If you’re looking for a hypnotherapist in the Toronto/GTA area, here are a few things you might want to consider.
1. Hypnosis is not one thing—it’s defined and practiced in a variety of ways from one practitioner to the next.
For many practitioners, hypnosis involves guiding a client into a hypnotic state (a formal trance) and delivering suggestions.
This can be thought of as a more traditional approach to hypnosis.
Some practitioners may also use specific techniques or protocols with a client while they’re “in hypnosis.”
In this case, a “hypnotic state” can be thought of as a way to amplify the effect of the changework a client is taken through.
When I use the word hypnosis, I use it to mean unconscious change.
By unconscious change, I mean change that doesn’t require deliberate effort or willpower.
This doesn’t mean there is no work involved.
It means the change itself isn’t forced.
Once an unconscious shift has taken place, there is no effort or willpower required to maintain it.
Unconscious change also doesn’t require you to close your eyes, feel relaxed, or enter and remain in any particular state for meaningful change to occur.
Although closing your eyes can be beneficial at times.
Trance emerges naturally throughout the process of unconscious change.
It’s not a destination.
It happens as part of the process.
Not every client will be aware of the moments they’re going in and out of trance because it’s something we do all of the time without recognizing it.
For example, think of a moment when you’ve found yourself lost in thought.
2. Find someone who can help you work with the underlying pattern.
If you experience a lack of confidence in a certain area of your life, positive visualization and suggestions will usually only go so far.
As long as the underlying pattern behind that lack of confidence remains in place, the issue is likely to keep showing up.
A big part of unconscious change is recognizing that a lack of confidence itself is usually a symptom of something deeper.
Something outside of your current awareness that is driving this response.
You may consciously know there is no reason to doubt yourself, but if something deeper suggests otherwise, this response is likely to keep showing up.
Imagining yourself being more confident can only go so far if, at a deeper level, you still believe something is wrong with you.
3. Find someone who can adapt to you.
Unconscious changework is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
But sometimes it’s treated that way.
Some practitioners rely on scripts, fixed sequences of steps, and predetermined protocols.
That’s not to say these don’t have any benefit.
I use specific techniques and tools with clients when I feel they may be beneficial.
The problem is that everyone is different.
Two people can experience the same problem for two completely different underlying reasons.
Deeper aspects of a problem are outside of your awareness.
Which means it’s not possible to know what will emerge in a session in advance.
So it’s important to work with a practitioner who can adapt and respond to what comes up in a session, rather than trying to fit you into a predetermined process.
Some of the most important insights and discoveries you can experience as a client are not things that you or any practitioner could know in advance.
This means working with someone who can adapt and respond to you, rather than trying to get you to adapt and respond to them.
4. Find someone who can help you change the response, not just manage it better.
Unconscious change is about making meaningful shifts you can feel.
Although learning ways to cope with or manage a problem can be useful, this doesn’t normally change the response itself.
Applying a technique in the moment can be helpful, but you still have to remember to use it.
If you still have to consciously remember what to do every time the response shows up, you’re still managing it.
Unconscious change is about shifting the underlying pattern so that it becomes less automatic, less intense, or no longer arises in the same way, if at all.
5. Find someone who can help you make your own connections.
You already have resources within you.
Part of having a problem is that these resources can seem harder to access, or you may even forget that they’re there.
Some of the most powerful realizations you can have about a problem are the ones you arrive at yourself.
If you’re looking for advice about what to think, how to behave, or what to feel, there are many places you can find this.
But when it comes to unconscious change, the connections you’re able to make for yourself will often be the most meaningful.
Find a practitioner who can help you notice, explore, and make connections you haven’t been able to make on your own.
Not someone who tells you what to think, how to feel, or what to believe.
Your own insights are powerful because they’re yours.
They will fit your experience more than anyone else’s interpretation ever could.
And they may very well end up being the catalyst for the change you’re seeking.
