Anodynic Hypnosis - Breath Pacing Rapport technique

There are many ways to hypnotize your clients. Everything from the wildly popular Fractional Relaxation; whereby you lead your client to consciously relax everything step by step from their toes all the way up to the tips of their hair.

Any hypnotist worth their salt also knows, that if you don't establish rapport with your client before the session, you'll have a very rough time relaxing anyone!

Rapport is one of the most important features or characteristics of unconscious human interaction. It is commonality of perspective: being "in sync" with, or being "on the same wavelength" as the person with whom you are talking.

There are a number of techniques that are supposed to be beneficial in building rapport such as: matching your body language (ie, posture, gesture, and so forth); maintaining eye contact; and matching breathing rhythm. Some of these techniques are explored in neuro-linguistic programming.

A classic if unusual example of rapport can be found in the book Uncommon Therapy by Jay Haley, about the psychotherapeutic intervention techniques of Milton Erickson. Erickson developed the ability to enter the world view of his patients and, from that vantage point (having established rapport), he was able to make extremely effective interventions (to help his patients overcome life problems).

Breath Pacing Rapport technique is a very powerful method of combining synchronization of breathing with your client and delivering your suggestions on one or both sides of the breath cycle. And this technique is a favorite of mine! The rules for it's use are very simple.

1. MIrror the posture and respiration of your client. If they are breathing fast, you breathe at the same speed. If they are breathing slow, do the same. As you deliver your suggestions you can slow down or speed up the breathing when you've taken over the lead in pacing your client.

2. If you want to raise the energy and thereby energize your client, speak on the inhalation part of their breath cycle.

3. If you want to relax them, speak on the exhalation part of their cycle.

4. If you want to make a point, pick a point to stare at such as a point on their head or on the wall just behind them and speak on whatever part of the breath cycle you're working with (e.g., raising or relaxing energy).

Now some other points are:

1. If you want to anchor a statement when you're making a point. Just raise the pitch or lower the pitch of your voice. You can alternatively use a louder or softer tone as well to anchor the point. Or snap your fingers, clap your hands! Anything to mark the point!

2. Ask a rhetorical obvious questions: Don't you want to feel more peaceful and fulfilled right now? Of course you do!

3. Provide easy to remember rhymes to your point: Everyday in every way you'll always feel better and better won't you?

4. Dr. Milton Erickson stated that we love anything with "ing" and "ee": This is the most relaxing state you can achieve! You don't have to be push-ee about self-hypnosis.

Conversational Hypnosis uses all of these rules including:

1. Either/or rules,

2. Splitting alternatives,

3. Time and scale choices,

4. Double and Triple TDS.

I'll write more about these in the next article.

Have fun with Breath Pacing Rapport with your friends. Decide before hand what suggests you want to add into your point statements and let the breath deliver them effortlessly and easily.

Thank you for your time to share this,

Mike Addison MH.t., MA.t
AnodynicHypnosis@gmail.com - Contact me for session prices

What is Hypnosis?

The dictionary defines hypnosis as: an artificially induced trance state resembling sleep, characterized by heightened susceptibility to suggestion. That may be the stage version of hypnosis however, it's not the hypnotheraputic version! Hypnosis is the process of transitioning from one thought to another. From one state of mind, to another. I guess that's not as sexy as the dictionary definition but, it is more realistic.

Hypnosis is composed basically of three components:

1. The person being hypnotized,
2. The suggestion,
3. And, the conduit.

The person being hypnotized can be yourself or someone else or a whole crowd of people. The suggestion, is a whole study in itself. And we'll expand on that over a multitude of blogs. And finally, the conduit is the method of delivery of the suggestion. Again, another whole study in itself!

Let's start with the person being hypnotized. Each person has their own private biological computer called their brain. They also have a wonderful set of senses. The five senses are known as the VAKOG. Or, Visual, audible, kinesthetic, olfactory and gastric. Each of these senses communicate with the brain it their own language. The brain takes the messages the senses send it, and translates the messages with the appropriate algorithm; that the conscious mind can understand.
From the hypnotheraputic standpoint, the brain/mind is broken down into several components. The conscious mind, conscious filter and the subconscious mind

The conscious mind processes the waking and sleeping world from three standpoints:

1. The Somatic - Doer,
2. The Cognitive - Witness,
3. Awareness - neither doer or witness.

It processes about 10 to 20 bytes of information per second which is about a thought or two worth of information.

The conscious filter is just as it sounds. It filters the world's flood of sensory information so that we don't become overloaded with information as we did as babies. It generalizes, deletes and distorts information into only the most immediate information that we need to interact at the moment.
The subconscious, which I also call the Super Being:

* Never sleeps,
* Experiences the full force of the messages coming in from the senses,
* Supports and controls all functions of the mind and body,
* And cannot lie or deceive.

That last item, is the basis of a multitude of problems between the conscious mind and the subconscious. And the items I just described are only a few of the Super Being's talents! The Super Being also processes about 2,000,000 bytes of information per second as well!

I'm not trying to under sell the conscious mind which is also broken down into a government of it's own. There is the Primal Mind component which issues 8 basic urges: sleep, sex, fight, flee, power, fame, wealth, hunger. The Emotional Mind, which filters each and every thought via the 7 basic emotions: acceptance, control, security, inclusion, interaction, sympathy and empathy. And the Intellect, which bifurcates thought/messages into synchrones and asynchrones patterns.

So, how do all these components produce what we call hypnotic state? All of us continually transition from one thought to another! Why is that hypnosis?

Well, when that train of thought starts to loop and become fixated. And the mind becomes open to suggestion. As the mind becomes more entrained on a fixated thought. The person fixated allows the conscious filter to move out of the way and thereby opens a more direct path to the subconscious mind. As the conscious filter moves more and more out of the way, it also retains less and less memory of the events taking place!

A light hypnotic state equivalent to being road zoned and missing your turn. This state is known as the Hypnodial State. The mind loses about 20% of the events and doesn't remember them in this state. A more intense fixation, say, about the level of seeing the love of your life and being blown away, you lose about 60% of what's going on around you.
Now, in deep trance. Or being totally absorbed in true meditation, you lose about 80%.

Now, the logical question should be, how does one get themselves or another into this hypnotic state? I'll answer that in the next blog! Tune in next time as the old radio announcer use to say!

Thank you for your time,

Mike Addison M.Ht., M.AHt.
AnodynicHypnosis@gmail.com