A little help

Something that I have been aware of for some time but I don't think I've truly appreciated until recently has been the considerable potential for hypnosis to help others. Given the enormous amounts of fun that I have been able to have sharing hypnosis with people it's quite easy to neglect this other, just as important, aspect to it.

The first instance of my using hypnosis for anything other than entertainment was back in December when a friend of mine asked me if I could have a go at curing her phobia of heights. Now I'll grant that offering to help with a phobia is a wonderful way in which to entice someone into trying some other more fun aspects of hypnosis, but of course it does feel really good to make a real positive difference to their life.

In the case of my friend I used the Rossi style technique that is outlined in Reality is Plastic and despite its amazing simplicity it seemed to make a real difference. It didn't make the phobia go away, but my friend did comment that she felt a significant improvement. In truth I feel I made a bit of a hash of the procedure, with it being the first time I'd used it, and I'm hoping to catch up with her again in the coming months and see if I can finish the job.

Another way I've found of helping people has been through metaphors. I have a friend who really doesn't respond at all to the more direct methods I've used but she goes out like a light if I use an indirect approach. In this case instance a detailed description of a pleasant scene involving all the senses works incredibly well, and I was able to use a similar approach to help her deal with a stressful time in her studies.

One session I did with this person involved my telling a story and leading her imagination on a journey. It started with us on a sailing ship coming into a calm harbour leaving the stormy seas behind. Then we went for a walk from the harbour up a valley and into the mountains, climbing toward a mountain pass, it was hard work but we could always stop to turn and admire the view behind and feel good about how far we'd climbed. At one point we could see that there was a large boulder ahead that had fallen across the path, but that was okay because we knew that we would be able to get around it when we reached it so there was no need to worry. Then we reached the pass itself and of course it was downhill all the way from there.

The metaphors there are of course blindingly obvious and almost cliché, but that really doesn't matter; the feedback I got several days later was very positive.

There is of course something else that I'm sorry to say I overlooked to start off with, and that's the act of doing a positive wakeup. Granted I've always removed any suggestions such as "sleep!" that I've given to people in my wakeup, but it's only recently that I've started making a point of really emphasising the point that my subject will feel really good when they come out of hypnosis and enjoy the rest of their day/evening. The effects of this are very real to the subject and it costs nothing at all so I strongly recommend that anybody else learning hypnosis considers just taking those extra 30 seconds to give their subject that lingering good feeling.

Hypnosis really is a powerful tool for helping people and I think it should be used as such werever possible.