Introduction

Many people find that “talking therapy” has severe limits. They sense that there is something that could heal them that is beyond words and logic. To a large degree the “talking therapies” are concerned with “helping people”. Hypnotherapy, which is experiential, is based on empowerment rather than helping. In a sense the clients do all the growth and learning by themselves and the hypnotherapist’s job is to keep out of the client’s way.

Why Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy is most successful with people who can relax enough to get in touch with their whole and the situations that they are evolving through. It is what the famous hypnotherapist Milton Erickson calls “the great surround”. Most people report a “wholly longing” to be in full touch with their true Self. When a person is trusting enough to break through their fears and connect with their aspirations and dreams they do indeed become very whole and joy-full. The techniques of hypnotherapy are designed to enhance a persons ability to access, maintain and stay in a heightened state of consciousness throughout the hypnosis session and eventually, with practice, throughout each entire day of their lives.

Radical honesty is the keystone of effective hypnotherapy. The hypnotherapist needs to combine his or her own characteristics of honesty, trust – worthiness, loving – kindness, courage and alert sensitivity and to apply them to the challenging situations that the client is experiencing in their everyday life. The client needs to trust in the hypnotherapeutic process for effective healing to take place.

Many people have abrogated response – ability for their actions and for the situations that they find themselves in. They do not apply the expression, “If it is happening to me, then it is about me.”, to themselves. They do not look at each event in their day as a their own response – ability. They are fragmented or dis – membered within themselves and/or within their “great surround”.

Coming Home

With the advent of self-conciousness (as in the Garden of Eden) it became very easy to get out of touch with oneself (often called sin). What seems to be required is the ability to meaningfully incorporate self – consciousness into an integrated experience of the whole present tense that one is involved in. Acceptance of each and every part of that presence is essential for wholeness. People who access this level of presence report feelings of elation and self – love. They also feel that their heart and their mind and their body are all connected and acting in synchronization. The Buddhists have a word for this state. It is called “metta”. Metta is an all – encompassing compassion for all others, for Self, for all animals, for all plants, for all entities, etc.

Practicing Presence

One very powerful technique for accessing this high level of presence with regard to a challenge or dilemma that one is facing is as follows:

Becoming very, very calm.

Holding this calmness for a very long time.

Re – crafting the familiar way of dealing with the challenge

By practising the above technique, and several other techniques of hypnotherapy (guided imagery, applied meditation, concentration, contemplation, fusion, focusing, suggestion, relaxation, breathing, etc.) a client can become completely re – membered. The following poem, “Remember?”, by Mel Bucholtz (who is an Erickson hypnotherapist) encapsulates the essence of the incredible feeling of presence that envelopes a person when they are completely re – membering their whole life experience.

Re-member?

Remember?

The purpose of remember
is to remind.
The purpose of imagination
provides image.
The purpose of the dream
provides the drama.

Between these worlds
swings the pendulum curiosity,
tolling
“I wonder”,
“I wonder”.

Wondering is the first song – whisper
of me,
the original breath of feeling
I step into
for form,
announcing my presence.

Remember is a road
leading to
and coming from home,

as the heart blossoms its rose wings wide,
with each returning,
each departure.
– Mel Bucholtz