No swinging watches, no loss of control, no sleep, no getting ‘stuck’ in a hypnotic trance state. The best way to describe hypnosis is to see it as a way to change the way you think, or to re train your brain to see things differently. When you start to think differently you start to feel differently and then act differently. Hypnosis is an amazing feat of human nature, we are all capable of so much more than we currently do!
There are four levels of brain wave activity, Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. The top level, Beta, is complete consciousness and the deepest level, Delta, is deep unconscious sleep. The light relaxed state of Alpha is all that is necessary to achieve in order to make behavior changes. This is why most people do not think they are “hypnotized” because we have all been misled as to what hypnosis really is.
There is no blindly following instructions, its just you in an altered state of awareness, which facilitates change more easily. So there, we can rule out one of the public’s main fears about hypnosis – you ARE still in control, no one is automatically able to control you to do ANYTHING you don’t want to. You can't get stuck in hypnosis, just like you can't get stuck in a day dream. And you wont be expected to eat an onion and enjoy it like an apple- unless you want to!! I'm a clinical hypnotist not a stage hypnotist.
You should see therapy as being about strength NOT weakness! Knowledge is power and learning more about yourself and your own capabilities is a skill we all need to use more.