One way that I find very effective in getting people to relax is to have them concentrate on different muscles, or different body parts. I like to start with their heads, face and neck muscles, and work my way down, along their entire body, focusing on one muscle or body part at a time, until they are completely relaxed, literally from head to toe. We always refer to that process as going down, further down.
How a hypnotist carries out an induction can vary greatly. Different techniques work well for different people. There can be hundreds or even thousand of induction scripts or approaches.
In therapeutic hypnosis, known as hypnotherapy, we generally use a technique we call progressive relaxation. This really helps to relax people.
The handshake induction is somewhat commonly recognized as well, but in reality, a stage hypnotist would not attempt this technique without first assuring himself that the subject is already hypnotized or at least highly susceptible.
In hypnotherapy, we have no need to make a visual impression on an audience. In self hypnosis recordings a laid back approach is used, composed of many different elements, and is usually based on the theory of progressive relaxation.
The hypnosis induction technique that most people would be familiar with is obviously what they’ve seen in stage hypnosis. In stage hypnosis they use a very authoritarian approach, very direct induction. Plus there is a visual impact achieved when a hypnotist executes an induction, a very sharp, direct induction, and the subject falls to the floor or otherwise gives some defining visual signal that he’s hypnotized.
Different techniques work well for different people. One way that I find very effective in getting people to relax is to have them concentrate on different muscles, or different body parts. The hypnosis induction technique that most people would be familiar with is obviously what they’ve seen in stage hypnosis. In stage hypnosis they use a very authoritarian approach, very direct induction. Plus there is a visual impact achieved when a hypnotist executes an induction, a very sharp, direct induction, and the subject falls to the floor or otherwise gives some defining visual signal that he’s hypnotized.
The induction is the process that helps people go into a state of hypnosis, where they will be more susceptible to suggestion, and where their unconscious mind will take messages onboard. People choose to go into this state because they want to achieve a certain change or improvement in a specific part of their lives, usually.
