Hypnotherapy clients experience emotional shifts through a number of ways so that they know that the hypnotherapy is working.
- A client who was severely depressed found that, after four weeks, she began responding differently to key stressors. She had not noticed any emotional change but rather, her responses had changed.
- Another client with confidence issues noted a shift come over her and a sense of joy begin to flood her mind, after session two.
- A third client began experiencing vivid dreams the week following his first session, along with a newfound sense of calm. Hypnotherapy affects everyone differently.
The unconscious mind is very much like a computer. Think of doing a data defragmentation on a hard drive. Processing emotional blocks leaves more room in the mind for new ideas to take place. As emotional blockages shift and release, the unconscious mind can begin to assemble the old information in a new way.
Sometimes I’ll have a client who is not seeing results because they are not carrying out the processes I give them. These processes are meant to help release the backlog of ‘stuff’ waiting to be resolved. If that client has so much clutter in their mind that they cannot relax in a hypnosis session, then they need to engage in some targeted work to assist the processing. Otherwise suggestion may not take hold. A full glass simply cannot take any more water.
What I do in hypnotherapy is to use a range of neuro-linguistic programming techniques, plus prescribing a bit of ‘homework’ on occasion, to help lessen this backlog. At the same time I, of course, incorporate hypnotic suggestions. Laying a new program of behaviour on top of old ‘junk’ is not an efficient way to do it, which is why, sometimes, hypnosis alone is not enough.
Clearing clutter while installing a new program leads to stable changes. These changes are symptomatic. So, as symptoms change, that’s how you know that the hypnotherapy is working.