Central Hypnotherapy

Some people don’t realise they even have a Subconscious mind, let alone understand it!  This is because we were never told or taught anything about it as we were growing up, and being educated.  In fact it would be true to say that we were all raised and educated as if the Subconscious does not exist.

Having said that, I have found that when I explain more about it, clients can easily relate to it because we all have a Subconscious mind, and there are times when we briefly notice its activities too.

The Driving Example

The most common example therapists use to explain this is the driving experience.  At first, driving is stressful and difficult to learn, but once it becomes habitual it is soon effortless, and it becomes quite easy to drive and hold a conversation at the same time – something we would have found almost impossible whilst beginning to learn. 

All habitual drivers will have noticed that there are times when they suddenly realise that they have not being paying any conscious attention to the driving for a while, they were thinking about something else.

What they may not realise is that they had drifted quite naturally into trance, and the Subconscious was handling the driving.  This is why there is no conscious memory of that part of the journey – the conscious mind had in fact wandered off, because it was not required.  Often drivers worry about this, as if they were not paying proper attention, but this is a misunderstanding.  The reality is, a good deal of our everyday behaviour is carried out in that way, ‘on autopilot’ as it were.

Poor Little conscious Mind

Since we have all been raised and educated in an age of Science and Reason, everything we were taught was aimed at the conscious, rational mind – as if it were the be-all and end-all of human intelligence, and the solver of all problems.  This is most unfair on the poor old conscious mind, as it has never been any such thing! 

It takes effort to maintain consciousness, we cannot do it twenty-four hours a day.  As we get to the end of the waking period we notice that conscious thinking is becoming too much of an effort, and recognise that we need to take a break from that, and ‘go to sleep’.

The Subconscious Never Sleeps

When a human being goes to sleep, electrical activity in the brain only reduces by about 12%.  In other words, only about 12% of the mind is involved in consciousness – the other 88% is the Subconscious, and it never needs to sleep.  It just gets on with other things whilst the conscious mind has some time out: directing growth, healing and repair of damaged tissues, fighting off infections… and doing a bit of thinking, too.  This is different from conscious thinking though.  We call it ‘dreaming’ – or if we are not asleep at the time, ‘daydreaming’.  You may have noticed that the conscious mind can be perplexed by the nature of dreams (if it becomes aware of them at all), for it thinks in a different way.

Subconscious Independence

Your Subconscious mind takes care of a lot of things for you, so you don’t have to think about them consciously.  This includes all bodily functions from your heart-rate to the release of hormones and enzymes – all carefully orchestrated by the mind, but of course we never have to think consciously about it.  In fact the conscious mind knows it has no influence over such matters, and does not realise that the Subconscious does.

One of the Subconscious mind’s responsibilities is to look out for behaviour which is repeating in a regular and predictable manner, and take over the running of that for you, so you no longer have to think about it (consciously) in order to do it.  This can happen remarkably quickly, as the Subconscious is very quick on the uptake, and it turns voluntary behaviour into habit with no apparent effort.

This is supposed to be an advantage, as it frees the conscious mind to focus upon other things.  There is only one disadvantage: if the conscious, analytical mind later figures out that there is a problem with that behaviour, the Subconscious doesn’t know about that, and just carries on repeating it.

You may have noticed that all the conscious resolutions in the world don’t seem to change that habitual behaviour – or not permanently – no matter how much ‘willpower’ (conscious effort) you manage to muster!  This is why we have the expression ‘Old habits die hard’, and many people are open to the suggestion that the problem there is a lack of willpower.  It also leads to the common perception that some habits – like smoking, for example – are very difficult problems to crack.  The irony of that is that the Subconscious can change it at the drop of a hat, it’s just that most people don’t know that, so instead of using hypnotherapy to provide the Subconscious with an explanation, they go on and on using methods that rarely work, with little success.

The Role of the Therapist

You cannot tell your own Subconscious mind anything – or at least, not ordinarily.  The Subconscious is simply unaware there is a problem, or that a change would bring advantages.  All the therapist really does is explain all those details to the client’s Subconscious on their behalf, so that it then knows as much about those things as the conscious mind.  It is the Subconscious mind that makes the change happen, so of course the client is astonished by that on a conscious level, because the conscious mind didn’t really do anything.

Subconscious Choice

It is important to recognise that the client’s Subconscious mind is completely independent, and the therapist’s suggestions are only suggestions.  Many people assume – from seeing demonstrations of Stage Hypnosis – that a  hypnotist has some kind of direct influence, but this is not true at all, not even on the stage.  For a fuller explanation of that illusion, see the Stage Hypnosis page – but the bottom line is, those people don’t have to respond to any of those suggestions either, so if they do, they have their own reasons for doing so.  The most common reason is that they want to be the centre of attention and win some applause – but there can be other, less obvious reasons too.  The point is that the Stage Hypnotist controls none of it – he just knows that in any sizeable crowd, there will be a quite a few people that will respond to suggestions to clown around, and that’s all you need for a show.  Then he lets the audience imagine he could get them to respond that way too, by ‘hypnotising’ them!  In truth, that is an illusion in the minds of the audience.  Unless they had a personal desire to play a role in the show, they would not respond that way – even if they were in the deepest trance possible! – because the Subconscious mind does not do what it is told, it does what it likes.

In therapy, there is no need for such illusion, because therapists are not pretending to have direct influence anyway.  Hypnotherapy is just communication, but it goes beyond ordinary communication.  When we are not in trance, the Subconscious is basically ignoring the outside world, leaving it to the conscious mind to deal with all that stuff.  So if you are talking to a person who is not in trance, you are only talking to their conscious mind.  This changes whenever we drift into trance, and the Subconscious mind then takes responsibility for dealing with the outside world as well as the internal world – just like it does when we are carrying out any task ‘on autopilot’. 

This means that if you speak to someone who has dropped into trance  – for whatever purpose: driving, daydreaming, whatever – their Subconscious mind picks up that information.  This does not give you any special influence though, it merely gives you an opportunity to communicate.

Their conscious mind may hear it too, or it may have wandered off sometimes, as in the driving example.  So in the trance part of a hypnotherapy session it really doesn’t matter whether the client is paying conscious attention or not, the Subconscious hears it all anyway.

Information, yes.  Influence, no! 

Obviously, if the therapist had direct influence, every single client would experience immediate success!  The therapist would simply tell their Subconscious to stop eating cream cakes – or whatever – and it would instantly comply because they were ‘hypnotized’.  Fortunately hypnotists have no such direct influence. 

For any suggestion to be acted upon by the Subconscious mind of a client, first of all their Subconscious mind has to hear it, so a trance-state is essential.  But they must also have some personal motivation to respond to that particular suggestion, some reason of their own to find it appealing… otherwise it will be ignored.

The good news is that in therapy, suggestions are rarely ignored, and for a pretty obvious reason.  It is the client that is seeking the change: they decided to use therapy to make it happen, and success is their preferred outcome.  Of course the majority respond positively to the suggestions – it is what they came for!  They just didn’t have any way to present the information to their own Subconscious.  So that is the role of the hypnotherapist: to present the case for change to the client’s Subconscious mind.  It is rather like arguing a case before a judge – I don’t have any power over the judge’s decision, but if I make it a good case, we are very likely to get a ruling in favour of the change.   

If you would like to know if hypnotherapy can help you with something, call me (Chris Holmes) on:
Office: 0161-474-8120 Monday-Friday 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., or call/text 07748 838 644 any day, any time – I’ll be glad to help.

 ABOUT HYPNOSIS (See also Stage Hypnosis)

In a way, there is no such thing as ‘hypnosis’ as it is popularly imagined. The general impression many people have in their minds does not have anything to do with hypnotherapy anyway, it comes from seeing demonstrations of Stage Hypnosis, and drawing all the wrong conclusions!

Stage Hypnosis appears to be a demonstration of one person directly influencing or controlling the behaviour of another, but that is not what is really going on. For a more detailed explanation, read the Stage Hypnosis page on this website, but in a nutshell, the key to understanding Stage Hypnosis is this: the hypnotist has to get the right people up on the stage to begin with, because most people would not respond to those suggestions, however deep in trance they might be.

Who are the right people? Well, the kind of people who want to be in a Stage Hypnosis performance, that’s who! And of course that rules out most of the audience immediately, because they don’t. Right from the start, the Stage Hypnotist understands that most of the people in the audience are no use to him except as an audience. He just doesn’t want them to realise that. This is not because they ‘can’t be hypnotised’ or they are not ‘suggestible’ – we are all capable of responding to suggestion in trance, under the right circumstances. No, it is simply because they don’t want to play the Stage Hypnotist’s game – they have no motivation to respond to those particular suggestions, or even to be on the stage at all.

Would-be Entertainers

Stage Hypnotists simply operate a selection process which sorts the natural performers from the spectator majority, preferably without anyone in the audience realising the true nature of that process, although a few smart ones will figure it out anyway. So when the behaviour later gets very silly, these sharp observers will correctly guess that the people in the spotlight are really would-be entertainers. No-one else could be bothered to act it up like that, whether they were in trance or not. The truth is, they are not doing those things because they are in hypnosis, but because they like doing things like that, whereas most people would rather die than be seen doing things like that. In fact their fear of being in the spotlight helps to convince Spectators that the hypnotist must surely have those poor people ‘in his power’ if he is able to ‘make’ them humiliate themselves to that degree.

In reality, the hypnotist isn’t commanding anyone – he just makes it look like that, and hopes the audience is imaginative enough to believe he has some sort of mysterious power! He is really just giving the performers cues, and they are only responding in order to win attention and applause. And let’s face it, this is the easiest show in the world to star in, isn’t it? They don’t even have to learn any lines, they are told what to do moment by moment. So if they respond to a suggestion to do something ridiculous to make the audience laugh, and indeed it gets a big laugh – well, now they’re a comedian! Some people can get a bit carried away after that, but you need performers up there, spectators wouldn’t find any of that enjoyable, their responses would be feeble and half-hearted, or they might not respond at all.

Hypnotists do not control people – if we could really do that, we would rule the world, obviously.  And clearly we don’t, proving that stage hypnosis is only an act.  All any sort of hypnotist can ever do is put forward suggestions to the Subconscious mind of another person. This is exactly like presenting a suggestion to the conscious mind: all we know for sure is that it will be considered. We don’t know what the response will be until the person responds. Anyone is free to respond positively or not, depending upon how they personally feel about the idea that has been presented.

The Subconscious Mind Does What it Chooses

The Subconscious mind is not robotic or ‘programmable’. When I address the Subconscious mind of a client, I am not telling it what to do! That would be a very silly approach, and would not be likely to lead to success. No, I am negotiating. Just as the Stage Hypnotist would get nowhere with a person who didn’t have a natural inclination to perform – because the suggestions have to be in line with that person’s true desires or there will be no response – so my suggestions must be in line with the issue the client is there to address, or there will be no response. This remains true no matter how deep in trance you may be, or however relaxed. Whether on stage or in therapy, people only respond to suggestions they personally like the sound of – hypnosis does not alter that fact at all.

The Real Significance of Trance

Trance is a normal state that we drift in and out of quite often during the course of an average day. The thing that surprises everyone when they discover hypnotherapy for themselves is that they feel perfectly normal during the trance part of the session. In reality the only significance of trance is this: when a person is not in trance, their Subconscious is leaving it to the conscious mind to deal with the world around them. Therefore if you are speaking to that person, only their conscious mind will take in the details of what you are saying.

Whenever we drift into trance – in any situation at all, it doesn’t have to be in a therapist’s office or on a stage – that changes, and the Subconscious takes responsibilty for dealing with the outside world as well as the internal world. Daydreaming is a good example, or any habitual behaviour carried out ‘on autopilot’. So if you are speaking to a person who is doing that, then their Subconscious mind will have the opportunity to consider the information as well.

Their conscious mind might be paying attention too, or it may have wandered off, but either way the Subconscious will take in all the details. Then it will do what it likes, but in deciding what that is, it will have taken the new information into account, and also how you apparently feel at the time – assuming that is how you feel about what is being said. That is why we aim to generate a mood of general well-being during the trance part of the session. Relaxation is usually included for exactly that reason. If the client is relaxed and comfortable – i.e. feeling good – the assumption of the Subconscious is that they feel good about the proposed changes, and it is more likely to go ahead and instigate that change. Conversely, if the client’s mood is negative for any reason, this can block change.

If the Subconscious mind of a client in hypnotherapy decides to change something, on account of the case made out by the therapist – and the positive prevailing mood – very often the change will not be noticed by the client at the time. Only later on, when they are once again in the sort of situation where the problem usually occurred, will they find to their astonishment that the behaviour (or experience) has changed. This is usually a surprise and delight to the client’s conscious mind, which didn’t do anything and didn’t really expect it to work. This is entirely because the conscious mind doesn’t really believe in the Subconscious, except perhaps in theory. So by extension, it doesn’t really believe in hypnotherapy either – except perhaps in theory.

Those last points are general observations that are true of most people, not everybody. They are really a combination of three factors influencing our conscious assumptions:

1). It was drilled into all of us from an early age that if we want success, we have to try really hard. This simply does not apply in hypnotherapy, because when the Subconscious mind changes anything, we are not aware of any effort being involved. This is completely different from our previous experience of making conscious efforts (willpower): to stop smoking, or eat healthily.  Therefore hypnotherapy sounds ‘too easy’ or ‘too good to be true’ to the conscious mind.  Don’t let that bother you, it is normal.

2). The conscious mind of a normal adult will always approach something new with due skepticism anyway.  This does not prevent success in hypnotherapy, provided the change is genuinely what you would prefer as an outcome, i.e. in line with your true desires.

3). We were all raised and educated as if the Subconscious mind does not exist, so even when we are told about it later, the conscious mind still struggles to believe it really exists, or that it can help in any way. Hence its astonishment when hypnotherapy works!

If you require any particular info about hypnotherapy, call me (Chris) on:
Office: 0161-474-8120 Monday-Friday 8.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., or call/text 07748 838 644 any day, any time.