Stage Hypnosis/Hypnotherapy
HYPNOTHERAPY -
Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to make the changes in your life that you've always wanted to make but they've never seemed possible. with Hypnotherapy you can stop smoking, loose weight, get rid of phobias, etc... It is possible to do much more using the power of your subconscious mind and those are only a few of the many things possible to help better your life. Before you pay for the first hypnosis session I offer a pre-session so that you can experience hypnosis and see if this is right for you. There is no need to be afraid of being hypnotized because it is merely using the power of your mind to change things subconsciously and alter things mentally. Think of a hypnotist as a GPS, they do not force you to do anything or go anywhere and after you've gotten there they do not make you do anything. They merely direct you to where you want to go and suggest what you can do after you've gotten there. To say Hypnosis is harmful or evil is to say a GPS is harmfull or evil, and clearly it is not.
STAGE HYPNOSIS -
Stage Hypnosis differs from clinical hypnotherapy because with hypnotherapy you use hypnosis to help people change their lives but with stage hypnosis it is merely for entertainment. 15 minutes of hypnosis is equal to about two hours of natural sleep! Knowing that you can imagine how a hypnotized person feels after the show/session.
What is Stage Hypnosis?
Stage hypnosis is where a hypnotist chooses volunteers from the audience, puts the volunteers into a trance using hypnosis, and then has them perform certain silly, funny, or supposedly "amazing" suggestions. This could be like having the volunteers believe they are: drunk; aliens speaking a strange alien language and having another volunteer translate the language; naked or seeing others naked; 6-year-old children; ballet dancers-and the list goes on. All suggestions are temporary and usually only last during the show. When performed correctly, stage hypnosis is basically having fun with the subconscious mind without any serious detrimental side effects. It's all performed for entertainment and with the welfare of the volunteers in mind. A stage hypnosis can be the most entertaining field because it involves "real" people from the audience responding in a variety of ways which usually makes no two shows the same.
What is the difference between stage hypnosis and clinical hypnosis?
How you get there and what you do with it varies according to your goals. Thus, for stage hypnosis, the goal is to have fun with the subconscious mind to entertain the audience within an hour or so time frame. Thus, the techniques used by stage hypnotists are more direct, commanding, binding, and group-oriented. You're either in trance or not. The stage hypnotist doesn't have time to adjust his or her induction to each individual.
For therapy, however, the work is done one-on-one (usually) and tailored to the individual. Using cooperative hypnosis, the hypnotist is being lead by the client and vice versa. A hypnotherapist has a lot more delicate things to deal with since your working with 1) a complex individual, 2) something rather serious (a problem they have come to see you for), and 3) something more long-term.
A stage hypnotist works with a group and can "spare" some people who don't go into trance and still be successful. And, you're directly commanding people to do things; you're not trying to help someone solve a complex problem. However, a stage hypnotist does have to know how to appeal to an audience and be entertaining in a show. (Just going up on stage, hypnotizing a group, and giving commands is not really enough.)
How does a stage hypnotist hypnotize people?
As far as how people go into trance during stage hypnosis, that is a bit more difficult to answer since a stage hypnotist works with 10 to 15 people (maybe even more) and they are all going into trance in different ways. There are some similarities though. Some will go into trance because: 1) of the "awe" of a stage hypnotist ("I must be hypnotize because he's a hypnotist and he has the 'special' power to do so."), 2) the innate desire to "follow" commands (authority), 3) the technique itself (persuading a person to subconsciously follow your instructions), 4) the desire to "escape" from reality and 5) others are going into trance (i.e. this is know as 'social proof' it is basically the feeling of "why should I be left behind"). These are the main components, but there are of course several others that are minor to mention here.
Is stage hypnosis dangerous?
Stage hypnosis in itself is not dangerous. People hypnotized on a stage are not doing anything that is not already built into their own mental mechanisms. Stage hypnotists do not create anything new-we're only building from what the volunteers already know and do.