You Always Remember Your First Time!
My first time using hypnosis
by Kate Beaven-Marks
Photography by lilivanili
“So… next week you can hypnotise me…a nice induction, deepener, perhaps a useful metaphor and then an awakening…” The suggestion came from my friend, a hypnotherapist. Okay, he had spent weeks chatting about hypnosis, what it is, what it isn’t, how it works, including half a dozen theories, philosophies and concepts. He had demonstrated direct and indirect hypnosis, Ericksonian techniques, various hypnotic phenomena and even what to look for during an induction. I had experienced hypnosis and what it felt like, but whilst I thought I knew a little about it, was I ready for the responsibility?
“You are kidding, right?” I asked, only to receive an enigmatic smile. Whether I was actually ready to try to use hypnosis? He seemed to think so…
Driving home that evening, I started to wonder…What should I write? How would I sound? How do you get that ‘special’ voice? Would it work? Could I remember all he had told me?
Liking a challenge, I dived into my, then, tiny library of books and started to read and read and read. It was a great, but intense, learning experience.
Fortunately I eventually started to settle down and found the classic Hartland’s Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors useful as it had simple and clear examples and scripts. When I eventually dragged myself away from it (about halfway through the book!) I had a good idea of what I could say and do in my first session.
A list of phrases of what I wanted to say came next and then I worked out what imagery I wanted and started to put it all together, ticking off my list of phrases as I went. This was followed by two days of reading it out loud and editing it… recording it and editing it… and practicing on my favourite teddy bear (you wouldn’t believe how many times he has been zapped now!) and still more editing.
By the time ‘the evening’ came around, I actually felt excited. For the first time I got to sit in “the hypnotist’s chair”, operate the light dimmer and get started…
It seemed to work…. My glorious story loaded with hypnotic language patterns including truisms and multi-modality direct, indirect and even confusional suggestions and double-binds, actually seemed to work!
Luckily I had listened carefully when he talked about his preferences so was able to include many of his favourite experiences….
I took him on a lovely journey from a dining room in a country house, through a formal garden, past a sunken marble garden, through a woody glade, along a path through wild flowers and down some steps to a stream and then a waterfall…. From there in through a door in a tree to a special room, a room of wishes and dreams and then all the way back along the route, back to the dining room… All along I was watching keenly… a sigh… a swallow… a twitch, then several more (oops….did the books mention that?)
It is so seared into my memory that even now, years later, I have no need to look up the ‘script’ to write about it.
So what did I see? Using what I had learned from him and from my reading… He looked hypnotised…. He acted hypnotised… Having hypnotised him many times since then I know now that he was actually hypnotised on the day.
I went home feeling so inspired and motivated… I couldn’t wait to start with some formal training. I haven’t stopped learning and now I am fortunate to be researching how hypnotists and hypnotherapists are taught, so I still get to go on lots of courses!
I have hypnotised many hundreds of people since that first time, but it is still crystal clear in my memory. I remember the pictures on the walls, the smell of furniture polish and even how loud the clock ticked…. It was a great first experience, even more so because I had the opportunity to write the script myself and had to research and learn first. Thinking back to how little I knew then and what could have gone wrong, my friend displayed great trust to give me such a free hand as he didn’t even check what I was going to do first… My first clinical hypnosis course and indeed even the second, both relied heavily on scripts to direct the actions of the students. My friend supported me through my initial learning and very soon scripts were history as I developed the ability to think as I worked.
So a huge thank you to my friend for being my first… and to all my fellow students with whom I have grown from working with them.
Visit Kate’s web sites at www.affinityhypnosis.com and www.alterjective.com.
