Everyday a person has countless thoughts that may range from profound to (mostly) mundane. Which ones a person focuses on, which ones are absorbed as true, can generate symptoms or conversely, can generate healthy choices. Whether suggestions come from ourselves or from another, they can be used to be helpful or may cause harm. Therefore, hypnosis is not innately a good thing.

It is not hypnosis that causes harm, but rather the difficulties to effectively guide the client, or a careless suggestion (Kluft, 2017; Lynn et al, 2010). Just like in dentistry, it is not dentistry that is dangerous, but a poor dentist is.

In the clinical context, the clinician is able to use her/his skills in communication to form suggestions that are relevant and potentially helpful. This may make the suggestions more acceptable to the client, but there is no control over the client other than the control the client gives to the clinician. A clinician can’t make someone focus, relax, or accept a suggestion he/she isn’t inclined to do.

This suggest that hypnosis is some type of programing that the client is not aware of. This “below the radar” is a big misbelief and reinforces the “scary” thought that the hypnotist has the power to control the client. Neuroscience demonstrate clearly, that when people are in a hypnotic state, they hear the suggestions. It is important to remember that hypnosis does not “bypass” critical thinking, but it does encourage responses on levels of experience that critical thinking alone can’t produce.

Hypnosis is not sleep. Successfully observed from the outside, someone in hypnosis may physically resemble someone who is asleep, usually because their eyes are closed, and they have little if any movement. However, from a neuroscientific standpoint, as well from client reports, the client is focused, conscious, and alert (Brarbasz & Barabasz, 2008)

Hypnosis goes well beyond relaxation alone both in structure and intent. Must someone be relaxed, sitting with eyes closed in order for hypnosis to occur? No, consider the phenomenon called “alert hypnosis,” or what some call “waking hypnosis” (Banyai, Zsensi, & Truy, 1993; Capafons & Mendoza, 2010; Wake, 1998, 2011, 2015). Hypnosis does occur spontaneously while conversing, reading, and in countless other ways were one’s attention is focused. Conversational hypnosis does not require the client to be relaxed…just focused. When an individual is “glued” to or absorbed to a wonderful mystery, relaxation is usually not found. Relaxation may make it easier to enlist cooperation on the part o the client since there may be an expectation on the clients part that this be a part of the process. Relaxation may highlight the subjective differences between the experience of hypnosis and the usual “waking” state, helping to highlight to the client that she/he. In fact, experienced an altered state of consciousness that once again fits the clients expectations (Lynn, Maxwell, &Green, 2017; sabrin,1997).

One of the few things that all hypnosis experts seem to agree upon is that people differ in their capacities to be hypnotized. Hypnotic capacities range from “low hypnotizables” to “high hypnotizables.” The debate in the field lies in the possible reasons why some people find it difficult to experience hypnosis. Possibilities are inherent limitations (possible neurological) or the procedure the therapist used somehow missed the mark. If someone finds it difficult to be hypnotized, they should not be viewed as “resistant” to therapy.

The language should be flipped. Anyone who has the ability to focus, should be looked at as a strength. The willingness to spend quite time to explore, discover, and develop one’s personal resources might be considered a major strength. Being open to establish a therapeutic relationship…a strength. Bottom line, if someone says “Oh, I don’t think I can be hypnotized because I am strong willed” isn’t very flattering.

One of the primary sources of this misconception is the stage hypnotist’s who use “cues” etc. to quickly (one word) put the subject into hypnosis. Thus, the belief is that the hypnotist controls the will of his/her client and forever is at the hypnotist’s mercy. Nothing is further from the truth. Even the most responsive clients can refuse to follow the suggestions of a clinician if they so choose. Even the “rapid induction signal” is only effective when the client chooses to respond to it.

Historically, this issue appears to be among the most debated in the entire field. It appears the debate is around the issue of free will, personal responsibility for one’s actions, boundaries in the therapeutic relationship, the potential for abuse of one’s position. In theory the clinician offers entirely benevolent suggestions that the client can freely accept of reject. In practice, however, this appears to far simplistic given what we know about the phenomenon of iatrogenesis (client symptoms either caused or aggravated by treatment), the exportation of naïve or vulnerable clients, and the hazards of working with people who are sometimes psychologically quit disturbed. The bottom line, the capacity to influence people to do things against their will exists. However, the circumstances in clinical contexts where cooperation is emphasized rather than coercion, it would be rare for untoward influences to be implemented.

The physical experience of hypnosis is one of slowing the physiological functions (breathing, heart rate, etc.) which are considered to be healthy responses. It helps to show the client the ability to “Self-control” that one can attain.

Clinicians should know that the ultimate goal of reasonable therapeutic treatment is to help the client establish self-reliance and independence when ever possible. Hypnosis, when use properly, helps the client in distress discover, develop, and use their own strengths and resources. Teaching self-hypnosis to clients one works with is a good way to promote greater self-reliance (Lynn, Matthews, Fraioli, Rhue, & Mellinger, 2006). It’s a way of helping to ensure that your clients can continue work independtly and grow without the therapist.

A source of this misconception is the frequent occasion where a clinician has given suggestions to the client to come out or end the hypnotic experience, yet the client remains in hypnosis. In these cases the client is not stuck in hypnosis, but rather chooses not to terminate the experience. The experience of hypnosis is controlled by the client who can initiate or terminate the experience as she/he chooses.

For as long as one’s attention is directed in an absorbing way and responsive to suggestions to alter one’s experience in a somewhat meaningful way, one can reasonably be said to be in a stage of hypnosis. It should be remembered that one does not have to be in a formal setting of hypnosis in order for this to occur.

For some clinicians, hypnosis is integrated with cognitive-behavioral approaches, for others it may be integrated with psychodynamic approaches. For some it is integrated with a mind-body approach and for others it is integrated with a preventative approach. There are nearly as many approaches as there are clinicians.

Research has made it very clear that the mind does not take in an experience and store it in exact for for accurate recall later (Dasse, Elkins, & Weaver 2015b; Mazzoni, Heap, an Scoboria, 2010;Wester & Hammond, 2011; Yapko, 1993a, 1994a, 1994b, 2018). Research on memory shows that memories are stored on the basis of perceptions and so are subject to the same potential distortions as other perceptual process (visual/auditory). Memory simply put is not reliable, if one is looking for the truth (Loftus, 2017; Sheehan,1995). The questions often asked…can memory be considered to be more reliable because it was obtained through hypnosis and can it be used to uncover the truth of what actually happened in someone’s past? The answer to these two critically important questions is defiantly no (Loftus, 2017; Loftus & Greenspan, 2017). Hypnosis does not increase the probability of accurate recall and may even decrease it.

* Trancework (An Introduction to the Practice of Clinical Hypnosis. M.D. Yapko. 5th Edition, Routledge NY, 2019,