One of the most well-trodden paths for any hypnotherapist has to be debunking the myths surrounding hypnosis and NLP. This is due the fact that a lot of popular culture and news articles in trash journalism don’t tend to paint Hypnosis in the magnificent light that it actually stand in. Although many of us would tend to believe that many myths have an element of truth within them, I would like to invite you to begin to better gain a better understanding of the truths and the non-truths that you may have been led to believe over your life as many of them are based upon some truth. There is a lot to cover in this, so I will be breaking it into a several part series on the worst myths about hypnosis in my opinion.

Hypnosis Myths Debunk #1:

In hypnosis, I will be made to do embarrassing things, such as imitate a dog, chicken, or duck.

Basis: Stage hypnosis show, when the audience members (such as yourself) volunteered themselves to partake in the show and follow the suggestions of the hypnotist.

Fact: The origin of this myth stems from the common confusion between hypnosis in a therapeutic context such as clinical hypnosis and stage and street hypnosis (entertainment hypnosis). Here are some facts about how stage hypnosis works.

· Stage hypnotists are working within the context of entertainment are hired to entertain the group

· The volunteers on stage have actually been asked if they want to be hypnotised

· Some of the volunteers that come up on stage are just curious about the process

· When people do decide to volunteer they have made tacit approval or a hypnotic agreement with the hypnotist. Something like ‘You and I are going to enjoy ourselves in this context by being silly or even absurd at times, and that cool, because it all part of everyone having a good laugh’. These individuals also have the inner knowledge that if they do something a bit crazy, they can always blame it on the hypnotist without feeling any embarrassment.

· Typically, the stage show, one or more of the volunteer’s each has a different purpose. One of these is to ‘bust’ the hypnotist and prove that hypnosis is fake.

· The first task the hypnotist has on their hand’s is to find the disrupters and instruct them to sit back down in the audience. (You may have watched a stage show and noticed seeing the hypnotist sending these audience members off the stage.

· The hypnotist then goes on to hypnotise the volunteers left on stage

· All of the volunteers are then given some a bunch host of silly actions and things to do by the hypnotist, each participant doing them(some with more volition than others)

· All of the volunteers have total control and a choice to do these things such as cluck like a chicken or act like a dog; many of them accepting these suggestions. (It may be the cast that people end up going on to deny that they had any choice in the matter, if they feel embarrassed after the fact.)

· One of the people on stage may be told to be rigid as a piece of steel, and be prop the person up by their head and their heels in a display of full body catalepsy (this is a great display of the unconscious mind in action due to the fact that it must be employed in order for the body to stay in this stiff horizontal position with the conscious mind alone)

· There will be post-hypnotic suggestions that the hypnotist will give to the subjects, along the lines of ‘you will forget the number 4’.

· The individual is brought out of then instructed by the hypnotist and asked to count on their hand. As you would expect, they will then start: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and be completely bamboozled by the fact that they arrived with 6 fingers on their hand,

· Another adage that the hypnotist will use is to instruct participants to “jump up and begin to cheer whenever they say the word red.”

· While having a conversation, the hypnotist will drop the word ‘red’ into trigger subject to jump up and begin hooting and hollering all the while with a rather confused look on their face as to signify they are unable to understand why they are acting out in such a manner.

· The audience then erupts into fits of laughter and has a night full of fun, all the while observing the amazing power of hypnosis is made accessible once it is revealed how it can be used both on stage in a performance or in a therapeutic context.

Fact: When clients come in to see a clinical hypnotherapist for the purpose of letting go of a particular presenting problem or behaviour such as quit smoking, weight management or anxiety; entertainment never comes into the equation. Hypnosis is a highly effective and rapid method of improving a person's life and is a serious business. At the same time it is important to recognise and understand how important the elements are within stage hypnosis show and how it works as it is a metaphor that displays that some aspects of stage hypnosis are available in the therapeutic application of hypnosis.

· You are able to accept positive suggestions easily when in hypnosis

· Your unconscious mind has more control than you could ever imagine with relation to affecting change within the body, namely the healing of the body when in hypnosis. Truth be told, this amazing ability is available all the time. The power of medical hypnosis for pain management and hypno-birthing shows how effective this is. You also have the ability to give your unconscious mind instructions to accelerate its healing and repair and restore itself and its primary functions.

· There is a great benefit to post-hypnotic suggestions – they work automatically without any though as they are embedded in the unconscious mind.

Read more about other myths and misconceptions surrounding hypnosis in the remainder of this series.

If you would like to feel some of the benefit of hypnosis in the comfort of your own home for the purpose of relaxation, go ahead and click the button below to get a free download of my hypnosis for relaxation audio and begin to gain the benefits today.