Phobias - do you do NLP and then hypno script for the fear, and also, NLP while hypnotized?

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Permalink Reply by Mary Winstanley on August 17, 2010 at 4:19pm

Dear Laura,

I use NLP (fast phobia cure and also swish technique) whilst the client is hypnotised, I find it deepens the effect. If there is a particular event in the past (or I suspect there is one) that caused it, I also do age regression, often interspersed between folds of the fast phobia cure or, particularly swish.

I usually do a little self-hypnosis tutorial, as it were, to begin with because it immediately gives the client something they feel they can use whenever they need it, it shows them what hypnosis feels like, and it makes it easier to then drop them into a trance for the phobia work.

Obviously, other people on this forum will have different ways of doing it, so I hope you get some more replies to build up your options and ideas bank.

I hope that helps.

Mary

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Permalink Reply by Laura Rude' on August 17, 2010 at 4:22pm

Thank you very much, Mary! That was precisely how I was hoping someone would respond.

Mary Winstanley said:

Dear Laura,

I use NLP (fast phobia cure and also swish technique) whilst the client is hypnotised, I find it deepens the effect. If there is a particular event in the past (or I suspect there is one) that caused it, I also do age regression, often interspersed between folds of the fast phobia cure or, particularly swish.

I usually do a little self-hypnosis tutorial, as it were, to begin with because it immediately gives the client something they feel they can use whenever they need it, it shows them what hypnosis feels like, and it makes it easier to then drop them into a trance for the phobia work.

Obviously, other people on this forum will have different ways of doing it, so I hope you get some more replies to build up your options and ideas bank.

I hope that helps.

Mary

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on August 17, 2010 at 5:14pm

Hi Laura,

Anyone who has a phobia usually experiences an enhanced state of stress, ergo, I usually allow my client to let go of that and install anchors for resurrecting that relief anytime. Starting a session with a good feeling is always best. As is ending with one! Kind of like life.

Best wishes,

Kelley

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Permalink Reply by James Hazlerig on August 17, 2010 at 5:15pm

I handle it much the way Mary does. There's a story, which may be apocryphal, that many of the NLP techniques were meant to be done in trance, but that someone teaching it assumed the students would understand that . . . Who knows if that's true . . .

Also, I've noticed recently that if a client's phobia has to do with a potentially dangerous situation, such as driving over a bridge, I may have to do additional work to help the client realize that the fear really is gone. For example, we may neutralize the fear of driving over a bridge, so I know the client isn't going to have a panic attack while doing it. But the client doesn't recognize that and is therefore afraid of the fear--no longer afraid of driving off the bridge, but now afraid of having a potentially deadly panic attack while driving. Does that make sense?

James

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Permalink Reply by John Cleesattel on August 17, 2010 at 10:00pm

I also hypnotize them first before doing any of the interventions. The whole reason to do it is that while in trance, the input comes from the imagination, which is what you want your NLP to do also, so it simplifies the connection. I do the same for those that have difficulty visualizing things. It is much easier for them once they are hypnotized.

John

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Permalink Reply by Walt Potter on August 18, 2010 at 2:02am

James,

In Get the Life You Want by Richard Bandler, page 4, he says "One of the best discoveries I made, however, was that it's possible to help people make these changes without hypnotizing them." He says this again a couple of paragraphs later.

So maybe NLP works without trance.

I attended a seminar with Bandler and Co. last year and as I recall folks were put into a trance as the methods were demoed. However, we were in trance for the full 10 days of the seminar--one trance or another. When we hypnotized someone, it was very easy--they subjects knew exactly what to do.

Walt

James Hazlerig said:

I handle it much the way Mary does. There's a story, which may be apocryphal, that many of the NLP techniques were meant to be done in trance, but that someone teaching it assumed the students would understand that . . . Who knows if that's true . . .
Also, I've noticed recently that if a client's phobia has to do with a potentially dangerous situation, such as driving over a bridge, I may have to do additional work to help the client realize that the fear really is gone. For example, we may neutralize the fear of driving over a bridge, so I know the client isn't going to have a panic attack while doing it. But the client doesn't recognize that and is therefore afraid of the fear--no longer afraid of driving off the bridge, but now afraid of having a potentially deadly panic attack while driving. Does that make sense?
James

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Permalink Reply by Marc Carlin on August 18, 2010 at 2:55am

NLP is always done in trance! The way that NLP is taught is to show people ways of getting trance conversationally. It has been reported to me by a trusted source that when Richard Bandler works with people he seeks full blown somnambulism. And watching Richard work on a few of his video interventions has confirmed that to me.

In one of their early trainings they found that their students got really bad responses on NLP techniques when they went up to people to try them out. And what they discovered was that their students were lacking the essential missing ingredient of rapport. Rapport is the early stages of hypnosis.

There is a reason why Richard Bandler calls himself "The World's Greatest Hypnotist" on his youtube videos!

So I use all of the NLP techniques that I normally use after I have conditioned my clients to go into a nice trance state.

A favorite of mine is setting the negative anchor and setting a positive stacked anchor that is verified by the client to be more powerful than the negative anchor. And then collapsing the anchors into the more powerful positive anchor.

I think the most important tool you have is the one that you feel most comfortable with.

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Permalink Reply by James Hazlerig on August 18, 2010 at 5:35am

I agree that NLP techniques can be inherently trance-inducing (depending, of course, on your definition of trance, which we DO NOT need to rehash here, please). However, in the context of a hypnosis session, you might as well do a full-blown traditional induction first; it intensifies the effects by cutting down on conscious interference, imho. Even if it didn't, fulfilling the client's expectancy is going to make your work more effective. As long as you're not dragging out the interaction for the purpose of billing more, there's nothing ethically wrong with that.

James

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