Hypnotherapy not working?

What are the most common reasons for hypnotherapy not working?

This is an important question, because you could waste a lot of time and money if hypnotherapy is never going to work for you.  

On the other hand, you’d be losing even more if one unskilled hypnotherapist put you off a therapy that could have helped you if you’d seen someone more effective.

There’s a lot of misconceptions about reasons for hypnotherapy not working.

“I’m too strong-willed to be hypnotised.”

Some people, usually men, think they’re “too strong-willed to be hypnotised.”

This is a comforting belief- most people would rather be strong than weak, but it’s actually nonsense.

Very strong-willed people can experience hypnosis the same as anybody else, so long as they are not deliberately resisting.

Hypnosis is not arm-wrestling.

A good hypnotist isn’t trying to control or dominate their client.

They are working WITH the client to enable him or her to use their own mental powers more effectively.

In any case, if someone’s really that strong-willed, why can’t they just use their willpower to eliminate their problem?

“I’m afraid of going under.”

This is a more genuine reason for hypnotherapy not working, but again it’s based on incorrect ideas.

This fear can arise if you think that hypnosis is like a general anaesthetic.

But hypnosis and anaesthesia are very different experiences.

When you’re anaesthetised by gas or an injection, you lose consciousness completely and nothing you do can keep you awake.

When you’re hypnotised you’re still fully conscious.

It’s true that your conscious mind may drift off and not remember what was said to you while you were in trance.

But on a deeper level you are still listening, and you could pull yourself out of trance at any time if you wanted to or needed to.

Some clients will be happy to experience deep trance on their first session, while others may need a slower and gentler approach, especially if there’s a history of abuse or other victimisation.

A good hypnotherapist will begin with an informal conversation, in which they can assess what depth of trance their client will feel comfortable with.

“He was a bit creepy.”

If you just don’t feel comfortable with the hypnotherapist, for whatever reason, then you probably won’t be able to go into trance.

That’s good- it means that a part of your subconscious mind is looking after you, and should always pay attention to those inner warnings.

Fortunately even the less competent hypnotherapists are generally well-meaning people, so the therapist being creepy or scary is not a common reason for hypnotherapy not working.

“She was just talking at me.”

When I see a client who’s been to other hypnotherapists before but isn’t sure if they were really hypnotised, I ask them “did you feel any different when you were supposed to be in trance, or was it more like if you just shut your eyes now while I’m talking to you?”

If it was just like sitting with their eyes closed, then they were not in trance.

This often happens when the hypnotherapist has just been reciting from a script, word for word, rather than forming a real connection with the individual client as in a normal conversation.

But if the client says to me, “I don’t think I was in trace because I was still conscious, I could have moved or opened my eyes, I still heard every word,” then this means they had a wrong idea about hypnosis.

As I said already, even in deep trance you can still hear and you can still move- you probably won’t want to move, but that’s because you feel so comfortable!

Click HERE to read about the experience of real hypnotic trance.

“I’m just not receptive.”

If you look up “hypnotisability” on Google or Wikipedia it will tell you that a minority of people are very hypnotisable, and a minority are not hypnotisable, while most people are somewhere in between.

Just like height- a few people are very short and a few are very tall, but most are in between.

But hypnosis can’t be measured with a ruler!

If you’re 2 metres tall, then you’re always that height, whoever is measuring you, and whichever ruler they are measuring with.

But every hypnotherapist is a different human being, often using different methods, and some are more skilled and experienced than others.

When I started doing hypnosis over 30 years ago, I saw a lot more people who could not be hypnotised, whereas now it’s very rare for this to happen.

The human brain hasn’t changed- it’s just that I’ve got more experience and learned different methods.

The scientific research on hypnotisability is interesting, but it’s not so relevant to real life because the scientists just had people listen to an audio recording, the same for every person.

This is quite different from seeing a hypnotherapist who would adapt their methods to each individual, watching all the time how they respond.

“It felt nice but nothing changed.”

Hypnosis is not the same as hypnotherapy.

Hypnotic trance is like a tool for doing hypnotherapy.

Having a saw doesn’t make you a carpenter, and having a screwdriver doesn’t make you an electrician.

In the same way, an effective hypnotherapist not only guides you into trance, but also uses the different powers of hypnosis to help you change your thoughts, emotions and behaviours.