On more than one occasion now, I have joked about how so many hypnotherapists affect a ‘hypnosis voice’ and turn into a DJ on Hush FM when they use hypnosis… “And a big hello to all you truckers out there…”

I think this gentleness tends to work its way in to the general behaviour and attitude of practicing hypnotherapists too. Often, hypnotherapists tend to be incredibly passive and gentle and there is a place for that and it is a lovely way to be at times.

At other times though, we need to demonstrate some emotive influence, don’t we? Rather than fearing being too maverick, why don’t more hypnotherapists ‘give it some welly’ from time to time?

For example, a little while ago I watched a live training demonstration by an NLP trainer running a collapsing anchors process with a client. He set up an anchor for the negative feeling, then set up and anchor for the new positive feeling which was supposed to overpower the negative one when both anchors were fired off at the same time… The negative feeling was one that the client had endured for a long time and really affected the client’s life greatly. The positive anchor set up started with the words “imagine relaxing on a beach… You are feeling nice…”

What, what, what??!! “Nice“???

This drove me mad to watch… I struggled to restrain myself…

Oh yes, load up a bunch of “niceness” that’ll help overcome some hardcore life challenge… I would not use the technique with the presenting issue, but heck, it was a training and was showing how to use a particular technique that this person had volunteered to be the demo for…

This is not my point., My point is that the guy should have gone for some proper, full-on highly emotive positive states to anchor and snapped out of being “nice” and gentle and soft and fluffy for a while eliciting that state. He could have been more uplifting, dynamic, and engaging… Not behaving as if he was bidding good evening to lorry drivers at 3am on some obscure radio station!

So if we look at one of our hypnosis 101 basics… The law of dominant effect, it is fairly straight forward and states that; when you have two conflicting emotions, the stronger of the two will prevail.

When you are delivering hypnotic messages, suggestions, or therapeutic interventions to someone while they are receptive to you, the more that you can attach them to strong emotions, the more effective your message, suggestion or intervention can become. Do you think something “nice” delivers much impact?

This is true in all kinds of therapeutic circumstances. If a client is more emotionally engaged with not doing as you suggest, so if they have more motivation not to follow what you have said, then your messages and influence may not be effective. When you mean what you say, when you engage with it and it is obvious, then they tend to come on board with that too.

Get comfortable with giving it some welly from time to time and not being so fluffy and delicate… I am not suggesting that you shout and rant and turn obnoxious in any way. You can be loving and motivating, you can be gentle and motivating, you just need to have some balls sometimes and get involved emotively rather than tip-toe-ing around in a fragile manner.

You see barristers and attorneys in real-life (and on the television court room dramas) situations being emotive with the jury to sway them their way, often attaching that emotion to some of the points they made in their case.

Every now and then, as a hypnotherapist, how about stirring the emotions of a client and attaching your suggestions to them, getting them driven and motivated and assured of what they are doing?

it is not exclusive to motivation of course, there are no limits to how to use the emotive nature of your delivery from time to time, in an appropriate way in the hypnotherapy consulting rooms.  Go on, go for it… Step out of those shackles every now and then!

Ok, I feel better for that… Got if off my chest…