. For example, anxious thoughts will pop up if something happens to your dear ones. The same undesired behavior can happen, like a former smoker can smoke a cigarette.
When this happens, clients also get frustrated as if they failed and got defeated.
But there is a huge before-and-after difference. The difference is that those negative thoughts will not have the same power over you, and you will be able to resume the new desired behavior again.
So, it is important to stay committed and persistent.
4. Appreciate positive changes
In many cases, clients feel big shifts from the very first hypnotherapy session. But because they have been experiencing painful issues for years or even decades, they tend to underestimate improvements that are very recent.
Whereas painful issues are familiar and are recognized almost as part of the personality, changes for the better might be perceived as insignificant, unfamiliar, and temporary.
This can cause a relapse into familiar negative thinking, feelings, and behavior.
5. See each session as a part of your transformational journey
Despite that, hypnotherapy is very powerful in changing negative beliefs and behavioral patterns; the desired result might need a couple of sessions.
In some cases, the client needs more time to release painful emotions from the past. It is very important for the healing process to let go of such pain.
Since it can be tiring, there is little room left for change work during the session. And more change work is needed in the following sessions.
When the desired result is not achieved, hypnotherapists can use different tools from their arsenal in subsequent sessions to facilitate further change.
After resolving the biggest issue, you will realize that you want to change more, to grow and achieve more in your life, ultimately to become the creator and designer of your own life. You will choose to continue your transformational journey.
This is why I teach practical tools to my clients during hypnocoaching sessions. So that they have more control over their mind and feel empowered to create more changes in their lives after completing the program with me.
Maximize Your Success with Hypnotherapy
To maximize your transformational results:
- Be aware of the central role you are playing – your attitude and commitment play a vital role in the outcome
- Look for the changes in thinking, feelings, and/or behavior
- Value these changes and build upon them
- Allow yourself to stumble and make failures
- Realize the transformational journey never ends
About the Author
Olga Willemsen, Ph.D. > Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist & Transformational Coach
Olga is the founder of New Empowered You, specializing in helping professionals break through complex weight-loss plateaus. With a Ph.D. in Natural Sciences, she blends a pragmatic, evidence-based mindset with advanced hypnotherapy.
A certified member of the International Association of Counselors and Therapists (IACT), Olga is also trained in RTT, Neo-Ericksonian Hypnosis, and the Simpson Protocol. She helps clients worldwide update the mental “software” that governs their physical health.
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