Are you actively using self-hypnosis—or merely waiting for hypnosis to happen to you?
In this video, I explain one of the central ideas underpinning my research, writing, audio programmes and teaching: self-hypnosis is best understood as an active skill. That means your attention, imagination, expectations and mental strategies matter.
However, it does not mean blaming you when a suggestion produces little or no response.
I also address an important scientific complication: hypnotic responsiveness can display trait-like stability. So, how can that finding be reconciled with a skill-based approach? The answer requires more nuance than either “hypnotisability is permanently fixed” or “anyone can achieve anything with enough practice”.
If you have ever wondered whether you are “bad at hypnosis”, whether self-hypnosis can be learnt or why one technique worked for somebody else but did very little for you, invest a few minutes in watching the full video.
Then tell me in the comments: do you approach self-hypnosis as something you actively do—or something you wait to experience?
For structured practical teaching, you can explore my Science of Self-Hypnosis educational programme and my hypnosis audio programmes. Use the programmes actively: engage with the ideas, experiment with the suggestions and develop the attentional, imaginative and cognitive skills involved.
… and by the way… if you want to learn my official, structured approach to self-hypnosis, visit this page of my college website and download the self-hypnosis roadmap that gives instructions on how to do that: Learn Self-Hypnosis Here.