Sometimes I have people who call me because they want me to help “hypnotise” them into changing. But does everyone who I work with need hypnotherapy?

Here’s the thing… many people when they first get in touch essentially want me to “swing a pocket watch” and “zap them into changing” with my “magical hypnosis powers”

Please note – this is hypnosis doesn’t really work this way (for more information on how it works and what it is check out my article on “does hypnotherapy really work?”)

However, there have been times when people have contacted me with this mindset and I’ve been the first to tell them “I don’t think you need hypnotherapy.”

So why and when would I say this? (Especially when other ‘hypnotherapists’ might accept them as clients).

 

 

Hypnotherapy or just a practical solution?

Let me give you an example about a young lad. 15 years of age who ended up sitting opposite me claiming, “I need more motivation and discipline to study for my exams”.

Well surely this would be a simple case of “hypnotising” him and suggesting “untold amounts of motivation” whenever he wants to study? Surely that would do the trick?

So why on earth didn’t I do “hypnosis” with this and why were the results outstanding nonetheless?

I asked him, “what stops you from just getting on with your work?”

He replied that he felt, “overwhelmed” and that he’d “never be able to cover it all”. He exclaimed that there was an “infinite amount of work to cover before his exams so there was no way he would get it done.”

Stop and think about that for a second. How could it be an “infinite” amount of work?

Surely there could literally only be a finite number of themes, ideas, concepts to cover that could come up.

So I asked him an obvious question.

“When is your exam and have you got a revision / learning plan?”

He said it’s in 3 months and “no I don’t have a plan, but there is a lot to do.”

So instead of doing hypnotherapy, I spent the next hour and half helping him to make a decent revision plan.

He had 12 weeks to go and we worked out if he studies for just 2 hours, 6 days a week, that would give him 144 hours of study. He worked out how many topics and themes he had to cover and an estimation of how long it would take to cover each topic.

And lo and behold he realised that if he stuck to this plan he would finish every topic in 9 weeks and would have 3 weeks to re-cover anything else he wanted.

Suddenly he didn’t feel overwhelmed. He could do just 2 hours a day and know he was on track. Result!

But would hypnotherapy have worked?

However what would have happened if I had succommed to his request that he “needed hypnotherapy”. And if we hadn’t put that plan in place and had simply set about “hypnotising” him to feel motivation?

I strongly suspect that even if it had worked initially the motivation wouldn’t have really lasted whilst ever he deep down had no idea if he was covering the “infinite” amount of work he percieved there to be. Would he have had a clear structure to work through?

Sometimes people call me wanting to be “hypnotised” for me to just “fix the problem” but sometimes what they need is just some practical “action taking” focus instead.

Hypnosis won’t magic a revision timetable that relieves overwhelm BUT actually methodically taking a few practical steps of planning will.

When people come to me asking for help I often have this story in the back of my mind which reminds me to ask myself the following questions when working with people?

  • Can I help them?
  • Do they actually need hypnosis?
  • Are they hypnotising themselves into believing something can’t be done and I need to help them de-hypnotise themselves out of that thought?
  • OR is there a simple pragmatic solution to all this that so obvious it hasn’t been seen yet.

#hypnosis #hypnotherapy #rapidchangeworks #getstuffdone #practicalsolutions

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