Dear Julia:

I would like to try hypnotherapy but I live in a very remote town in Ontario, Canada. There are thousands of advertisements for hypnotherapy tools and recordings, but I'm wondering if this approach would be as effective as seeing someone in person.

Lorrie

Dear Lorrie:

The answer depends on your goals and the issues that underlie the patterns you are trying to change. Since you didn't specify what you're hoping to achieve, I'll offer an overview of the issues to consider when trying to choose between hypnosis recordings and personalized hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness involving heightened suggestibility. Hypnotherapy is essentially psychotherapy that utilizes the hypnotic state. I distinguish between the two based on whether there is interaction between the hypnotist/therapist and the patient. Someone who is guided into a hypnotic state and given suggestions has been hypnotized. Someone who is guided into a hypnotic state from which they work with a therapist in order to determine the cause of their problems and how to solve them is engaged in hypnotherapy.

This distinction is important because it is easy to be hypnotized by a recording, but it is very difficult to engage in hypnotherapy via a recording. This is sort of like the difference between listening to a self-help CD and going to see a life coach or psychotherapist. If your aim is simply to develop new skills and habits, recordings should suffice. If your goal involves the resolution of deep-seated problems or issues, therapy will probably be needed.

If you are trying to correct a problem or pattern that doesn't have deep emotional and psychological roots, however, then recordings may do the trick. Let's compare and contrast the needs of three different women who all want to lose weight in order to illustrate what I mean by simple habits versus deep-seated issues.

Barb initially gained weight simply because she developed some unhealthy habits: she worked as a pastry chef for years and spent much of her free time watching television. Barb is a great candidate for hypnosis recordings. By repeatedly listening to suggestions to eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, she should naturally begin to take the actions necessary to achieve her goals.

Melissa's weight issues go much deeper. Melissa was sexually abused as a child and has never felt comfortable with her femininity. Even though she is conscious of these issues, she needs hypnotherapy to make peace with her past and resolve the fears and other issues that drive her to eat compulsively and desire to <q>pad</q> her body for protection.

Tammy has worked hard to lose the same twenty pounds over and over again. She diets, exercises and loses the weight, then for some unknown reason she <q>goes crazy</q> and puts it all back on again. She doesn't know it, but deep down she is afraid of getting too thin because she starved to death in a past life. By regressing to become aware of those experiences and resolve her fears via therapy, she can break free of this "crazy" cycle and achieve her goals with relative ease.

The more unconscious we are of the issues driving our choices and behavior, the more power those issues tend to hold over us. Since there may be experiences and issues you have no conscious awareness of underlying the patterns you desire to change, it can be difficult to determine if your goal or issues would require personalized hypnotherapy as opposed to self-hypnosis. This is where things get tricky and why it's usually a good idea to meet with a hypnotherapist for at least a couple of sessions while at the same time working with self-hypnosis recordings on your own.

For example, the desire to quit smoking can seem pretty straightforward. Most of the time, only two in-person sessions are needed in addition to clients working with other tools and recordings at home. Even this, however, can be more complicated than it first appears.

When someone comes to me who wants to change a habit like smoking, overeating or other addictive behaviors, the first thing I ask is if they have any anxiety issues. Most people who are addicted to something are self-medicating to soothe themselves. Such a person could listen to a hypnosis recording designed to help them become a non-smoker every day, and they may even quit smoking for a while, but the next time their anxiety feels unmanageable they will probably turn to smoking or some other undesirable habit.

For positive changes to last, we must determine the true reason for our addictive behavior and find more constructive ways to feel better. Trying to treat a deep-rooted problem with hypnosis alone is like trying to get rid of weeds by mowing them down: They may disappear for a little while, but if their roots are still there, they'll pop up over and over again.

For people can't find a good local hypnotherapist, it may be possible to work by phone. In my experience, however, this only works with certain clients and under ideal conditions. No matter how many times I insist on people creating a space that is perfectly quiet and distraction-free, it's never the same as the peaceful vibe I am able to cultivate here in my office. I've learned the hard way that even when people insist that their pets won't disturb them, having pets around never works well either, for the pet either wants to sit on their lap, starts barking at the mailman, or needs to go out while we're in the middle of therapy. The same goes for small children, of course. To go into a deep trance, you have to feel free to forget about the mundane world completely, so actually leaving your normal world behind to go into a therapist's office is ideal.

When hypnotherapy by phone has worked well, it's always been with people who have a lot of experience with meditation and a strong spiritual background. It's also been with people with whom I have an existing relationship of trust and good rapport, which is hard to establish by phone.

Perhaps the main reason I prefer see people in person is because a lot of the power of a therapy session comes from being loved into healing. The relationship between spiritual healer and patient is sacred and should be rooted in trust and good will. This relationship facilitates healing by helping people find the courage to honestly face scary issues and encouraging them to believe in their own power to heal their lives. I also pray for divine healing to work its magic in each session, which creates a special energy that can't be achieved by listening to a recording.

For most issues, the ideal approach is usually a combination of hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis. I may meet with clients for a few sessions in person in order to guide them to conscious awareness of the true roots of their problems and help them find new tools and behaviors in order to facilitate desired changes. I also send them home with hypnosis recordings designed to reprogram their subconscious minds in support of the changes they want to make.

If engaging in personalized hypnotherapy isn't an option for some reason, trying a hypnosis recording can't hurt, and it may be all you need in order to affect the changes you desire. If the recording doesn't work as well as you hope, you can always work with the law of attraction and ask the Universe to guide you to whomever or whatever you need in order to achieve your goals.

- Julia

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