Psychological Counseling Hypnotherapy

Hypnotherapy in psychological counseling is neither a metaphysical performance nor a means of making people lose consciousness and be manipulated. It is an evidence-based technology that quickly locates and deals with deep psychological distress by guiding the client into a special state of narrowed consciousness and increased subconscious activity. Clinical data from the American Psychological Association in 2022 shows that for the three types of problems: post-traumatic stress disorder, specific phobias, and addictive behaviors, counseling programs combined with hypnosis are 32% more effective than conventional counseling.

Don't laugh, the first thing a lot of people ask when they sit in the consultation room for the first time is, "Will you put me to sleep and then ask for my bank card password?" Xiao Zhou, who came for pre-marital anxiety counseling last week, sat upright, clutching the strap of her bag, and refused to even accept the water I handed her. I didn't explain the theory to her at that time, so I first asked her if she had seen any videos of hypnosis performances before. She nodded and said that the last time she saw a blogger, she hypnotized people into eating onions like apples, which scared her so much that she hesitated for half a month before she dared to come.

In fact, this is also the biggest misunderstanding that many people have about hypnosis: they think that after being stimulated, they will be at the mercy of others. The actual situation is that the hypnosis we use clinically is at most a moderate state. You can hear the counselor's voice throughout the process, remember everything that happened, and even feel more awake than usual. To put it bluntly, the volume of the miscellaneous thoughts in your mind is suddenly turned down, and you can focus more on following the guidance to touch memories that you usually don't dare to think about. I often tell my clients that if you really fall asleep and can't wake up even if you scream, that's not hypnosis, it's because you stayed up late the day before and lacked sleep.

In fact, the academic circles' disagreements about hypnosis have never stopped. Many old-school scholars of classic psychoanalysis regard hypnosis as the golden key to unlocking the subconscious. Freud relied on hypnosis to treat neurosis in his early years. Later, he felt that empathy under hypnosis was too uncontrollable, so he switched to free association. However, many dynamic counselors still use light hypnosis as an auxiliary tool to explore early trauma. The view of the cognitive behavioral school is more pragmatic. They believe that the essence of hypnosis is the improvement of suggestibility after high concentration of attention, and it is particularly efficient in correcting automatic thinking. For example, if a client is afraid of dogs, if you tell him "this puppy doesn't bite" when he is awake, his subconscious fear reaction cannot be suppressed at all. If you establish a safe connection under hypnosis, you can often see significant improvement in two or three times. Of course, there are also many humanistic counselors who still do not approve of hypnosis. They feel that counselors are too guiding and violate the "non-directive" counseling principle. They believe that clients should explore problems on their own instead of being guided.

Let me tell you something interesting. I had a supervisor who had been doing kinetic consulting for 20 years. He had always looked down on hypnosis, saying it was a "wrong way." The year before last, he was going to attend an academic conference abroad. He suddenly developed a severe fear of flying and couldn't even enter the airport. After three attempts After months of regular consultations, I didn’t get any better, so I had no choice but to ask a colleague to do hypnosis three times. I actually flew for more than ten hours to go to a meeting. When I came back, I signed up for hypnosis system training. Now I occasionally use it when doing cases. I always tell us, "I was so narrow-minded before."

Among the cases I have come into contact with, hypnosis is most often used to deal with trauma-related issues. There was a visitor last month who was a primary school teacher. She encountered a car accident at the school gate a year ago. After that, she didn’t even dare to cross the street. Every time she walked to the zebra crossing, her heart beat faster and she broke out in cold sweats. After chatting several times while she was awake, she only remembered the sound of the horn at that time and could not recall any specific details. After two light hypnosis sessions were conducted to guide her back to that scene, she remembered that there was a little girl in red standing next to her and was almost hit. She subconsciously pulled the person away. The fear that she had suppressed since then was actually the fear that she had not protected the child at that time. After talking about it, she did another reinforcement, and now she can cross the road normally by herself.

Of course, I won’t tell you that hypnosis is a magical magic that can cure all diseases. First of all, there are about 20% of people with extremely low suggestibility and basically unable to enter the hypnotic state. For example, those clients who are very rational and have to think logically before doing anything. I usually try it for 10 minutes and then switch back to regular consultation if I can't enter the state. I won't force it. In addition, there is a real risk that memories under hypnosis may be misled. In the past, some clients who were referred by colleagues were subjected to "past life hypnosis" in informal health care centers outside, and were guided to a bunch of false memories, which made them anxious day and night. There were also cases that were reported abroad in the past few years. A client was misled by a counselor under hypnosis, thinking that he had been abused by his parents in childhood. It was only after a lawsuit that it was discovered that it was a false memory. Therefore, we have an unwritten rule when it comes to hypnosis in our industry: we will never take the initiative to guide clients to recall "things you don't remember." We will only help you sort out the content that is already hidden in your subconscious mind.

By the way, one more thing I have to remind everyone is that not all psychological counselors can do hypnosis. They must undergo systematic practical training and obtain the corresponding qualifications. Do not just find a health center with the banner of "hypnotherapy" to do it. It is really easy to cause problems.

Now every time before I perform hypnosis, I still repeatedly emphasize to the client: If you feel uncomfortable during the process, you can open your eyes and stop at any time. You have more control over the entire process than me. To put it bluntly, hypnosis, psychoanalysis, and cognitive behavior are all just tools. The core of psychological counseling has never been how powerful the technology is, but whether it can really help the client.