Last updated: 9 June 2015
What if you could help other people overcome their fears using just hypnosis?
It’s possible, you know.
After all, if you can hypnotize somebody so that they cannot see a person standing right in front of them.
…then why can’t they also be hypnotized to no longer “see” their fears?
If you are like me, then you are most fascinated by those stories in which something amazing happens like…
A person disappears from the room, then reappears.
A person undergoes a major surgical operation without any anesthetic.
A subject follows the instructions of a hypnotist – yet doesn’t remember doing anything when he comes out of trance.
These are fascinating things to witness.
Yet it’s the use of hypnosis to help a person overcome a fear or phobia or addiction that is truly useful and beneficial.
Or to help a person solve a difficult problem… overcome some emotional trauma… or find meaning and happiness where none could be found before.
You see, hypnosis is not just about impressing an audience – of course that is very important in establishing the BELIEF in the power of hypnosis – it’s also about helping people and being a positive force for change.
Ask yourself: How can I better use my hypnotic skills to help people?
The answer to that question may lead you to some interesting (and rewarding) experiences.
Hi Deborah,
Wow, thank you for sharing your experience with us! We wish you all the best in your hypnosis journey!
I’ve only been asked twice to hypnotize someone for fear, but this was not the problem that they each identified when they asked me to hypnotize them. But the problem was fear, so I will share with you what I did. Both cases were last week and my hypnosis lasted an hour each, so I cannot remember nor do I want to type everything I said, but I think I can remember a summary.
Case number one asked for help with insomnia and to feel more energized. I started with chit chat where he talked about his horses, his past vacations following the Lewis and Clark expedition trail on horseback, how he likes attending mountain man jamborees where everyone dresses and camps as if it is the year 1807, how he likes reading real mountain man histories such as Lewis and Clark, and he showed me a wonderful huge history book of his about an American Indian tribe and Wounded Knee. He discussed Indian clothing and I noticed he was wearing a coat indoors and he said it’s because he’s been feeling unusually cold lately, just can’t seem to get warm. Then talking to him further I learned he had recently seen a doctor for sudden onset of extreme fatigue with no explanation. Tests were done and he had just learned that he has a very fast growing tumor which was to be operated on the following day. The doctors had told him they think the tumor is cancer and that’s why he’s been so tired, because the tumor is sucking all his nutrients from the food he eats. This guy is a man’s man mountain man veteran of the Special Forces military and he didn’t tell me he was afraid this tumor and cancer until I had established rapport with him. I used the hand drop instant induction. He went immediately into trance. I did some hand drop deepeners along with linguistic deepeners. Then I told him to find his happy place from his memory and describe it to me while remaining in trance. It was a meadow in Montana surrounded by miles of wild forest and he was there alone but for horses. I asked him to describe the meadow to me and changed the language syntax to present tense until I could see he was very relaxed and in a good state of mind. Then I was just wondering what to do next when for the first time I noticed that his coat had opened up a bit and now I could see his black washed too often t-shirt with a picture of a pack of wolves on the front, barely able to make it out in the darkened room because it was black and had been washed so often already. And right then and there I felt this warmth in my heart with inspiration about a story and I began to tell a story about a pack of wild wolves that lives in the forest surrounding his meadow. They are strong and fierce and he knows the job of the wolves is, like it says in the movie “Never Cry Wolf”, to keep the herds of animals healthy by only chasing and eating the sick or fatally wounded amongst the herd and so his immune system is now like this pack of wolves, fiercely hunting and devouring only the sick or damaged cells of his body so he can be strong. And I made him a blood brother to the wolves as they hunt through his blood for the sick cells at night, because wolves hunt at night, and so he can sleep peacefully in the meadow while they hunt at night because he is blood brother to the pack now and so they watch over him while he sleeps and keep him safe. And there is a nice campfire in the meadow keeping him warm and there is nothing to fear now because he is now one with the pack and the wolves are watching over him, devouring the sick cells from the herd of his body so the herd can be strong and he can be strong and soon finish his Lewis and Clark expedition (he had expressed frustration when showing me the map of the Lewis and Clark expedition prior to hypnosis, that he never traveled fast enough to get to the ocean on time when performing his own expedition according to the Lewis and Clark journal entries). I spent the next hour giving those kinds of suggestions 21 times each, all related to the wolves. I can’t remember exactly what I said so don’t nitpick my wording here, but these things were what I remember being part of it, telling his subconscious mind it controls when he is awake and asleep and controls the immune system and blood flow to create warmth, etc. and knows what to do. Feel how warm the campfire is now, how warm your hands and feet are, etc. When I emerged him the first thing he said was that he knows he was hypnotized, feels very relaxed and warm and asked me if I had some cards so he could refer me to some of his friends. The next day when I called to see how the surgery went I learned that there had been some scheduling mix-up and so he is still waiting for the surgery but is sleeping well and warm.
The other guy asked me to hypnotize him for his hand tremors. Actually his brother whom I had hypnotized earlier had asked me to hypnotize this guy because the brother thinks he has Parkinson’s Disease as the cause of the tremors and wondered if hypnosis could help. I inquired about when the tremors occur and observed them myself and know from my medical background it’s not Parkinson’s Disease but there could be many other causes. He himself thinks it’s just anxiety causing his tremors. “I’ve always been an anxious person” he explained. His hands were trembling as he said it. He constantly spills his drink at meals and everyone pretends to ignore it. I saw it because they invited me to have pie and milk with them just prior to the hypnosis in their home. Very long story short, I’m still working on this hand trembling. It only stops when he’s hypnotized. I’m having difficulty eradicating it when he’s not hypnotized, but I’ve been able to stop it only under hypnosis when I have him in a positive emotion. As I bounced him around to different memories, his hands would be still for a long time when he was in a positive memory or mood and they would immediately start trembling when he was in a fearful memory or mood. I used the technique called emotional bridges. I clearly saw that the tremors are related to fear and stop in the absence of fear. I know it is fear causing the tremors because his subconscious mind told me. After bouncing him around several memories that looked to me the tremor occurred only with negative emotions and goes away in positive emotions, I decided to just ask his subconscious mind what’s going on. So I had him go to a happy place, immersed him in that happy place, assured he had no tremors there, then told him to look around there for some kind of door, tunnel, hole, box, bridge, etc. because it will have something very important to tell him about the cause of his hand tremors now and “raise your finger when you find this door or whatever so I’ll know you found it. When he raised the finger, I asked him what do you see? He saw a window. I told him to go to the window and look through it to see the cause of his hand tremors. In a nutshell, he saw himself in a near-death, near-drowning experience at the age of two. He thinks he was two but he’s not sure. He said it’s his earliest memory and I could not get him to remember anything prior to or anywhere near after this event. He cannot even remember how he got in the lake or how he got out of the lake. This was not an abreaction because he had calm body language and voice while he described the emotions of “fear, suffocation, panic, drowning and near-death experience”. He knew he was at a lake outside Nashville Tennessee and he knew his family was with him but he said he couldn’t see, hear, feel or smell anything because he was “under the water”. I brought him out of this experience to now, and he still was calm, can’t remember anything else consciously about the experience or prior or soon after. (His next memory is much later, being in the hospital with pneumonia.) I asked him if he’d like to go back to coach his two year old self though this experience. “Yes.” I asked what he would like to tell his two year old self. (I’m so glad I asked!) He said he was going to tell him “All the bad things that are going to happen in your life (he is 76 years old now) and advice to get through it.” His hands trembled. No, no, no, no, no. I replied “This is a two year old child who is drowning and afraid for his life. Not a good time to tell him about lots of bad things coming in his future. A two year old wouldn’t understand those things anyway. How about going back to pick him up out of the lake, give him a big hug and tell him you love him and because you are there with him now so everything is going to be okay. He’s going to grow up to be a BIG boy with lots of toys and later be a strong man and be a daddy to his own two year old boy some day? Feel that “pure love that defies all explanation” now that you felt for your own two year old son that day, holding him on your lap. When he felt immersed in that feeling, I sent him back to pull himself out of that lake and give himself a great big hug and tell his two year old self the things I had coached him on. His hands weren’t trembling as he did it. Then I brought him back to now and gave him lots of positive affirmations using as much of his own story and vocabulary as I could, stressing that he has always fulfilled his obligations, did a good job and deserves a good rest now. Then I emerged him and he felt good, relaxed. But although his tremors are less they are still there so there is more work to do.