So, if Hypnosis is such a powerful, life changing tool, and it is, why...

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Comment by Ron Franks on August 23, 2010 at 5:29am

Looks, Aino/Akpolarmom, to...

me that you must be closer on the "maybe $1 worth" number as I agree with you and appreciate your contribution to this discussion.

Comment by Aino / Akpolarmom on August 22, 2010 at 1:03pm

Now this is a great thread.... here is my 5 cents worth... ahh.. maybe $1 worth
We as humans have no clue how powerful our minds really are do we? And we gladly use hypnosis everyday but most of us don't use the good side but the bad. We self hypnotize ourselves into believing every negative thing said about us by others or even by our selves. Have you ever heard "you will never amount to anything" or "I'll never get there in time" "I feel so bad today." They all lead to limiting our lives in different ways. I believe it was Bandler who was musing on the fact that what ever we look for we will find it and as humans we tend to go to the negative.
Try this: think of an incident in your life that was rather unpleasant, ( don't go for something too bad lol) Were you associated or dissociated? Now do the same with a very pleasant moment? The strange thing is that most people find that they experience the bad incident associated, and the good one dissociated... according to Bandler. No wonder we feel like crap a lot of the time.
So why don't we just reverse it? We as hypnotists know how to do that, but most of our clients are totally surprised when we suggest such an easy remedy. I think the reason why we do not use it any more than what we do ( deliberately using it) is that 'we' as a race do not know we can or that that form of hypnosis even exists. Sometimes we can not see our own issues, or we can't figure a way to cut our own loops (as Licentious used to say.) We have to have help by some one not so attached to the issues. Most people will not even admit they have issues, and so if it is not bad enough to seek help, they never get a chance to get educated.
The nice thing is that most everyone I have spoken to about hypnosis are very interested in the tool as such ( baring a few who a afraid of it for religious reasons) Just about everyone I have spoken to who has been hypnotized either for fun or for therapy has had positive results and most of them still avails themselves of the tools they learned!
So folks, as professionals it is up to us to educate our fellow human beings about this wonderful tool, and then enjoy the current, seeming endless pool of possible clients out there.

Comment by Vince C on August 20, 2010 at 11:37am

Actually everyone uses hypnosis and self hypnosis everyday and even have hypnosis done to them by others who don't call themselves hypnotists. They just don't want to go to a hypnotist.

Comment by Vince C on August 20, 2010 at 11:30am

Hi Antonio,

Many people don't want to be manipulated by other people. they consider their issue as their own behavior (not a manipulation by a person even if it started that way) and rather keep the problem and the associated secondary gains than be manipulated by other people.

I'm playing devil's advocate. someone emailed me about having paranoia/phobia from trauma and later cancelled because this person had second thoughts due to it being "un-Christian" (some kind of work of the devil)

that reminds me, I've heard some hypnotists /NLP ppl would go as far as pretending to be the devil to enable a "cure" of paranoid schizophrenia.

Most people have sufficiently many limiting beliefs to not allow themselves the benefit of a hypnosis session.

People like the result of hypnosis but not the means and are suspicious of the hypnotists' motives for choosing their career.

Comment by Bill Kennedy on August 20, 2010 at 4:28am

If you think about it, a hammer is a powerful, life changing tool in the hand of a carpenter. A pen is a powerful, life changing tool in the hand of a writer. Hypnosis is only a powerful, life changing tool when used by a healer. And if you're a healer, then hypnosis is only one of the tools you bring to the table.

Hypnosis doesn't change people, people do.

Bill

Comment by Antonio on August 19, 2010 at 10:03pm

Vince if a person really valued freedom of being manipulated, wouldn't they have simply stopped doing whatever behaviour it is that they want to stop? It seems like if this is true, they would value having the freedom to choose to stop being manipulated by the parts of them that are causing X to occur.

Comment by Vince C on August 19, 2010 at 8:14pm

many hypnotists have ulterior motives or are dangerously incompetent and the prospective subjects' subconscious can pick up on it.

Comment by Vince C on August 19, 2010 at 8:10pm

fear of the unknown and valuing freedom over being manipulated.

Comment by Ron Franks on August 19, 2010 at 7:11am

WHAT A RIDE, indeed Katin!

And so very, very pleased to be sitting alongside you on it because you are indeed a very giving and generous person. Thanks many for so completely addressing this topic. Your response is so well laid out and expressed, I'm very grateful you gave so much to this. With people like you aboard the train, our ride is more enjoyable and I suspect we shall arrive right on schedule.

Comment by Katin Imes on August 19, 2010 at 5:02am

Great discussion topic. I do hope it leads to ideas and excitement around overcoming the obstacles... or, what I'll call "impediments to use."

I see two categories of impediments here:
1) Universal impediments; and
2) hypnosis-specific impediments

Universal impediments can be determined by asking similar questions but of different domains. For example:
"If diet and exercise works for health and weight loss every time, why isn't everyone doing it all the time?"

From this we can draw reasons like:
- it takes work and effort
- it actually depends on the individual making the commitment and the change
- the perceived problems/pain of not doing it is less than the pain/effort required to do it (a perceptual problem)
- lack of knowledge that it does work
- lack of knowledge of how to do it properly even if there is confidence in the process (expertise)
- the perception that the same benefits can be obtained cheaper/faster/easier some other way (e.g., take a pill)

We have seen time and time again that those that do seek out the knowledge and expertise, that have the will to make the change and that apply themselves always find success. This is a universal formula that works on nearly every challenge.

To reverse that, if the person is missing the will and desire, the knowledge, the expertise or the mojo to apply themselves - if any one piece is missing - success is unlikely. How many people, would you say, are presently missing one or more of those pieces?

- - -

Hypnosis-specific impediments that I see are mostly based on social standing. Hypnosis is not widely taught, it isn't widely experienced, and in many cases it isn't taken seriously in our society. Ask yourself, what stories do we have about hypnosis as a society? What does the average 5th grader know and believe about hypnosis? What does the average doctor know and believe about hypnosis?

So here we humans are, in trance and perceptive-specific positions all the time, and yet we don't want to acknowledge or really understand those ideas, much less master them. So, what would have to be true for that to be the case?

My answer: most people don't really want to know about the "water they swim in." It takes effort to understand it (it's easier just to float along), it diminishes the ego to understand it, and most of all, it makes the individual responsible for his or her own life, conditions and change. If I can change my life, my perceptions and my problems via hypnosis, and hypnosis is really just me doing the change (i.e., no one can be in hypnosis for you), then I have to take responsibility for the state of my life. Most people just don't want to do that. Now, *why* that is would seem to me to be another thread & topic entirely.

Happily, there has never been a better time to change the society story around hypnosis. And it is changing. The visibility of hypnosis and success stories on the Internet is changing people's perception, understanding and openness to hypnosis.

The flip side is that the Internet also allows huge visibility and accessibility to the crap info... fortunately, as social reputation systems mature across the Internet, the crap will soon be rated as crap, helping people sort out what is really helpful.

It's all in motion, all the time. What a ride, eh?