Hypnosis is a term which is often mystified, mis-understood, or simply over complicated. It is used to describe a trance like state, however, in reality we all go in and out of mild “trances” every day; those moments when our minds wander and we daydream, when we focus intently on something and block everything else out, or when we “zone out” either in front of the television, or with a book.
These are all examples of trance like states, and they are all safe and natural. All hypnosis does is putting you into one of these mild “trance” states purposefully - with the aim of sending beneficial hypnotic suggestions directly into your subconscious mind.
Far from being asleep or unaware, hypnosis is a wakeful state where you are both deeply relaxed yet have a heightened level of suggestibility as well as a focused awareness. It is because of this this heightened state of mind that you can use hypnosis to make changes to your self beliefs, and patterns of thinking safely and naturally.
Hypnotherapy works by empowering people to change and update subconscious beliefs. Through hypnosis, we can reframe and update old beliefs and replace them with new, more helpful assumptions.
Here’s a quick way to understand hypnotherapy: Hypnosis is a highly relaxed mental state, in which we bypass the critical mind. In other words, the mind is relaxed and ready to learn; the mind becomes much more susceptible to suggestion.
In deeply relaxed hypnosis, we can override these automatic thoughts, and update this thinking with new suggestions. Hypnosis works by allowing us to alter our unconscious thought processes to help us achieve specific goals.
The hypnotist causes this trance formation by using subtle hypnotic commands to put you into a mild trance, a state where your conscious mind is largely in-active, direct access to your subconscious mind can be gained, and positive suggestions can be planted.
Because of this there is no conscious resistance from you, and so changes can be made to long-held belief systems. Often those belief systems were not beneficial, yet they may have been so familiar to us that we would hang onto them and become “logically” defensive of them. For example you might have had a low self image and want to change it, but your fear of the unknown, and relative level of “comfort” at thinking in this way made you resist against change.
However with the power of hypnosis, this logical, conscious thinking function is bypassed and changes are made from within - positive changes which alter your beliefs, how you feel about yourself, and in this example, ultimately your levels of self esteem improve.
References:
https://gshypnosis.com/does-hypnosis-work-understanding-the-science-of-hypnotherapy-2/
https://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/blog/hypnosis-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work
https://www.naturalhypnosis.com/faq/frequently-asked-questions-about-hypnosis
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis