Hypnosis Essentials

Hypnosis is a natural process. We drift in and out of hypnotic states all of the time. Waking people up from ‘not’ useful hypnotic states can be as much as help as getting them  into good states.

NLP Technique | Hypnosis

It is useful thinking of hypnosis as a further amplifier, giving us the opportunity to improve the way we communicate and influence both with ourselves and others.

Basic principles

  1. The power of ambiguity. If we give our clients a structure without any content, they will often determine the most useful content for themselves to fill in the gaps. This is often more useful than giving them the (or rather our) answer.
  2. Shock and pattern interrupts are useful provided we lead them somewhere beneficial afterwards
  3. Pace and then lead. Start by referring to what is true in their world and then when they accept what say we can lead them somewhere more useful
  4. Utilisation. We can use anything that’s happening. We’re leading not fighting!
  5. Fractionation. Many small pieces weaved into normal conversation work exceptionally well.
  6. Encourage. Encourage any behaviour that supports your client going into hypnosis. Say “That’s right” or “That’s really good” These behaviours include: Slower breathing, eyes fluttering, increased flaccidity of muscles and skin, dilated pupils and lower lip becoming filled with blood.
  7. Get into rapport, go into trance, and our client will follow
  8. A deep hypnosis state can also be thought of as a state of deep rapport/deep learning
  9. In a hypnotic state we can often replace ‘or’ with ‘and’
  10. We are responsible for the impact of our communication.

Commands and Embedded Commands

What specifically do you want people to to? How do you want them to feel? The easiest step sometimes is to ask/tell them directly,

eg: Stop, listen, feel good, enjoy, start now etc

They have more impact when:

  1. Voice tone down. Said as a unequivocal command, not a question.
  2. The command is emphasised through some gesture or voice change
  3. The voice reflects the meaning of the word
  4. ie All our communication is congruent with the command

We can ‘hide’ the command by embedding it into a sentence. However the command part must still follow the rules of commands. The other words can often distract our ‘logical’ thinking.

Examples include:

Luckily you  can command and something else
If you were to command and something else
When you command and something else
A person can command and something else
You don’t have to command and something else
You shouldn’t command and something else

More Examples:

(Now at the end often amplifies the effect.)

Luckily you can:
You might want to:
I wouldn’t tell you:
When you:
If you were to:
I don’t know if this is the very best thing you can do:
If I were to:
What’s it like when you:
A person can:
It’s not necessary to:
You really shouldn’t:
You don’t have to:
You can:

And variants

Why is it some people see x and other don’t
What is it that will help you to know whether to do x or y?

Linkage Language

As humans we like to associate ideas, even when there is no logical association.

Something true in your clients reality and something else true and something else true and suggestion

And as you progress the linkage words can be stronger that means, as you’re …. you will, etc.

Process Language

Process language combines all the above, giving your client a powerful direction with a useful process, but no content.

You’ve been listening and as you sleep and dream tonight, you’ll run through all the ideas we’ve explored, add some of your own, mentally rehearse them, and to your delight and surprise start implementing the most useful when it’s both safe and beneficial to do so.

And something else that may surprise you, when you least expect it, you’ll start to notice when others use these patterns,  and copy the very best and add them to what you so easily.

Exercises

  1. Write out what you would like others to do and feel
  2. Construct some embedded commands that you could use, and decide on an appropriate place to use them, and then mentally rehearse using them effectively
  3. Start noticing what your colleagues do to get other to take action. What state are they in, what commands do they use. How could you improve what they do?
  4. Start noticing what is likely to be true in your colleagues world in what context. Write them out. 
    Hypnosis Essentials

    Hypnosis Essentials