It is natural for a human to rely upon his inherent defenses of pushing away with the hands or walking away with the feet when confronted with a threatening situation. Being spotlighted in the presence of an audience is threatening for most people. When we do not have our natural defenses to draw upon, we succumb and play dead, drawing upon the mercy of our attacker.
The stage hypnotist is the attacker in this case as he has asked the subject to close his eyes. Our vision is our first line of defense. Next, asks that we go limp and allow our arms to dangle. This disengages the fight instinct. Then he asks us to extend our legs and allow them to be limp. We cannot jump up from our seats and walk away when our legs are extended. This disengages the flight instinct. The subject can either open his eyes, pull his legs in and engage his arms so that he can rise and leave or turn his power over himself to the hypnotist. If he chooses to leave, he risks the rejection and disappointment of the audience. This is why stage subjects allow themselves to be engaged in the agenda of the hypnotist and to perform humiliating acts. This being said, it is great entertainment and the more you know about hypnosis, the funnier the show!
This is not Ericksonian hypnosis though. Instead, you will be asked to speak about why you have sought out hypnosis and what you expect to achieve when the hypnosis has succeeded. During this intake, Stephanie carefully listens to what your subconscious mind is revealing. Sometimes it is as simple as the client shaking his head while stating that he wants to quit smoking. The subconscious mind is clearing saying, "no I don't."
The mind is always seeking to heal itself, and when given a golden opportunity such as a hypnotherapy session, it is quick to reveal what it needs provided the hypnotherapist is listening. Interestingly enough, the solution to our problem always lies within the problem itself. For instance, say a client comes in for hypnotherapy for procrastination. Procrastination is frequently, not always, but often a symptom of resentment to being told what to do. It usually begun as a pattern of behavior in childhood in rebellion to being told what to do by a parent who did not consider the real needs or feelings of the child. That resentment has been locked away in the subconscious and the client acts out like the child he was when the original offense happened with the only power he was allowed at the time: to be slow and unfocused. This generally caused the parents lots of frustration to the point where they had to eventually check in to see what the problem was. So the behavior was perceived by the child as a means to obtain the needed end result: attention.
It doesn't matter that now the behavior is in his way and sabotaging his life. The subconscious reads the emotion of the situation and the emotion is generally stronger in childhood because we lack the experience to understand our parents judgments, attitudes, and actions toward us. Since the original experience, the subconscious mind continues to identify similar threatening situations and to add those to the memory banks, which reinforces the emotional response to being told what to do. Since that pain is stronger than the pain of being late or not getting things done, the adult continues to act out the childhood response.
The solution is in the problem. The hypnotherapist needs to offer the subconscious mind of the client a new rebellion that carries more emotional charge than the procrastination. The old rebellious behavior of procrastination can be transformed into a new rebellious behavior. This is behavior modification therapy. The new rebellious behavior will channel the old rage from childhood into something that is constructive for the client as an adult, such as a demand that he have all the time he needs to feel good.
In a trance state, the client learns that it is being deprived or denied something that makes him feel better than getting mom's and dad's attention. He comprehends that his mom and dad are still depriving him of the choice to do what he wants in that his decisions are based on wanting to upset them. Now it can be suggested that this makes him really angry and determined to not lose another minute of his life trying to get his parents to fulfill his needs or understand his feelings, but instead to empower himself with all that energy. It is further suggested that in this time of clarity he can become very focused on what his true priorities are and feel completely energized and excited about getting started and completing his real goals.
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