Understanding hypnotherapy: Beyond the myths

When most people hear the word 'hypnosis', they picture stage performers waving their hands and making volunteers cluck like chickens. It’s easy to think that hypnotherapy might involve similar techniques, but nothing could be further from the truth. Hypnosis, in the context of psychotherapy, isn’t about putting you into a trance so you can do another’s bidding. It’s about helping you break free from the trances you unknowingly subject yourself to, so you can regain control of your destiny.

In other words, I believe the real 'trance' isn’t an altered state of consciousness being induced by someone outside of you, but rather the constant background hum of fear, self-doubt, repetitive thinking, and unresolved emotional patterns that play in your mind, all day (and night) long. Those mental-emotional loops, which are typically not fully conscious -like “I don’t have what it takes,” “People always abandon me,” “I’ll never get over what happened,” “I don’t deserve to be happy,” etc. - run in the background of our lives, driving us on autopilot.

Hypnotherapy, ironically, is designed to help you become clearly aware of that trance - and snap you out of it.

The fear of being hypnotised

If you’ve never tried it before, it’s natural to hesitate at the thought of being hypnotised. It’s perfectly normal to feel uneasy about the idea of venturing into the unknown. The image of a hypnotist swinging a pocket watch back and forth and causing someone to zone out with a blank stare only adds to the apprehension. But true hypnotherapy isn’t about giving up control; it’s about reclaiming it. And it isn’t about zoning out; it’s about becoming more conscious and self-aware.

Hypnosis, when facilitated by a trained therapist, is just a form of guided meditation. You’re led into a state of deep relaxation, where you can quiet the constant chatter of the mind - what Zen calls the 'monkey mind'. In that relaxed state, you gain easy access to your subconscious, where your deeper beliefs, memories, and emotional traumas are held.

In those depths (usually just below the surface), you can see the mental storylines and emotional knots that have kept you feeling trapped, stuck, caught in a repetitive cycle, or simply unhappy. And, with the help of a therapist, you can then choose to change those limiting beliefs, untie old knots, and allow new patterns and possibilities to emerge into your world.

Hypnotherapy de-hypnotises you

Ironically, then, hypnotherapy works by de-hypnotising you. The stories we all tell ourselves - about who we are, what we can or cannot do, and all the rules and roles we define ourselves by - are, in a sense, 'hypnotic'. These repetitive loops run constantly in our minds, dictating our feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. This is the real trance we’re almost always in; a trance that feels so familiar it’s often hard to recognise it.

Hypnotherapy helps you step off of that mental merry-go-round. You can think of it as a form of applied meditative awareness. Like the practice of meditation, it offers a way to sink beneath the crashing surface waves, where a subtler sense of fluidity and vast depths of inner wisdom can be found. In that quieter and more expansive space, it’s possible to discover the core truths and habits that influence and shape your everyday experience. Instead of being stuck in the loop of “I’m not good enough,” for example, you get to find out where that thought came from and why you held onto it - and finally let it go.

Hypnotherapy frees your mind

“Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind,” Morpheus tells Neo in The Matrix. “Free your mind.”

This is the essence of hypnotherapy. It doesn’t control or manipulate - it liberates. This freedom isn’t about floating into an altered state (as pleasurable as that can be) but about waking up from the trance of everyday autopilot mode. In doing so, hypnotherapy can open up radical new possibilities, revealing flexibility where there was rigidity, and creating flow where there were blocks. It can reinvigorate your life by enabling you to show yourself, directly, why you’re no longer bound by the patterns of the past.

In the right hands, hypnotherapy truly has the power to awaken you to the freedom that has always been within you - the freedom beyond all trance states, the natural state of your authentic self.