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What is Hypnosis? By Nick Kemp

The term "hypnosis" can conjure up all kinds of different associations for people from the stereotypical idea of a person swinging a pocket watch, to stage hypnosis in the style of Paul McKenna, to picturing a Hypnotherapy session where a person imagines "being put under" I have always wondered to myself "under what exactly?" but appreciate that until a client experiences what hypnosis is like, they will only have impressions of what they imagine the experience will be like.

Many people don't appreciate that each of us naturally experience trance states very often during the course of our normal daily lives. There are of course numerous types of “different trance states”. Drifting into sleep can be described as one kind of trance state. However, with the experience of hypnosis, the individual is neither asleep nor awake, but experiences something similar to a state of daydreaming where they are relaxed but always still fully aware. This more relaxed state allows the client to discover insights that they normally would not be able to access through busy cognitive thinking and analysis.

Ericksonian Hypnosis

Ericksonian hypnotherapy uses what it is called indirect suggestions rather than direct suggestions to a client. These indirect suggestions in my experience often totally bypass the client's conscious faculty for thinking and can be presented in the form of stories and metaphors. When working with a client I may talk about a situation or scenario that appears unconnected with the client's "problem" but which indirectly offers a range of possibilities to the client to assist in useful change. In 2000 I used my awareness of Ericksonian Hypnosis to create the first in the series of Human Alchemy audio CDs, titled "Adventures of Well Being Now" I was pleased to receive a number of glowing reviews about this CD including this one from Anglo American Books, who then requested to be the international distributor for all my products...

"This is a very interesting CD using hypnotic language techniques to take you on an adventure discovering deep relaxation as well as facilitating change. We are sent many CDs and audiotapes from therapists for review, but it is truly unusual to come across a product that is as effective and professional as this offering from Nick Kemp. As well as being a useful tool it should be of great interest to those who wish to use the more complex language techniques inherited from Milton Erickson's great work. Highly recommended!"
Anglo American Books

Definitions of hypnosis

In "The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson, Volume I" page 113, Dr. Erickson is quoted as stating:

"The hypnotic state is an experience that belongs to the subject, derives from the subject's own accumulated learning's and memories, not necessarily consciously recognized, but possible of manifestations in a special state of non waking awareness".

And one of my favourite explanations can be found within The Collected Papers of Milton H. Erickson, Volume IV of the same series, page 224,

"It is a state of consciousness - not unconsciousness or sleep - a state of consciousness or awareness in which there is a marked receptiveness to ideas and understandings and an increased willingness to respond either positively or negatively to those ideas. It derives from processes and functioning within the subject. And is not some mystical procedure, but rather a systematic utilization of experiential learning's - that is, the extensive learning's acquired through the process of living itself."

Hypnosis is a natural state of mind with special identifying characteristics:

"A state of intensified attention and receptiveness, and an increased responsiveness to an idea or to a set of ideas"
Dr Milton Erickson

Hypnosis describes a range of naturally occurring states of altered awareness which may vary from momentary distractions and 'absences' through much enhanced states of relaxation to very deep states of inward focus and awareness.. The mental processes which can occur in any of these states, appropriately utilised, are generally far more flexible and potentially far more powerful in effecting change than those we can achieve in most everyday states of active conscious awareness. These states may be induced quite formally or quite naturalistically, in an almost unnoticeable way, depending on the requirement of the problem, the capability of the practitioner and the needs of the client.
The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)

A temporary condition of altered attention in the subject which may be induced by another person and in which a variety of phenomena may appear spontaneously or in response to verbal or other stimuli. These phenomena include alterations in consciousness and memory, increased susceptibility to suggestion, and the production in the subject of responses and ideas unfamiliar to him in his usual state of mind. Further, phenomena such as anaesthesia, paralysis and rigidity of muscles, and vasomotor changes can be produced and removed in the hypnotic state.
[BMA, 'Medical use of Hypnotism', 1955]