The Anatomy of Inductions
Unlocking, Understanding and Inventing
Hypnotic Inductions
For Stage, Street and Clinic
by Graham Old
SMASHWORDS EDITION
The Anatomy of Inductions
Copyright 2012 by Graham Old
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Acknowledgements
There are a number of people to thank for influencing my approach to hypnosis, including Bill O’Hanlon, Jonathan Chase, Stephen Brooks, Anthony Jacquin, James Tripp, Richard Nongard and Michael Ellner. Each one has influenced me in various ways and to different degrees. However, none of them can be blamed for the final product, which is down to my ambitious attempts to combine the best of the best.
All Rights Reserved
Except where otherwise stated, intellectual property rights and copyright are retained by Graham Old, who also retains the trademark “Therapeutic Inductions”. Please do not copy any portion of this work without permission.
Disclaimer
This report is meant as nothing more than a theoretical model and conversation starter. It presents one particular way to view inductions and is not meant as a replacement for proper training in hypnosis or psychotherapy.
These ideas are offered as a way to enhance your current skills, with a view to more effectively understanding hypnosis and helping others. Please be aware that any experimentation with the ideas presented in this report is undertaken at your own risk and responsibility.
At all times when practicing hypnosis, it is your responsibility to ensure that you comply with the laws, regulations and codes of your home country, region, state or territory.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Search Youtube and you will find hundreds of thousands of videos on hypnosis, a high percentage of which are nothing more than inductions. After all, who can fail to be impressed by clips of some guy “zapping” his “subjects” in the blink of an eye?
Thankfully, most of us come to learn that there is more to hypnosis than that.
Whilst flashy inductions might attract newcomers and impress the public, they are often neglected by more experienced hypnotists and hypnotherapists. Whether this is because they’ve come to despise the kind of “showy” theatrics that impress others, or because they have grown comfortable with what they know, the fact remains that experienced hypnotists rarely seem to veer away from 1 or 2 favourite inductions.
Yet, does it really matter? If the induction is just for getting someone into hypnosis, does it matter what induction someone uses or how they do it? All that matters is what we do once they’re “under”. Right?
Wrong! The purpose of this report is to argue for a fresh appreciation of the purpose and power of inductions. It is my belief that they are more than the bits we do at the beginning to get someone into hypnosis. At the very least, inductions set the frame for everything that follows - whether that’s sticking someone’s hand to their head, or removing their fear of flying.
I have referred to this document as a report throughout. Yet, it is much more than that. In effect, this is an e-book taking you from the basics of inductions (what they are, how they work, what they’re for and who they work on), all the way through to an advanced understanding of their potential therapeutic use.
Who will benefit from this report - and how?
My intention is that this report will offer a simple yet powerful framework for understanding inductions as a central part of the hypnotic process. After you have read the following pages, you should be able to do at least one of the following:
Recognise which induction to use for the individual in front of you.
Begin to take the standard inductions you currently use and ‘therapise’ them, so that they play a vital part in the change-work.
Create ‘therapeutic inductions’ on-the-fly.
This last point is the heart of our live training. However, perceptive readers will no doubt learn the core principles within this report.
If you are a complete newcomer to the field of hypnosis, you will benefit from learning foundational knowledge that often goes unsaid.
Newly qualified hypnotherapists will be inspired to take the inductions they have grown to know and love and employ them as therapeutic tools.
Experienced hypnotists will benefit from an exciting new approach to inductions that relies more on reading people than on reading scripts.
Significantly, you will learn the basic principles of Therapeutic Inductions and benefit from transcripts of impromptu solution-focused inductions.
So, join us as we unlock the code to inductions and explore the essence of hypnosis itself. We will unpack what inductions are and how they work. We will offer an understanding of inductions that places them at the very core of hypnotherapy and hypnotic phenomena.
HYPNOSIS - A WORKING MODEL
The question "What is hypnosis?" means different things to different people. To the researcher, it often means, "What is happening within the physical structure of the brain?" To the hypnotist it may mean, “What is it I am aiming to do to people?” However, to the client it usually means, "What will happen? What will you do and why - and what will it feel like?" And that's the question we should be focusing on.
So, our understanding of hypnosis unashamedly speaks about what it is that will be experienced by the hypnotee. As I present it, hypnosis is not something you do to another person, or a thing that they go into. Hypnosis is an experience you share with someone.
To use our full definition, hypnosis is:
An imagination-fuelled, creatively engaged, shift in a person's perception of the world & their relationship to it.
In other words, it is helping someone imagine (and engage with) a new reality. Essentially, what we are dealing with is a ‘reframe’. However, it is reframing things so effectively that the client engages with it thoroughly and creates an altered perception and experience of reality.
An Experiential Model
When clients ask me what hypnosis is, I usually begin talking about films and speak about watching a Thriller or Horror movie. Most of us have had the experience of watching a film and - before we’ve even noticed the creepy music in the background - the hairs on the back of our neck have started to stand up. Our heart has begun to beat more quickly and our breathing pattern has changed.
And even though we know that this is a just a film, our body begins to prepare its ‘fight or flight’ response. Even though we know all about CGI and make-up and Camera trickery, we still manage to respond to these films as if they are really happening there and then - and as if we are caught up in it. I often say to clients that it’s a bit like part of our brain is trying to comfort us by saying, “It’s not real. It’s not real...”, whilst another part is saying, “But what if it was?!”