What Hypnotherapy Looks Like In My Work

Image Credit: Allison Saeng

The word hypnotherapy can bring up a lot of assumptions.

Some people think of it as something you try just to stop smoking or delete a habit and others imagine the old “mind control” stereotype, like someone swinging a pocket watch while you lose control of your own mind.

I’d like to reassure you that this is not how hypnotherapy works. In sessions with me, you stay aware, you stay in control, and you can accept or reject anything I say. You can even think “Ben, that doesn’t fit for me,” and we can adjust. Hypnotherapy should feel collaborative and not like something being done to you.

Okay, so what actually is hypnosis? A useful comparison is meditation. I like to put these two practices side by side because there are some interesting parallels between them. A trainer at the college gave a simple analogy when delineating them, he said: meditation is like digging a hole that is 10-feet wide, and hypnosis is like digging a hole that is 10-feet deep. In other words, meditation is a broad experience of observing your thoughts and often choosing not to engage in the but to simply notice them, and if you do unintentionally engage in those thoughts you try and bring yourself back to centre and observe the stream of consciousness again.

Hypnosis is the intentional choosing to engage and become absorbed in an experience, and not only that but also to build and consolidate resources that can become useful in whatever task you’re trying to accomplish. In hypnotherapy, the hypnosis provides the vehicle for which therapy can be conducted. Within this, the levels of trance (phenomena associated with hypnosis) are highly variable, so if it is beneficial for the participant to relax and engage in the experience privately, then a deep trance would be suitable, and if it is beneficial for the participant to provide live feedback and communicate verbally with the therapist, then a light trance would be more appropriate and this is especially the case when working with content and topics that are trauma-sensitive.

Hypnosis is a goal-oriented endeavour, so whether the task is to sleep, to relax, to review past experiences, to rediscover and hold empowering sensations more consciously, such an experience with a qualified practitioner or therapist can become a worthwhile encounter.

All of this matters because hypnotherapy doesn’t always follow a “rinse and repeat” formula of induction → deepening → suggestions. This blog explains what hypnotherapy looks like in my work, why it isn’t always formal, and how we decide together what’s most helpful for you.

My Early Training Belief

In the first couple of years of training, I had a fairly rigid idea of what hypnotherapy “should” look like: an induction, some deepening and then suggestions tailored to the client. For a trainee, that can feel like a tall order. In a session, a client brings something live and complex, and a trainee can feel the pressure to produce a perfect “hypnosis script” on the spot.

In this early stage I leaned more towards person-centred talking work, partly because I didn’t want to pretend. I’d rather be relational, present, and genuinely meet the client where they were than force a technique just because I thought I should.

Over time, I also noticed that if I treated hypnosis as “a script that should work,” it could accidentally carry an unhelpful assumption of “I know what’s best for you.” That didn’t sit right for me and it widened my fear of doing hypnosis “wrong,” so I avoided formal hypnosis even more.

Image Credit: Vitaly Gariev

Safety Matters

This one is important.

For some people, the word hypnosis can carry a fear of losing control, something I mentioned earlier; “Will I be made to do something that I’m not ready for?”, “What if I go somewhere inside that feels too intense?”

If you’ve been through what you may describe as severe adverse experiences, some say trauma, then the idea of “going inside” can feel too vulnerable. The safest thing we can do early on is not to rush into deep inner exploration, but actually beforehand to build a sense of stability, trust, and agency. I learned a lot of this caution over time and I certainly didn’t want hypnotherapy to feel like I was taking you somewhere before you felt ready. This is why hypnotherapy should be something that happens with you, rather than something done to you.

My approach then became very simple:

“We go at your pace and we only go inward when it feels appropriate with your consent and you remain in control.”

As I reflect on my recent work with clients, hypnotherapy is something that is naturally integrated, relational and led by you, with your permission.

What I Notice Now

Looking back, I’ve realised something quite interesting.

Even when I’m not doing a traditional or formal hypnosis induction, I am often working in a way that is hypnotic. I don’t precede this work with a “now you are about to experience some trance” but it’s more implicit, like “let’s slow things down a bit and see what’s there that may be worth attending to.”

See the difference? Here’s some more:

1) Slowing Down Time

 Many people come to therapy with their nervous system quite activated. Their thoughts are fast, they’re trying to come up with reasons as to why they’re doing what they’re doing, and they’re often asking me “what do I do next, Ben?”

A big part of my work is helping someone move from “thinking about” their experience to simply noticing their experience. As we slow things down, the nervous system can settle, the emotions can become something that can be sat with without trying to make immediate sense of them otherwise the world will end, and here a person can start to feel more present.

2) Focused Attention

Hypnosis is often described as a state of focused attention and it can be as simple as noticing a sensation in the body without judgement, tracking what happens when you name an emotion, staying with a memory rather than being swept away by it and allowing a metaphor to arise without analysing it so much. Formal induction doesn’t need to happen in order for this great stuff to happen.

Image Credit: Drew Beamer

3) Utilisation

This is probably the principle I love most in hypnotherapy: using what the client brings rather than trying to force a technique. It’s not about overriding your experience or force something corrective, it’s about meeting it and helping it shift from the inside. I think deeply about Bruce Lee’s “be like water” philosophy when I think about how can I use what you bring into this session?

4) Your Inner World

Nearly all of my work involves exploring your subjective world: What’s happening inside right now? Where do you feel it? What qualities does it have? Does it have a story to tell? What happens as you sit here with me witnessing you for just another moment?

To me, this is hypnosis, and therefore I believe that every therapist, whether they have formal hypnosis training or not, if they are working with a client’s subjective inner world, they are to an extent, practicing hypnotically – we’re all helping the mind and the body stay with experience long enough for something new to become possible.

Is This Still Hypnotherapy?

In my view, yes. As long as we’re using attention, language, embodied presence and the occasional imagery work in a way that supports helpful existence. Formal trance is one route into this, but also conversational and integrated hypnotherapy is another.

So, it’s a bit less “Did we do hypnotherapy the traditional way?” but it’s more “Did something shift in your relationship to yourself, symptoms, patterns, or choices?”

What a Session Looks Like With Me 

Most sessions with me involve a blend of talking openly about what’s been going on, understanding patterns and triggers, slowing down to notice what’s happening underneath (if it feels safe between us to do this), exploring meaning, choice, and how you want to live. Some sessions feel more “counselling”, some feel more like structured hypnotic chapters, and most others are a blend, with no expectation of you to be a certain way.

If you’re looking for hypnotherapy, it helps to say what you mean by that. Some people want a formal induction and structured hypnotic work where I do most of the talking, and others prefer an integrated approach where hypnosis is woven into a relational and conversational process. I can do both, and we can decide together what fits you.

Sometimes what people are really looking for when they ask for hypnotherapy is not a performance but relief and a way out of the cycle they feel stuck in, and a space where they can feel listened to without judgement.

You are most welcome to book a free 20-minute discovery call to find out a bit more about how I can help you get where you want to go after meeting you where you are.