28/08/2025
Hypnotherapy is often open to misinterpretation due to its inaccurate portrayal in the media, not to mention confusion with stage hypnosis. So let’s explode some of the myths:
You’re no longer in control – yes you are! If I could control minds, I’d be changing the world and earning a fortune. However, hypnotherapy does help you to gain better control over your own mind.
You can be compelled to do things you wouldn’t normally do – it may seem like you can, given the daft acts performed by “victims” of stage hypnotists, but this is simply not true. Stage hypnotists select their volunteers carefully, usually people who are very open to suggestion and who can’t wait to get up and make fools of themselves for the purposes of entertainment.
You could get stuck in trance – not true. You remain in control and you can “come back” at any time.
It’s a quick fix – Solution Focused Hypnotherapy does tend to work more quickly than other forms of therapy, that’s true, but it’s not like waving a magic wand. Most clients tend to need a number of sessions to make progress.
It can help you recover lost memories – the accuracy of memory recall is subject to many factors and there is no scientific evidence to show that hypnosis is reliable in this regard. Solution Focused Hypnotherapy avoids delving into the past and instead focuses on helping you move forward.
It’s just a form of sleep – hypnosis is a state of deep mental focus and relaxation rather than a loss of concentration. That said, clients do sometimes drift in and out of what feels like sleep.
It takes a highly trained person to induce hypnosis – I guess not, since I learned how to do this on Day 2 of my ten-month, twenty-day training course! However, inducing hypnosis is only one small part of the whole hypnotherapy process, and the therapy part should definitely be delivered by a highly trained person.
It’s all hokum – if that’s what you think, then for you, it probably is, but there is plenty of anecdotal and factual data out there to say otherwise.
