Why Is Hypnosis Often a Last Resort Rather Than A First Approach

My first inclination in answering this question is because many people think hypnosis is fake, manipulation, or mind control. I would have guessed it was skepticism or spiritual aversion.

I was surprised to discover, none of those things are the primary reasons why people seek hypnosis as a last resort.

The truth is, it is far easier to pray, go to therapy, or take medicine to solve problems because all these things take the responsibility off the individual.

Prayer puts the responsibility for your healing on God. Therapy puts the responsibility on your therapist. And medication puts it on the drug.

People are looking to abdicate responsibility for their issues hoping that a magic solution exists that will fix it without their effort.

Hypnosis doesn’t work that way, yet even as a hypnotist, people think, “I’ve tried everything else, so maybe a hypnotist can hypnotize me to…” fill in the blank. The truth is a hypnotist can guide your unconscious mind, but until you are ready to change and ready to do the necessary inner work, we cannot make you do anything.

For me, I was plagued for decades from an interaction I had with my dad. When I was 10, I wrote stories about dinosaurs, time travel, and science fiction illnesses. When I showed my work to my dad and said, “I want to be a writer when I grow up,” he said, “Jason, you have to find a real job because writing isn’t going to pay the bills.”

A couple years ago, I decided I was ready to deal with this. So I used a technique involving ego states, and I was able to step into the role of my dad to change the conversation. Instead of criticism, as my dad, I said, “Did you write this?” My inner child enthusiastically said, “Yes!” I responded, “If you keep writing and honing your craft everyday, you could be a writer when you grow up.” Just saying that shifted something inside me. And now, after two years, I’ve created over 44 pieces of content (and that library is growing even as I write this blog).

And it changed, not because of the self-hypnosis but because I was willing to engage in the process.

Just like my friend from church who I will call Bobby. He was dealing with a resentful kind of anger at home. I asked him a series of clean language questions designed to elicit his inner map of the world. Through that process, we identified the initial sensitizing event, and I ran him through the same exercise I did with my dad. Within about 20 minutes of intentional conversation, he was able to release the anger. A week later, I checked back with him, and he reported improvement with his wife, his kids, and his work.

Another friend from church, who I’ll call Bill, and I were talking one morning, and within a brief exchange, we got into a conversation about motivation and procrastination. He shared about how he knew what to do and his struggle with actually doing it. Without telling him what to do, I asked questions and allowed him to explore the problem. When we finished chatting, he thanked me for the talk and admitted I was an answer to his prayer. The next day, I checked in with him, and he reported how he had changed his environment by placing his Bible next to his chair.

In each of these cases, the subjects (me, Bobby, and Bill) all needed to be willing to confront the issues. This wasn’t talk therapy. It was genuine interest, curiosity, and a willingness to see what would happen.

And each of us sought the solution, not first, but as a last resort. And it wasn’t because we were skeptics. It was because we were tired of having done all we knew to do and still being stuck.

So I wonder, what would happen and how fast could you find the solutions you need if you went to hypnosis first instead of a last resort?