The tools I use

Hypnosis, minus the stage show

Say the word hypnosis and people picture a stage. A swinging watch. Someone clucking like a chicken.

That's the show, and it isn't what happens in a session with me.

What hypnosis is

Hypnosis is a state of focused attention with an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion. That's how the American Psychological Association describes it. You stay in control the whole time.

You know how a movie can pull you in until the room disappears. Or how you can drive a familiar road and arrive without thinking about the turns. Hypnosis resembles those everyday states. The difference is it's used on purpose, with suggestion.

Why it can help

The way I see it, we tend to resist a new idea before it gets a fair shot. That focused state loosens the resistance, and a good suggestion has more room to land.

What the evidence says

Hypnosis has research behind it, and some of it is strong. The clearest cases are IBS and pain around medical procedures, where a lot of trials back it up. Other uses have thinner support. I use it where the evidence holds. Where it's thin, I say so.

The part I don't do

I work in personal and professional development, not clinical care. If something belongs with a licensed professional, that's where it goes.

How I work with it

I use it inside my coaching work. Focus. Habits. Settling nerves before something that matters. Helping the part of you that runs on autopilot line up with what you want, instead of fighting it.

Like everything else I do, I reach for it when it fits and leave it when it doesn't.

Less fighting with yourself. More of you moving in one direction.