A Room With A View

We live out much of our lives in what could be regarded as trance states, caught up in our own world and in our own way of thinking.

This notion may seem puzzling at first, but if being in hypnosis is simply this kind of absorbed attention, then it can be seen as a frame of mind which dominates our experience of life.

In our article When is a Trance Not a Trance we have talked about trance states being part of our everyday life, but to say we spend large periods of our lives in trance states takes this idea a step further.

The fact we inhabit such states is inevitable and not necessarily something that should worry us. But it can mean that we become closed off to alternative possibilities and to different ways of viewing our lives and our problems.

This becomes particularly problematic when we get sucked into ways of thinking and feeling which are detrimental to our well-being. The depressive person cannot think themselves out of their depression; the anxious person cannot think themselves out of their anxiety; the addict cannot think themselves out of their addiction and so on.

These states of mind colour their view of the world they inhabit, deeply influencing the ways they live their lives. The fearful or phobic person will quite understandably take any steps they can to avoid situations which may precipitate their anxiety state.

In such circumstances people could be said to be caught up in trance states. The purpose of the hypnotic state induced by a therapist, is in this sense to undo the trance states we inhabit during our everyday lives. The NLP techniques we use alongside hypnosis also serve the same purpose.

Alternative Perspectives

This notion is very different from the common way of viewing hypnosis. In fact it is quite the reverse of the traditional way of seeing it.

The purpose of hypnotherapy and its associated techniques is to open up the individual’s mind to alternative perspectives which will allow them to see their problems from a different point of view.

The very act of adopting a new perspective will help to neutralise the problem, because often the problem is all to do with the perspective.

Another Door

When people come out of therapeutic hypnosis they feel renewed and invigorated. They feel not just a sense of calm, but also a sense of clarity, of clear-headedness.

They can see things in a more objective way. It is remarkable the insights that client’s have into their problem in those brief moments immediately after they come out of trance.

In this way we can step back into our lives as if by another door and see everything a little differently. Perhaps we may even discover an entirely new room in a house which seemed so familiar, a room with a window that offers new vistas that we hadn’t even dreamed of before.