Seven Success Stories of Hypnotism 2

#3 THE PRE-HYPNOTIC INTERVIEW

The first question is, "Have you ever been hypnotized before today?" (implies that they are about to be hypnotized.) They will reply "Yes" or "No." If they answer "yes", ask "Was it for therapeutic purposes or for entertainment, as in a night club?" They may answer, "Well, a friend hired a hypnotist to entertain at a party and he hypnotized five or six others, but I didn't go under."

Ask for the details, say, "Will you tell me about your lack of response?" "Well, we sat in chairs and he said everyone put your hands together, press them tightly together, and now they are stuck. Try to pull your hands apart,' and I was the only one who did. So he dismissed me."

Respond to that by saying, "It is difficult to relax enough to concentrate on those ideas in front of a group of people, especially if you are a little anxious that you might be asked to do something silly."

Suppose they say, "Oh, yes, I went up on the stage in a night club and the last thing I remember is being told to try to pull my hands apart and the next thing I knew it was an hour later. When I went back to my seat, they told me I sang, and danced and did funny things while on the stage." You now have additional information. You know they went into a deep trance easily. If they say it was for therapeutic purposes, again you ask, "Who was it?" and have them tell you all the details. "Well, I went to the therapist and I felt like I was floating on a cloud."

Store that because when you hypnotize them, you will want to use it as feedback, "Now you are getting that feeling of floating on a cloud." Take everything they say of a positive nature, about their previous hypnotic experience and feed it back to them. Why ask yourself, "What kind of deepening techniques shall I use?" when they have already told you. If they say to you, that they don't remember very much of what went on in the therapist's office, again you have similar input of information. The key question at this point is, "Was this beneficial to you. Did you get the results that you hoped for? - tell me about it."

When they report positive results they have told you, "I had a belief in hypnosis and I tried it and it worked for me. Therefore, here in this moment with you Mr. Hypnotist, I have a tremendously high mental expectancy. My imagination is already excited. Don't expend a lot of time on me doing all of those preparatory things, I've already told you my story. I went to a hypnotist and got good results." Take one more step and say, "That is wonderful. Now, tell me, do you remember how you were hypnotized, what method was used, what can you tell me?" They will tell you whether it was someone who believes in swinging a watch or using flashing lights or just what the experience was, or you might ask "Have you ever been hypnotized?" They reply, "No, I have never made an effort to be hypnotized." "Have you ever seen anyone hypnotized?" "Oh, yes. My friend was hypnotized on the stage, and - . Now you have some input. "What did you think of all that?" "I just could never understand how she could get up there and sing a song. I know her and she is quite shy. I could not figure out if she was faking it or what."

This is an opportunity for re-education. You say, "The reason she was able to sing on stage, is that the critical factor of her conscious mind was temporarily closed down because she was in trance. The part of her mind that says, "you are making a fool of yourself, everyone is looking at you and you should feel embarrassed," was silent. Because she did not hear that voice within, she was able to do something that is quite within the natural capacity of any human being, to sing a song or do a dance. It had nothing to do with her values, which includes her character attitudes, her religious beliefs and her moral principles." They often reply, "Oh, I never thought of it that way. I just thought they would tell me that I would not normally do anything under hypnosis that I would not normally do and I would never normally get up in front of a crowd and sing a song."

Now you have communicated and you are into the process of re-education. When you ask, "Are you ready for me to hypnotize you?" you can get a great deal of information from their answer. "Well, if you think you can?" or maybe, "O.K, good luck." or "Yes, I hope so." and sometimes they may say to you, "No - I'm not ready!" "Alright, if you are not ready, tell me about it." "I did not come today to get hypnotized. I think I will just talk to you." "That's all right. You have reserved the time and we can spend the Lime talking and I am not going to hypnotize you until you tell me that you are ready for me to hypnotize you." They may say "No" just to test you to see what will happen and five minutes later they might say, "I am ready now... I was anxious before, but now I feel more relaxed."

At this point, it is time to hypnotize this person using whatever methods that seem appropriate to you. Whatever methods you use on that first session, I suggest that after the induction of trance, you begin a relaxation process because you want to get the full discharge of accumulated tensions and make the First session the best session. In the first session there is no attempt at therapy, at least, not in an observable way. Many clients have said, "I went deepest, the very first time." What they mean is, "I had stored so many accumulated physical and emotional tensions that when I discharged them, I got rid of a tremendous load."

# 4 TESTING THE SUBJECT

In the pre-hypnotic talk I ask, "Have you ever been hypnotized before?" The answer is usually "No." Then I ask, "Have you ever made an effort to be hypnotized before today?" Often they say, "Yes, several times, but no one has ever hypnotized me." Then I ask, "was it for entertainment or therapy?" They reply, "I had a problem that I wanted to deal with." "What kind of therapist was it that you went to?" (This is very important because you want to find out if it were their neighbor who is a certified public accountant and does hypnotism demonstrations as a hobby; or a psychologist or psychiatrist, whose hypnotism skills are of ten the same as the next door neighbors; or a trained hypnotherapist of experience and reputation in the community.)

"Tell me exactly what happened." "He talked to me for a while, then he said to sit in the reclining chair and close my eyes while he repeated, 'You are getting drowsy and sleepy and you are going deeper and deeper into hypnosis.' He did that for quite a while, but I never went to sleep and I heard every word." "Then what happened?" "Well when I arrived home my husband asked me, 'How did the hypnotism session go,' and I said, 'Well I am not sure."' "What do you mean, you are not sure? Did you get hypnotized?" "I don't think so!" "You should know - were you hypnotized or not?" "Well, I don't think I was but the hypnotist said I was." "I don't care what the hypnotist said, you should know. Did he lock your eyelids closed?" "Nope!" "Well then, you weren't hypnotized. How much did that cost you?" "Fifty dollars." "You didn't make another appointment, did you?" "No!" One of the measurements of your effectiveness is how many clients return after the first session. The first session is the one where they should be convinced and the rapport developed, so that the therapy is ready to begin. It is costs you a certain amount of time, energy and money, to bring that client into your office. If you only get paid for a single session, I doubt if you can recover the amount that it cost you to get the client into the office.

Open the yellow pages for any large city and start calling the hypnotists' listings. From thirty to fifty percent of those listed are out of business. This happens because they place their ad five or six months before the directory comes out, and less than a year from ordering the ad they are no longer in business. Clients fail to return because they were left with the feeling that they were not hypnotized. I met with a group of hypnotists at the Hilton Hotel in Baltimore and one of them said to me, "I really confuse them, when they walk out of my place they do not know if they have been hypnotized. I tell them that is part of the mental confusion process."

I thought to myself, "At least he has found a way to put a positive view on his ineffectiveness." But, it still costs him money every day. Over the years that I have been in this work and heard these many stories, the question arises, why are the hypnotists losing these clients. What is it that they are failing to do? They are failing to test the subject to bring to the conscious mind the realization of the trance state. They don't test because they are afraid that the client will not respond in the way that the hypnotist believes appropriate and if they fail to respond, what will he do then? Suppose he tells them that their eyelids are locked closed and they open them. He's afraid that they will say "Hey, Charlie, you did not hypnotize me, you had better give me my money back." That is not the way it works out, but that is the basis for the fear. You can't be successful in any line of endeavor when you operate from a background of fear. You must always operate from a background of feelings of competence. You will experience emotional and psychic burnout because your fear and anxiety will literally consume you.