How to relieve hypnotic performance anxiety

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Guidelines for reassuring your clients about trance
- by Mark Tyrrell

Sometimes clients who've come for therapy feel under some kind of pressure to 'perform' or 'do it right' when it comes to the hypnosis part. We therapists need to take that pressure off so that the idea of hypnotic 'performance' doesn't rear its ugly head during therapy and get in the way of really making a difference to our clients.

We can, of course, simply explain that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to go into hypnosis. But sometimes it can help to go a bit further than this to minimise performance anxiety in the newbie hypnotic subject.

So here's three of my favourite approaches.

1. Cover all bases

Really let your clients know that there is no strictly defined or prescribed way for them to respond when it comes to hypnosis. The best way to do this is to describe as fully as possible, both before and during trance induction, a range of different responses that they might experience and to reassure them that every one of these, and even any responses that you haven't described, are just fine.

For example:

Now some people find that gently restful images come to mind as they drift into hypnosis... whereas others find themselves focussing on the sound my words... and some people drift into trance without really paying that much attention to what I say... and sometimes people know they are going into trance... and know they have been in hypnosis later... and other people go into hypnosis without knowing it... or even knowing they've been in a trance later... and whatever happens is fine... maybe you'll feel more relaxed in your upper body first... or your lower body first... and you may go into trance before you have fully relaxed... or after your mind has become completely still... or while you are gradually beginning to feel more comfortable and calm... and perhaps you'll be aware of everything I say... and clearly recall it later... and perhaps not...

When you see signs that your client is clearly becoming hypnotically responsive then you can be a little more directive, but covering all the bases like this is a very effective way to neutralize that little voice that keeps piping up with: "Am I doing this right?"

2. Normalize trance

I'll often describe trance in great detail and also spend time talking about how it regularly occurs in everyday life. Discuss the 'trance' of enjoyable focus on a favourite TV show, or reading a gripping book, or doing something you really love, or whatever. Then get them to tell you their natural trance experiences.

This will normalize the idea of trance and reframe hypnosis from something they have to 'get right' to something that occurs naturally and inevitably anyway.

3. Pretend trance

To take even more pressure off, when I've described the sorts of responses that people often experience, I might ask my client to imagine for themselves 'what it would be like' to drift deeply into a hypnotic trance. During induction, I might say something like:

You don't have to relax twice as deeply as you are now... but you can just imagine what it would feel like... to go that deep right now...

Now what, exactly, is the difference between

relaxing twice as deeply now

and

imagining what it feels like to relax twice as deeply now ?

Milton Erickson, exemplar par excellence of how to do successful hypnotherapy, found that asking people to pretend to be in a hypnotic trance and to display all the characteristics of someone in a trance was a most effective way of generating a real trance within them.

We need to protect our clients from getting caught up in internal "Can I/ Can't I?" or "Was I/Wasn't I?" debates and just encourage them to do what comes naturally.

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