What if I can't be hypnotized?
What should I expect right after a session?
How often should the sessions be done?
How long is each session?
I just want to perform better. How can hypnosis help me?
What about success rates?
Can you help me forget a bad relationship?
Will insurance cover my sessions?
Can hypnosis be used with children?
I have multiple issues I would like to work on. Can they all be handled at the same time?
How are you different from other hypnotists?
Q: What if I can't be hypnotized?
A: Any person who is willing to be hypnotized can be. Hypnosis is a natural state where your mind is open and receptive to new beliefs and perceptions that you find acceptable. It's something that everyone experiences on their own, whether they know it's happening or not.
When we work together, you are simply allowing yourself to be coached and guided into that state on purpose, so that you can get some benefit. The hypnotist uses his or her training to package information in a way that will have the most impact and effectively allow you to internalize the changes that you want.
If a person has fear and concerns about being hypnotized, this can inhibit the willingness to go into that state. This is why I spend time with every new client discussing any fears and misconceptions about hypnosis, before doing an actual session.
It is perfectly OK to be unsure or somewhat doubtful that hypnosis will work. In fact, some of the most profound changes with clients have been with those who were not sure that it was going to help, but who were willing to go into it with a fearless and open mind.
Working with this kind of client is very rewarding because they are the most surprised by the changes they experience. Many of the testimonials on this site are from people who were pretty skeptical at first!
However, if a person goes into a session determined to prove that they cannot be hypnotized, or they have convinced themselves that hypnosis is not "real" (despite what thousands of scientific and medical research studies have shown), they will experience exactly what they set out to achieve: nothing.
If you are still concerned about not being hypnotizable, you can at least be assured by my guarantee: if you feel you did not get anything of value out of our first session, then it will be at no cost to you.
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Q: What should I expect right after a session?
A: It depends. Some fortunate people seem to experience immediate and obvious positive change. But most people just feel very relaxed and calm, and curious about what will happen.
Sometimes, clients will emerge and say things like "Well, that was an interesting experience, but I'm not sure what's going to happen." Then these same clients will go through their normal routine for a few days, and in the next session report how strange it's been, because things have been going differently.
I'm careful not to set specific expectations, because it's impossible to predict exactly how an individual will think or feel in the future. Any differences between what you experience and what you were told to expect could cause you to ignore obvious signs of progress.
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Q: How often should the sessions be done?
A: Sessions should be done between 3-10 days apart, in order to go through a variety of daily experiences, and also to keep up momentum. I use a systematic process, 5-PATH®, which was developed based on the real-world experiences of some of the leading hypnotists in the world, and which has been used with many thousands of clients.
Before starting, it is best to commit in your own mind to following through to completion; it is not recommended that you try a session just to see if it "works".
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Q: How long is each session?
A: It depends. The free initial consultation takes around 30 minutes. Sessions usually average around 60 to 90 minutes, but sometimes go much longer depending on circumstances.
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Q: I just want to perform better. How can hypnosis help me?
A: Performance of any kind can be enhanced by:
- Removing irrational self-limiting beliefs about how well you can do.
- Helping train you to visualize successful performances in your mind; when done in a hypnotic state you are able to vividly imagine the event, and this programs your subconscious and nervous system for success. Many studies have shown that mental practice in trance significantly enhances real-world performance.
- Helping change thought patterns that could cause you to lose focus or dwell on mistakes during an event instead of concentrating on the "now".
Everyone comes in with different areas that they would like to focus on, of course. During the initial consultation we come up with a specific game-plan for the individual.
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Q: What about success rates?
A: It's not really possible to come up with a meaningful number that can be applied to you and your individual situation. Clients are not a controlled population and this practice is not being operated as a research study. It's against our standards to make specific claims about success rates without the statistical research to back them up.
Of course, I could just make up a number that sounds impressive (for some reason "95%" seems to a popular figure), but that would be meaningless. Anyway, how would you verify the claim without violating client confidentiality?
If someone told me that they had a specific success rate, being a curious person I would ask the following basic questions:
- What was size of the population?
- Was the population composed of people similar to me and my situation?
- Over what period of time are individuals followed?
- How was success defined? If someone improved 90%, was that considered a success? What about if they improved by 50% or only 20%?
Even the scientific and medical studies related to hypnosis vary widely in terms of results, because there is no "one way" to do hypnosis, in addition to the variables of how individual practitioners and clients work together on specific issues and goals.
All I can assure you is that 100% of clients get 100% of my best efforts, and as far as I can tell, most of them think the work was productive.
In addition to the guarantee that is described elsewhere on this site, I personally guarantee you something else:
I will never "make stuff up" just to get you in the door. The fact is, if you need to hear make-believe promises, that does not indicate a high level of commitment to change, or a willingness to face reality.
Believe me, I do not want to waste my time or yours if I think it will be a frustrating and fruitless exercise.
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Q: Can you help me forget a bad relationship?
A: No one can "erase" memories of another person by hypnosis. This would only let you pretend or imagine that you've forgotten.
We would not want to let you pretend. Just sweeping things under the rug can have bad side effects in other ways.
What we do is remove emotional attachment to a person, so that you still learn from the experience of being through that relationship, but basically do not care about them otherwise.
I have helped a client be able to walk past the "other person" in a hallway and just politely say hello, with no bad feelings.
Another client ran into a former significant other at a social gathering, and was able to have a calm, mature conversation about how things ended between them.
So I cannot help you forget, but I can help you move on.
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Q: Will insurance cover my sessions?
A: Hypnosis services are typically not covered by insurance. Anyway, the success of a client depends highly on their level of commitment to the process. If a person is not spending hard-earned cash out of their own pocket, often (but not always) their personal commitment to change is not really there.
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Q: Can hypnosis be used with children?
A: Yes! Hypnosis is easy to do with young children and teens, because hypnosis works by subduing critical thinking, and younger people generally are more open to change.
This depends on building up trust with the child of course, which a lot of times depends on building up trust between the parent and hypnotist, so that trust is transferred to the child. It's also important that the child actually want to do hypnosis to make the positive change, so it should be presented to them as a fun or cool experience.
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Q: I have multiple issues I would like to work on. Can they all be handled at the same time?
A: It depends on how much overlap there is between the various issues. For example, if someone wants to overcome a fear of driving, but also wants to stop eating junk food, these probably don't have too much in common.
It is recommended that we focus on one issue at a time, this is more effective than doing more generic work. But sometimes different problems have the same root cause, and resolving that may have a larger overall benefit. Everyone and every situation is different.
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Q: How are you different from other hypnotists?
A: Some approaches to hypnosis are limited to feel-good relaxation techniques. That kind of thing can make you feel nice for a while but I don't believe that will help most people make real lasting changes.
Other approaches focus on "mind tricks" and models such as Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP); some individuals respond well to methods like these.
But the approach I take at Center City Hypnosis is based on the idea that our lives are driven by irrational feelings, thoughts and beliefs, no matter how logical we like to think of ourselves. After all, if we could solve personal difficulties with rational thinking, then no one would have problems!
In order to make permanent positive change, I believe we need to face things head-on in order to get rid of self-defeating excuses, justifications and rationalizations once and for all.
Every hypnotist is different and brings their own unique style to the work, so I encourage you to meet with me for a no-obligation initial consultation before we do any work together.
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