My Own Very Personal Journey
I first came across hypnosis in 2013 when I attended a self-development festival. It was a group hypnosis session, and I decided to take part. The hypnotist suggested working on a memory that bothered us the most. My choice was immediate: a violent physical attack I experienced at age 15 that haunted me for years afterward. It’s a miracle that I’m alive today, standing here and writing this article. I remember how, after the attack, I lay in bed for days healing, and how I felt completely transformed afterward—like I was now different, unlovable, and tremendously isolated. The sadness I felt stayed with me for years. Then I moved on with life, only to begin hearing the sounds of the event in my head 10 years later. It was haunting me. That haunting remained until the day of that group hypnosis session. After the session, the memory no longer affected me, and I healed from it. Now, when I look back, the memory is still there—dim and distant, but, more importantly, neutral. How could one session of group hypnosis, not even a private one tailored to me, have such a profound impact?
Fast forward to 2015. I went through a very traumatic breakup with my boyfriend, who was also my tango partner. Coincidentally, I came across an NLP facilitator (you can think of hypnotherapy as an umbrella term that includes NLP). I worked with her to address my confusion, heartbreak, anger and my low self-worth led me to this relationship in the first place. I attended sessions religiously for over a year, almost weekly, to get over this. I learned about narcissism and narcissistic abuse. During the sessions, I worked a lot on my anger. During hypnosis, I visualised expressing my anger. Guess what? Not only did my anger lift, but I also got out of the depression. Hypnosis provided me with a healthy outlet to express my anger. I thrived during that year of hypnosis. How was I able to overcome such a big trauma with just hypnosis?
What is hypnosis and hypnotherapy?
You might be saying, “Okay, Selin, we get it, it worked for you. Now, tell us what it is.”
You’ve probably heard of the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious mind. Hypnosis allows people to access the parts of the subconscious mind that they usually don’t access or train. Hypnosis is a powerful tool that is essentially a guided interactive meditation, very intentionally crafted to achieve a goal. Hypnotherapy is a fresh, accessible, modern approach to hypnosis, conducted in sessions for therapeutic work. Hypnotherapy can be done in four different ways: group hypnosis, private sessions (which are very powerful because they are unique to your subconscious), hypnotherapy recordings, and self-hypnosis.
How does it work on a practical level?
Our brains function in different brainwave states. All day long, we transition from one to the other. The theta brainwave state is the one we aim for during hypnosis. It is like the brainwaves during sleep while still being awake, and hypnosis is more similar to daydreaming than sleeping. It is an altered state of mind that lies between being awake and asleep. It is a psycho-physiological state of heightened focus, receptivity, and concentration, with a corresponding reduction in peripheral awareness. This means I can guide you into that state during a hypnotherapy session through a process called hypnotic induction. The conscious mind takes a little “nap,” and the subconscious mind becomes accessible. Then, we use visualisation and suggestions to achieve the desired outcome.
Hypnosis is the bypassing of the critical factor of the conscious mind, allowing for selective thinking. It brings about the use of concentration, relaxation, suggestion, and expectation. For instance, a weight loss client may say, “Everyone in my family has a high BMI; I can’t achieve this goal.” Through hypnosis, we bypass the conscious mind’s doubts.
How effective is hypnosis?
I once watched a documentary on hypnosis used in dentistry, where a woman had tooth extractions and implants without anaesthesia. She felt no discomfort beyond a 0 on a scale from 0 to 10 (with 10 being extreme pain)—she was comfortable the whole time.
Did you know that according to a study by Alfred A. Barrios, published in a psychotherapy journal, hypnotherapy resulted in a 93% recovery rate after just six sessions? In comparison, behaviour therapy had a 72% recovery rate after 22 sessions, and psychoanalysis had a 38% recovery rate after 600 sessions. When I first started running sessions in 2016, I sold six-session packages without even knowing about this study. I could see firsthand that my clients needed up to six sessions to fully address a subject.
Placebo is different from hypnosis too. Hypnotic activation triggers the prefrontal cortex, while the analgesic conditions in the placebo affect a different part of the brain. One study had someone hypnotised to see colour in a black-and-white photo. Scans showed that under hypnosis, the part of the visual cortex responsible for perceiving colour was active, meaning the client was genuinely seeing colour. In comparison, with suggestion alone (without hypnosis), only the imagination part of the brain was active, and the person was merely imagining colour.
What life areas can hypnosis be used for?
Hypnosis can be helpful for a variety of issues, such as:
Procrastination
Manifestation
Self-expression
Improving sleep
Managing anxiety
Getting over a breakup
Increasing fertility
Public speaking
Resolving recurring patterns
Achieving goals by removing limiting beliefs
Overcoming addictions
Losing weight
Overcoming fears (flying, heights, etc.)
Improving relationships
Pain management
Stress relief
Boosting self-esteem
Phobias - Phobia of spiders and snakes are very common in Australia.
Traumas
Limiting beliefs
Healing the Effects of Narcissistic Abuse
Most importantly, hypnosis can help you become a better person by overcoming your challenges and limitations. When you choose to have a session to work on yourself, you’re not only helping yourself—you also become an integral part of my mission to heal the world through the power of hypnosis.
