New Orleans Hypnosis

Our Mission is to provide our New Orleans Hypnosis clients with services that help them to create desired and ecological changes in their lives and improve their wholistic life functioning. Hypnosis techniques are valuable tools for individuals and organizations to change their behavior. We focus on assisting organizations and individuals in improving their abilities and outcomes. Understanding hypnosis and communication skills are vital for business organizations and individuals.

If you are interested in learning more about hypnosis or if you are engaged in a personal quest of your state of being and perhaps changing some habit or improving some skill, you may find hypnosis to be a worthwhile experience.

Can I Be Hypnotized?
What is Hypnosis?
What is NLP?
NLP Presuppositions

Can I Be Hypnotized?

Hypnosis is a normal and natural state that we all enter into everyday. All hypnosis is ultimately self-hypnosis and the hypnotherapist acts as a valuable partner in the process to provide guidance and direction to lengthen and deepen the natural hypnosis state.

Reports that seemed to indicate some people are unhypnotizable were based on research utilizing standardized approaches which did not take into account the individualistic nature of hypnosis. We all have the capacity to enter into hypnotic trance in our own unique way. Various technologies have also been developed that can induce hypnosis states rapidly and effectively.

Reaching a hypnotic trance state is a relatively simple process but fully utilizing the power of hypnotic trance, for desired change and therapy, generally requires the skill and training of a competent hypnotherapist.

What is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is simply removing the critical faculty that separates the conscious and unconscious minds so that a person has access to their full mental capacity. There are many methods to achieve this outcome. Generally these methods are divided into the following categories (2):

The standardized hypnosis approach
The authoritarian hypnosis approach
The Ericksonian hypnosis approach
The Standardized Hynosis Approach

The standardized approach emphasizes the subject. This approach assumes hypnotic response to be a lasting trait with the subject. The hypnotist is able to utilize this trait with standardized communications that do not change between subjects. This approach views subjects as either having the ability to be hypnotized or of not having the ability, independent of the hypnotist's technique. Experiments carried out with this approach led to the belief that hypnosis was a trait that some had and others did not. The problem encountered with this approach is in its use of standardized procedures that do not take into account human variation and individuality. Different individuals have different ways in which they most effectively enter trance. The standardized approach also measures hypnotic response based on external behaviors without taking into account the experiential nature of the phenomena. Another problem is that differences in individual susceptibility are alterable and unexplainable via the standardized approach. This approach inhibits being flexible and adaptable to changing situations and subject needs and convinces some individuals that they are unhypnotizable.

The Authoritarian Hypnosis Approach

The authoritarian approach emphasizes the hypnotist. This approach views the hypnotist as having special mental powers with which he is able to cause the subject to become vulnerable to the suggestions of the hypnotist to perform numerous behaviors. Stage hypnosis is a common example of the use of this approach. "By focusing on the power of the hypnotist, the authoritarian approach does not take into account the uniqueness of each subject in terms of his or her learnings, beliefs, capabilities, and so forth, nor does it recognize the client's ability to choose how (or whether) to participate in the hypnotic events" (1987 Gilligan 5). The result of this is that the authoritarian approach has little value for establishing lasting behavioral changes.

The Ericksonian Hypnosis Approach

The Ericksonian approach emphasizes the cooperative relationship between the subject and hypnotist. The Ericksonian view also emphasizes that each person is unique, hypnosis potentiates resources, hypnosis is a system of communicating ideas, hypnosis is a natural state, change is course corrective rather than error corrective, each individual's uniqueness can be appreciated on multiple levels, and the subconscious is able to operate autonomously and generatively. The Ericksonian operator utilizes the subject's patterns of self-expression as the foundation for development of hypnosis. The operator follows and then leads the behavior of the subject into a unique hypnosis experience. Thus, the Ericksonian cooperative approach is based on utilization, cooperation, and flexibility. The Ericksonian approach emphasizes the following:

Each person is unique.
Therapeutic communications should be based on each client's actual patterns of self-expression, in their beliefs, motivations, symptoms, and behavior. This requires each use of hypnosis for therapy to begin from a position of experiential inexperience. This requires the hypnotherapist to learn and utilize the world-view reality of the client.

Hypnosis is an experiential process of communicating ideas.
Effective hypnosis uses suggestions to produce ideas and distinctions within a person's map of their reality. The therapist using hypnosis should identify and utilize the absorbing ideas of the client to develop their trance. This is experiential participation rather than conceptual understanding to absorb the client experientially and then guide their attention towards therapy.

Individuals have generative resources.
The assumption is made that individuals have all the resources they need and they have many more abilities than they are consciously aware of. The hypnotherapist helps the client to learn to use the abilities they already have within them. This realization occurs from the experiential explorations of the client that mobilize their resources.

Hypnotic Trance potentiates resources.
Hypnosis allows the deframing of rigid beliefs and permits the reorganization of fixated systems. These rigid and fixated systems become endless loops that are demonstrated by repetitive behavior in several channels. Transformational change is accomplished by hypnotic trance that potentiates resources by giving an unbiased state that allows for new ways of existing to become clear.

Hypnotic Trance is naturalistic.
Trance states are part of every individual's normal life processes. Hypnosis intensifies and lengthens the usual experiential involvement of a client for a specific goal. The naturalistic nature of hypnosis allows it to be an ideal method for a person to establish deep systemic changes by perceiving and modifying basic experiential relationships.

Orient to course-alignment rather than error-correction.
The hypnosis therapy should focus on meeting the goals and needs of the present self and not examining and understanding the past. The client's present learnings and understandings are acknowledged as the foundation for additional developmental learnings. The client is oriented to their interests and goals and given opportunities to reach them.

Individuals uniqueness may be appreciated on many levels.
Four levels may be examined: the deep self, the unconscious mind, the conscious mind, and the contents of consciousness. Each individual can be appreciated as being a unique deep self operating within the unique organizational system of the unconscious mind and using unique strategies in attempting to reach goals from the conscious mind and being absorbed at a specific time in the contents of their consciousness.

Unconscious processes can operate generatively and autonomously.
This makes a distinction between the unconscious and conscious minds. The two systems are seen as complimentary. The conscious mind is seen to be responsive to the more inclusive unconscious mind. Hypnosis is seen to set the conscious process aside to allow the unconscious to produce meaningful transformational learning.

Some of the areas hypnosis is applied may be seen in the following: internal medicine, surgery and anesthesia, obstetrics, gynecology, dermatology, physical rehabilitation of neuromuscular disorders, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, rhinology, genito-urinary conditions, oncology, pediatric patients, and behavior modification in the treatment of alcoholism and narcotic addiction.

Common issues that respond well to hypnosis are the following:
Pain Control, Weight Control, Smoking Cessation, Self- Improvement, Relaxation, Memory Improvement, Improvement of Concentration, Confidence Enhancement, Improvement of Study Habits, Exam Preparation, Overcoming Exam Anxiety, Improving Sports Ability, Enhancing Creativity, Improving Salesmanship, Improving Public Speaking, and Regression.

Other New Orleans counseling services.

Hypnosis Articles

Clinical & Experimental Hypnosis (PDF Format)

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New Orleans Hypnosis Services
Provided by:
Advanced Behavioral Consultants
6221 S. Claiborne Ave., Suite 422
New Orleans, LA 70125

New Orleans Hypnosis

Can I Be Hypnotized?

What is Hypnosis?

The Standardized Hynosis Approach