As a hypnotist, there are some questions I get asked all the time.

 

“How does hypnosis work?”

 

“Will I lose control?”

 

“What can hypnosis treat?”

 

People are often surprised by the responses to all of these questions, but the last question in particular never fails to impress people.

 

Why? Because hypnosis can treat everything from helping people stop smoking (smoking cessation), weight loss, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety, pain relief, self-esteem issues, physical healing, trauma, bad habits and phobias, in addition to many other issues.

 

In fact, you might be hard pressed to discover something that hypnosis WON’T be able to treat. But why is this the case?What makes hypnosis so special, and why can it treat so many different issues?

To understand this, let’s back up a bit and take a look at how hypnosis works in the first place.

 

What Is Hypnosis & How Does It Work?
In a nutshell, hypnosis is a form of focused relaxation that helps to bypass the conscious mind and get at the unconscious. And that’s where the power lies. When you’re hypnotised, you’re in a trance. You’re experiencing an altered state of consciousness. But don’t let that phrase scare you. It just means you’ve shifted your focus away from the conscious everyday world and focused your thoughts inward instead.

 

And because you’re not paying attention to the conscious world around you, your mind drifts off and you’re free to focus on a single idea. That’s what being in a trance is all about. It happens naturally when you’re totally engrossed in a film or a good book. Or when you’re driving your car and can’t remember the last few miles of a journey. It isn’t mind control. There isn’t some outside force causing you to do this. It’s just you, using your mind in a different way, allowing yourself to get into a different state of awareness.

 

And here’s the cool part…

When you do go into a trance and begin communicating with your unconscious mind, that’s when you’re able to re-write your story. That’s when you’re able to challenge and change any underlying beliefs that are not serving you well. And that’s when you can replace those beliefs with better ones.

 

Going into a trance helps to remove resistance. When you’re fully conscious, your mind tends to analyse everything around you. It’s on alert, constantly taking in information, busy dealing with whatever’s happening around you.

When you’re in a trance, however, your conscious mind sort of switches off. You’re able to relax and shut out the everyday world. And that’s when you access your unconscious mind, the part of your brain that will readily accept suggestions without questioning or analysing them.

 

The word hypnosis comes from the Greek word hypnos, which means sleep. However, in order to experience hypnosis, you CAN’T be asleep. You need to be awake so that you can interact with the hypnotherapist because hypnosis is a technique involving two-way communication.

 

Imagine trying to get someone to listen to what you’re saying when they’re asleep. Impossible, right? The same goes for hypnosis. You have to be awake, and you’re usually aware of everything that’s going on around you.

You’re probably more relaxed than usual, but your trance state means you’re able to block out distractions and bypass your critical and analytical conscious mind. You couldn’t possibly do that when you’re asleep, and it’s ONLY in a trance state that these conditions can be achieved.

 

That’s exactly why hypnosis is such an effective therapeutic tool. According to Stanford psychiatry professor David Spiegel, people tend to do things they wouldn’t normally do under hypnosis. And according to Spiegel, that gives the therapist the ability to "Shake up the way they react to problems and approach them from a different point of view."