Ever heard this: Hypnotic suggestions should never contain words like "no" or "can't" or "don't"? That's an increasingly popular proclamation from self-help gurus and enthusiasts. But that's just not right. As a clinical hypnotherapist my experience has me convinced that negative suggestions do work and they have their place in therapeutic hypnosis.
Examples of Effective "Negative" Suggestions
Here are three actual case studies from my client files:
1. At the start of the session, a hypnosis subject is tested with these words: "At the count of three, you will try to open your eyes but you'll discover they are so tightly shut you CANNOT open them. One. Two. Three." She tries to open her eyes but cannot.
2. I used this suggestion to a male quit smoking client: "You NO LONGER have any interest in cigarettes. You simply DON'T want them anymore." Days or weeks after the therapy, the client reports he has stopped smoking.
3. While in trance, a self-hypnosis practitioner tells herself, "I STOP grinding my teeth from now on." The self-therapy is successful. And the bad habit is arrested.
"Negative" hypnotic suggestions are common and have been used successfully for many decades. Think of all those classic hypnosis textbooks which contain too many negative hypnosis suggestion examples to count!
Some Law of Attraction and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) proponents have recently indicted hypnosis professionals who utilize negative suggestions in their daily practices. That's the new fad. Some of these new wave hypnotherapy critics seem to want to lump traditional direct suggestion hypnosis (like mine) with techniques from their supergeek-studies of hit-or-miss possibilities-of-hypnosis library files.
Here's an idea they might consider: While hypnosis shares many things with neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and the Law of Attraction's tenets and techniques, they are very different.
The Law of Attraction and Hypnotherapy
Law of Attraction advocates say we should not concentrate on conditions we do not want to manifest.
They say we should focus on the new conditions we do wish to experience. But even well-known Law of Attraction gurus recognize the value of first acknowledging what it is you DON'T want (a Law of Attraction technique known as "contrast").
While it is true that the emphasis of post-hypnotic suggestion is to establish new positive behavioral patterns, the mind is clearly capable of understanding corrective suggestions (see examples 1-3 above). In fact, it is often necessary to include authoritarian suggestions to inform or teach the subconscious what behavior or belief would need to be discarded.
Here's one more example: a former "alpha child" personality type usually would need a father-oriented (authoritarian) therapeutic approach to the pretalk, testing and hypnotic suggesting -- or -- they just usually wouldn't respond as strongly.
NLP and Hypnosis
In NLP, many would argue that negative words or suggestions are ineffective because the subconscious mind is supposedly incapable of picturing a negative state. For example, the NLP practitioner often suggests that because there is no such state as "not smoking," that trying to instruct a person's subconscious to "stop smoking" would be counterproductive to the process.
Wow, how different this is from hypnotherapy!
In all of the examples given above it is clear that under hypnosis the unconscious mind DOES understand the idea of what quitting smoking is -- regardless of the imagery evoked. Well-crafted posthypnotic suggestions would help here.
Different Approaches Can Often Confuse the Hypnosis Enthusiast
The NLP and the Law of Attraction movements produce great ideas that work well within their fields. But it's important that we not confuse them with hypnotherapy.
There are times we need to use negative suggestions in hypnotherapy. The key is in knowing how and when to use them. And the hypnotherapist (or self-hypnotist) must know how to carefully balance them with POSITIVE and nurturing suggestions.
Author Resource:-
Forbes Robbins Blair is the author of two self-hypnosis books: the popular Instant Self-Hypnosis and Self-Hypnosis Revolution. His website, http://www.instant-self-hypnosis.com, offers hypnosis articles, news, audios, hypnosis-by-phone and private in-office client hypnotherapy. Also look for his Law of Attraction ebook-audio called The Genie Within.
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