How Did You “Discover” Hypnosis?

Personally, I began in a management course that included NLP. I traced NLP to Ericksonian hypnosis and then branched off into Dave Elman style hypnosis. How were you bitten by the hypnosis bug?

Sean

Favorite

0 members favorited this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lisa on November 10, 2011 at 3:45pm

One of the things that really strikes me is how often and from so many diverse people I see such radiant glowing and unabashed joy at being in a particular field. I have never seen people in a profession speak so consistently and frequently of how they love what they do.

I love how passionate people are about what they do in this field. It is profound.

gentle eve'

Lisa

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Don on November 12, 2011 at 9:12am

The first time I hypnotized anybody, I was in the tenth grade. I had been reading about it, and I had seen an induction done on television. I started saying at school that I knew how to hypnotize people, and a seventh-grader came up and said defiantly, "Aah, you can't hypnotize me -- that's a bunch of baloney!" I remembered what the books had said about how to hypnotize a "skeptical" subject, and I told him solemnly, "Well if you cooperate and you do exactly as I say, you'll be hypnotized." (That was a "waking suggestion," of course, but he didn't know it.) He assured me that he would, and in five minutes he was out like a light! I told him that he wouldn't be able to feel anything in his scalp, and tugged on his hair hard enough to make a seventh-grader say ouch, but he didn't respond. Then a "big kid" came up, and pulled his hair so hard that I thought he was going to pull his hair out. Still no response. I brought him out of it, and he dazedly disappeared among the crowd of students that had gathered around us.

"You hit it just right," a colleague remarked to me years later, and of course he was right. But I was convinced that whatever happened, I had just been given a first-hand view of how the mind works -- and that conviction has never left me.

Don

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Paul D. Anderson on November 12, 2011 at 5:04pm

When I was 12, I saw the Bowery Boys in "Hold That Hypnotist" at a local movie theater. I was fascinated by Sach's past lives and the way trance changed him from a loser to a winner. I read everything I could find about hypnosis. I never dreamed of becoming a hypnotist. I did use self hypnosis to become a professional writer with several novels and hundreds of short stories in print (some are still in print after 30 years). But I became a certified hypnotist after helping some of my friends quit smoking and change life-threatening self-destructive behaviors thru suggestions I stole from books. I did it spontaneously, and I was really surprised when my friends dropped into trance along with me, I was even more surprised when they told me the postive and beneficial post-hypnotic suggestions they heard me make may have changed their lives forever. That was the kind of feedback I had only rarely achieved with my writing. When my wife suggested that if I was going to continue hypnotizing people I should probably learn what I was doing, I enrolled in an NGH class. Then I went on to get a couple of graduate degrees and study counseling and I've been in private practice for almost 20 years.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jeff Austin on November 17, 2011 at 10:24pm

I had a session of hypnosis for my fear of driving, I got my driver's licence at 16 and by 18 had 3 car accidents, It took a few years though for my interest to become solidified in the use of hypnosis when I decided to give up drinking (Oct 2006) and I fell off the wagon Dec 2006 and then firmly decided on Jan 01, 2007 to quit all together and I am proud to say not a drop since then.

Jeff

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Brieuc du Garay on November 20, 2011 at 2:03am

I had to do a work at school about hypnosis, then I discovered what I called "Force of Persuasion" for 5 years was hypnosis. The rest, you can guess it. Diane Vibert, John Cerbone, Brad Thomson, Chris Baboch helped me to formalize hypnosis.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Rory McCauley on November 20, 2011 at 7:06am

A google search for panic attack prevention helped me discover hypnosis, I went and visited a hypnotist and have not had a panic attack since. This lead to more sessions and eventually training as a hypnotist and a full time career!

Rory

James Hazlerig said:

My mother used hypnosis to control the pain of childbirth, and I grew up with that story, so I always knew there was something there.

Later in life, I became very interested in the power of visualization and the human mind. I studied it in several contexts, but hypnosis seemed more systematic to me than many of the other approaches. While engaged in a free-form meditation, I asked whether I should study hypnosis, and I was given a vision verifying that I should.

James

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Shirley R. Patterson on November 20, 2011 at 6:30pm

I went to The Gestalt Institute Of Columbus for a seminar on Using Hypnosis with Gestalt presented by Jeffrey Zeig. I was totally taken and decided right then and there I wanted to learn hypnosis.

Shirley R Patterson

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Carolyn Ann O'Riley, CHC, CHt, on November 21, 2011 at 2:26pm

My first experience with hypnosis was quite an eye opener for me when I was in my 40's. It actually uncovered my fathers sexual abuse starting at age three. That revelation was so profound for me (this memory/trauma had been packed away in cotton) and so timely for forgiveness that I knew I would go into hypnosis so that I could assist others. Once this was uncovered may actions and reactions for the past 40 something years all fell into place. It is such a wonderful tool to help people heal. Carolyn

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill Greene on November 21, 2011 at 2:41pm

I have a friend, close, who has had a serious smoking addiction for decades. He has tried to quit, but cannot. He is one of the strongest people I know. As a last ditch effort, he visited a hypnotherapist, and within weeks is over it. Totally. To this day, people around him are amazed.

In college, as a part-time job, I worked for a gestalt therapist who used hypnosis, biofeedback in his practice, so I was exposed. As a naive college student much more interested in girls and beer (not in that order) I believe it was just so much nonsense. Throughout most of my life I've had brushes with it: a stage show here, a TV special there, etc.

My wife has Stage 3 progressive brain cancer. She's had two tumor surgeries, radiation therapy and countless chemo treatments. Her life is faltering, as is her confidence. She worries a lot, as anyone would. And the anxiety and fear sometimes paralyzes her. She (we) have fought this battle since last 2004. Recently something said "I wonder if hypnosis might help her relax, to think more clearly, to live a higher quality of life." So I've set out to learn as much as I can. This long battle has brought she and I closer together, but often that has been to the exclusion of others. So I'm reading, and I'm trying to find an online or video course that is thorough and trustworthy. I don't want to hypnotize others, just her. And I don't want to do this for money, although you can imagine that money is tight.

So basically, I'm just reading you folks, gathering the information that I can...and hoping that it'll do both of us some good. Thank you for reading.

Bill

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Adrienne on November 21, 2011 at 2:56pm

This is a very nice discussion. I had sought hypnotherapy quite a few years ago for stress, I was upset I was getting angry with my children and yelling and I didnt want to do that. I was scheduled to have 3 sessions but only made 2. I didnt like it much but was very surprised that my arm lifted when, at the instruction I heard my mind say "that's so not going to happen"! The best thing was I was guided to visualise a calm place and that saved the day - I used that strategy for years after and still occasionally use it today. But then in my 50s I suddenly had a number of blows all in one - a number of life stressors all toether, rather than spread out. But I wasnt mindful of them. I wasnt eating well or exercising at that time - going through menopause, empty nest, losing job, losing all savings, nearly losing house - yuck double yuck. I eventually did a stress test and scored way way way above the level where you are so stressed you might kill yourself!!!!! The universe was looking out for me in the form of a new friend, a nurse, who recognised the signs and urged me to see a doctor. So in the end I got myself diagnosed with depression, I was suffering also from huge physical electric shock type anxiety. Lucky me the psychologist I went to was... is... a hypnotherapist. I sat outside his room waiting for my turn and a client came out laughing and happy and I so wished she could be me. I thought also it probably couldnt be me because that would take several sessions. But it was me. I did come out laughing after one hypnotherapy session. It lasted a few weeks and the anxiety crept back in. But a couple more sessions and it was gone completely and 3 years later has not returned. The Pscyh and I realised maybe I needed to have a hormone check what with the menopause and that worked out well - I changed my hormone tablets and 90% of the anxiety disappeared leaving just 10% to be worked on in other ways.

Since then I have trained and qualified as a counsellor and hypnotherapist and that wonderful psychologist is my supervisor and very good friend. I adore hypnotherapy and hypnosis and enjoy daily self hypnosis as well. I am envious of those of you above who were able to realise the wonder of hypnotherapy at an earlier age - but I am on the path now, in my 50s but better late than never!

Cheers, Adrienne

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Hypno-Jay on November 22, 2011 at 3:41am

I have had a interest in hypnosis since a young age but never really believed that I would be able to do it, when I first was interested i thought it was a kind of magic power although some would say the outcomes can be magical. Derren brown sharpened my interest during my teens but i still didnt think i could do it.

Then, one day i was looking for a new career path and knew that i wanted to do something that helped people and as i was searching for counsellor training etc i noticed a hypnotherapy course, had a look out of curiosity and realised that you didnt need any university degrees to do it as i had once thought and the rest is history !!