Self hypnosis can get you into a heap of trouble

I saw a client recently; a person in their late 20s with big self esteem issues and a self confidence that at first sight appeared to be close to rock bottom.

But...they made it through my door. They had enough confidence to do that! They dumped an emotionally abusive partner, they had enough self confidence to do that AND find someone else they REALLY cared about.

They lost over 50 pounds of unwanted weight, they had enough self esteem to do that.

They bought themselves a (nearly) new car, they had enough self esteem to believe that they deserved that.

Yet, here was a person who within the first few minutes of meeting me broke down in tears because of their lack of confidence and low self esteem. Or were these attributes really missing?

More than anything else it appeared to me that this client was not remembering past issues but literally regressing to them, i.e. reliving them in the moment. The client was entering their own trance state and it was not a useful one! The memory recall triggered the trance state that stopped them being able to see, know or feel the positive changes they had already made.

In this case my role was mostly to un-hypnotise the client.

What followed was mix of NLP, hypnosis, story telling, goal setting and reframing to show this client (and have the client feel) how things were already different and could be better yet.

This client left laughing; we have another session booked together but I'll guess that with the progress made it will be our last.

Here is the sad thing, this person has been been going through this painful experience for the last four years. It could have been changed long ago and improved the quality of life for the person dramtically.

Beware self-hypnois...it's not always a power for good.