Yes I know that is NOT going to make me popular with the orthodox hypnosis community, but I can tell you from first hand experience that many people out there doing trainings, and creating hypnosis products…HAVE NEVER USED Their training professionally,
I know of probably hundreds of people each year who go through practitioner, masters and trainers training all in the space of several weeks and come out trying to bill themselves a an expert in hypnosis and NLP.
( a lot of these people actually wind up coming through my personal mentoring program because they realize very quickly that they don’t actually “know” anything and can “do” even less.
That realization really bothers them because their so-called trainer made them think they would be the next “Milton Erickson” or “Richard Bandler.” )
#2 Bad State Control:
State Control is the #1 area where I see the biggest difference in a persons ability to put someone in trance. Simply put, in order to put someone in trance, you need to be able to go into trance yourself and the person you are hypnotizing has to be willing to follow you into trance either by assent or by acquiescence.
Remember the working definition of trance has two components
A. Absorption into the experience combined with B. A Continually Narrowing focus of attention.
In an orthodox hypnosis sense you also need assent, we call that the overt hypnotic contract.
In a Covert Hypnosis context you need acquiescence which is an implied form of the hypnotic contract.
If you have never heard the term hypnotic contract before, return all of your hypnosis courses and get your money back because someone is NOT giving you the right information to get good fast.
#3 Poor Calibration Skills
Poor calibration skills comes in two flavors. Yours and Theirs.
For this one we need to elaborate a bit and actually clarify some terms. Specifically – Calibration, Sensory Acuity,First things first,
Calibration is the ability to determine the meaning of a specific piece of data based on its deviation from a pre-determined baseline. Okay so what does that mean in plain English.
The only way you can measure a change is to know its starting point first. and then, based on the number of times that change occurs and how strongly that change occurs relative to other “markers” is what allows you to begin to figure out exactly what that “change” actually means.
For example, a very reliable body language cue I teach my students is pupil dilation calibration. What so special about this particular cue?
Everything.
A. Its easy to see change.
B, it can’t be faked,
C. it works the same on every human on the planet.
D. Its cross contextually useful - meaning it gives you very valuable information no matter where you are using it.The principle is simple – The smaller the size of the pupil, the less positive they find what they are experiencing. The larger the pupil size The more they like what they are experiencing.
Here’s the rub, how do you tell if the pupil is larger or smaller?
You have to have something to compare it to do you not? That initial measurement is called a “Baseline” and it’s the baseline that allows us to measure a degree of change that eventually allows us to determine exactly “What That Change Actually Means”
The way we begin to take those measurements is through Sensory Acuity.
Sensory acuity is an art form in and of itself. It’s the ability to use your five senses to perceive and become aware of ever finer degrees of change in the way people behave.
Behavior can mean body language, facial gestures, involuntary responses and much much more.
Sensory acuity applies to “anything that can be perceived by the five senses.
So David, how does this apply to the whole Yours and Theirs statement you made earlier?
Well, most people have practically zero calibration skills and only marginal sensory acuity. and to make things worse…
Most hypnotists don’t even know what to look for to determine if the subject is actually in trance or not.
Trance Leaves Clues. There are in fact some very powerful physiological shifts that manifest as a person goes into a trance state.
Most hypnotists I have met who are “classically trained” don’t know what those traits are and even fewer can calibrate a conversationally induced trance at all. They do have some differences.
Most people think that relaxation is equal to hypnosis and therefore they calibrate relaxation as depth of trance. That is a very bad way to do or even attempt trance work.
Rather you should be calibrating for absorption and focus of attention while guiding them through the hypnotic process.
#4 Bad Technique
This is where we see one of the biggest problems with new hypnotists.
Bad technique of course falls into several subcategories.
The first one being more focused on the patter than on the subject.We see this most commonly in what we call the Scriptnosis Vs Hypnosis category.
Scriptnosis is when the hypnotist is so focused on reading the words in his hypnosis script that he pays little or no attention to the client in front of him or her.
When a hypnotists is o focused on following a script or a recipe for a particular hypnotic process they often miss the all-important non-verbal, other- than-conscious, signals that allow him or her to really guide the client through the change you are working to achieve.
Lets face it. If you are paying attention to the words on the page you are NOT paying attention to the person in front of you.
So much for sensory acuity.
This is also where many hypnotists start to buy into the concept or resistance.
Resistance is usually created when the subject perceives a lack of connection and or mistrust between themselves and the hypnotist.
This condition is made even worse when something in the hypnotists methodology is in conflict with some element within the clients unconscious mind, and, because of an inability to detect the very obvious cues when these things happen. The “Resistance” only increases.
There are many other examples of “poor technique” that I could give. The above is just one of the most common.
In hypnosis, like many other disciplines, you don’t necessarily rise to the occasion as much as you Fall to the Level of Your Training.
Speaking of Training… did you know I will be hosting a FREE Teleclass on Wednesday August 3rd, 2011? During that FREE Tele-class I will be covering Hypnotic Attraction Secrets – The Three Magic Questions How to get inside someones head and create an deep hypnotic attraction in 20 minutes or less. and the second segment will be “Hypnotic HotSeats where I answer your most important questions about hypnosis live on the call.
We only have about 57 lines available. If you haven’t rsvped for the call you need to go here right now and fill out the registration for the call. This thing is already filing up fast. go here