How to Hypnotize

As the practice of hypnosis gains popularity, hypnosis itself becomes demystified. Learning how to hypnotize yourself or others is about following a few simple steps - and in following these steps you can bring about lasting change in your life or the life of others.

Effective hypnosis requires being in a state known as the alpha state of consciousness - this is a state of deep relaxation. The converse is a beta state of consciousness, when you are wide awake and fully aware of your surroundings.

When you are in a completely relaxed state of mind, your subconscious is able to focus on the traits, triggers, and behavior that you are seeking to change. It is important to note, that when in a state of hypnosis, you are always aware of your surroundings and are never in an unconscious state.

If you want to create a self hypnosis program to change certain behaviors, you will want to implement five basic steps:

Induction: This step serves to set the client's expectations, define your role and theirs, and focus their attention. In induction you will bring your client into a relaxed state. There are various ways to achieve this, including spoken instruction, guided visualization, quiet music, and emotional cues, among others techniques.

Deepening: This entails bringing the client to a deeper state of relaxation and can be achieved by continuing with the original induction, changing induction, or continuing to speak to the client.

Utilization: In this stage, you will introduce scripts or dialogs to make post hypnotic suggestions in order to effect behavioral changes. Essentially, you are making verbalized statements of the desired outcome. If successful, these suggestions will be accepted and enacted by the client once he or she has emerged from hypnosis and returned to regular daily activities. The posthypnotic suggestion is the key to achieving the client's goal. Posthypnotic suggestions can be visual or auditory.

Regular repetition of these suggestions will reinforce behavior that leads to the desired outcome and ultimately the client will begin to formulate internal processes (emotions, visualizations, or dialogues), that will help achieve the desired outcome.

Amnesia & Termination: This is the final stage in which you will make suggestions in order to prevent the client from overanalyzing the scripts and suggestions they have just heard in your session (amnesia). You will then, slowly and gradually, return your client to full consciousness.

This can be achieved in various ways, the more popular technique being that in which the hypnotist counts backwards from 10 to 1, followed by the instruction to "wake up." At this time the client open his or her eyes and adjusts to being awake and being in tune with the surroundings.

These are the fundamental steps of learning how to hypnotize.

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