Why Hypnotherapy Works - And Why It Sometimes Doesn’t

Have you ever made a New Year’s Resolution? Most people have. How long did it last? If you are like me, probably not very long. Deciding to change a long standing habit, like smoking or eating unhealthily, can make us feel really in control and empowered, yet maintaining and living that decision usually proves just about impossible. Initiatives like Dry January or Sober October are a little different because we know there is an end in sight. Taking a decision to give up an enjoyable  habit for the rest of our lives is a different matter.

Why is that?

Peter Sage, in one of his Ted Talks, uses the best simile/metaphor I have ever heard to explain what is happening: Our conscious mind decides that we should definitely, for example, give up smoking. We are determined, we have several very sound reasons - health, the cost, the smell. He says that our conscious mind is like an ant set on a course, forging ahead. The only problem is that the ant is riding on the back of an elephant, who is travelling in the opposite direction. The elephant represents our subconscious and unconscious minds, containing all our deepest memories, fears, motivations, traumas etc etc. Obviously, the elephant is going to win.

Hypnotherapy bypasses the conscious mind, the ant, and works with the elephant, the subconscious, while the shamanic healing I practise goes even deeper into the unconscious mind. This means that it is possible to effect real, long lasting changes in the way people feel and behave.

So why doesn’t it work sometimes?

There are various reasons. Very rarely, I have worked with someone who just cannot relax deeply enough to go into a trance state. This is possibly due to a traumatic experience in their past. Fortunately I have other therapeutic modalities which will help them, including shamanic healing which does not require them to be in a trance state at all.

Staying with smoking cessation, occasionally someone comes to me, not because they want to completely stop smoking, but rather that they would like to smoke less than they do. This is much harder to achieve; one of my hypnotherapy teachers used to say that our subconscious mind is rather like a very bright seven year old child. It understands Yes and No, Positive and Negative, Black and White but not shades of grey.

We can certainly work very effectively on self esteem and inner child issues, but a mixed message, like ‘only smoke sometimes’, will not work so well.

Another situation where Hypnotherapy will not be effective is when the person doesn’t actually want to stop smoking. If there motivation is ‘My wife wants me to’, they are setting themselves up to fail. The person being hypnotised is always in control. I can’t make someone do something they don’t actually want to do.

Associated with this is the benefit that the ‘bad’ habit brings to the person. I used to work in a company where the smokers all left the  building periodically, to stand together in a park closeby and smoke their cigarettes. One colleague was due to retire soon and was looking forward to moving away with her new husband. She desperately wanted to stop her lifelong habit of smoking. She paid a lot of money to visit a well regarded hypnotherapist and was very disappointed when it didn’t work. I was training in Hypnotherapy at the time and asked her what her main reason for wanting to stop was, She said that her husband didn’t smoke and that she was worried about the smell on her clothes and her hair.

When I thought about it, I realised that neither she, nor her therapist had considered why she would want to continue to smoke. She enjoyed the frequent trips outside with friendly colleagues which gave her the chance to get away from a job which she was tired of. No wonder Hypnotherapy didn’t work. The story had a happy ending though. She stopped smoking as soon as she retired from work.