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The Seven Elements of a Successful Hypnosis Practice

I was once asked, “What are the most important things about being a professional counselor?” I realized that it wasn’t about room decor or billing practices. The question got right to the heart of communication and trust between client and counselor. During the more than twenty years that I have been a hypnotherapist, I have realized seven elements of great power. These items are really supportive of the counselor as they will help keep them cool, affectionate, and curious. If your hypnosis practice is young or well established, I recommend that you live with these:

1. The customer is always right.

The customer is always right; you always know why it is there, even when words are not easily formed. The client always delivers 100% suitable material. 100%. Never less. Everything is correct and appropriate. Blank walls, foul language, factual errors, prejudices, nothing gray and “resistance” – it is 100% appropriate for the day’s work and can be used by the counselor. I don’t tell my clients what they need to work on. I think if a client can’t tell me that, he’s not ready for the job. Pushing them builds resistance, or makes work my job, in which case I really should pay them.

2. Be customer-oriented to the extent of excluding your own wants and needs.

“Good” work requires this. If the session is structured around what you want to do, you will lose the mark, as the client’s needs and the client’s ability to meet their own needs must remain paramount in your office. I have had clients feel “good” on the day of the session, with nothing to say. So we sat down. And we sat down. We listen to background sounds as, slowly and surely, what is needed emerges.

3. Everything a client gives you is usable.

Learning to use behavior as it is presented, both physically and verbally, in a positive way can allow your client to slide through a negative block, or an evasive “nothing,” into behavior they have only dreamed of. This requires practice and a willingness to put aside the need to be right, the desire to be creative, or even to be seen as a “good” counselor. You can build a fundamental belief that it is okay to be really and truly lost within the session, when you are confident in your ability to use what is presented and maintain your sense of direction.

4. Harness the power of YES.

Customers have heard “No” their whole lives. “No” is finite, nihilistic, and dead. Your client has come to you needing permission to feel what they feel, remember what they remember, and want what they want.

Concern for your client’s physical comfort sends a big “Yes” message. Always check the temperature and the comfort of the lighting, have bottled water on hand, maybe even cookies. Sometimes they will have to choose their own music. I had a client who could only go into a trance with Mozart’s Piano Concertos! “Yes” is security, and security gives permission to experiment with possibility.

5. There is no past.

The past does not exist, except when each of us chooses to retain it in our memories. Because of this, we have an infinite possibility of remembering what is valuable to us and discarding anything that we find useless or harmful. That’s at the heart of emotional healing: reexamining what we choose to keep and what we choose to discard. Learning to use this power allows your client to creatively build a future.

6. Learn all you can.

The more ways a counselor has to deal with the images, dreams, or issues raised by the client, the more confident and client-centered the counselor can be. In addition, this “deep medicine bag” approach to the client’s world gives the counselor more confidence.

7. The Vanishing Counselor Concept.

In my opinion, to be most effective in your client’s life, your client’s advances must be so ingrained and natural that the client only vaguely remembers being in counseling once the job is done. When the counselor and the work are strongly remembered, I believe that the client remains a client in their own mind, creating an unproductive detachment of themselves from their own learning.

It’s hard to help a customer forget about you and it wreaks havoc on customer referrals. To counteract the detrimental effect of this on customer referrals, I give a new customer multiple cards in the first session. I tell them that if three new clients come out of this, the client can have a free session, subject of their choice.

Learning to believe in your client’s ability to meet their own needs, to creatively use whatever the client presents, while staying positive, can allow your client to slide through negative blocks into new, more productive behavior. the one you’ve only dreamed of. Practice, practice and learn everything you can. When you have many skills under your belt and when you trust your sense of direction, you build a fundamental belief that it is okay for the counselor to be creative, unexpected, or really lost (for a time) at work. You become a strong guide, a “good advisor”.