As a hypnotherapist how would you deal with a client who wishes to recover from the grief of their significant other passing away? For example is their any particular method or suggestions you would use?
Jon Rhodes
How this would be treated would depend on the type of grief the client was suffering from. Sometimes people suffer from prolonged grief because they had something unresolved with the deceased person. They may have had an argument or just simply did not have enough time for them around the time before they passed away, and feel that they have sometime unfinished business that cannot be resolved. For this type of problem I have had success with guiding the subject to imagine having a conversation with the deceased and just talking to them or apologising, or saying or doing whatever it is that they need to. This can be done in the privacy of their own minds and they can choose whether or not they wish to share what happened with me the therapist. People usually report that they feel much better after their experience and can now let them go.
Sometimes people just simply struggle to accept that the person is dead and will not return. I may have to work on showing them that the person is no longer around and will never be, and instead focus their mind on the great times they had, and their memories of that person.
Is it possible for someone to lie while being spoke to while they are hypnotized?
Indeed it is very possible to lie when in a trance. You can easily choose what to keep to yourself with your normal discretion. This is why I knew that Uri Gellar was not being entirely truthful when he claimed that he hypnotized Michael Jackson and asked him if he had ever abused children. He claimed that Michael Jackson said ’no’, and that he was fully convinced that he was telling the truth because he said so when in a hypnotic trance. Jackson may well have been innocent, but this does not prove it as it is very possible to lie in trance. I suspect that Uri Gellar was being well meaning and trying to clear his friend’s name.
In fact if anything a person is probably more likely to tell mistruths when in trance, which is why testimonies whilst in trance are not accepted by courts. Whilst in a trance a persons mind becomes more creative and their imagination more vivid. Sometimes they can have difficulty differentiated between fantasy and reality and mistruths can come out.
Are there any little hypnosis tricks you use to impress people or as a part piece?
I tend to shy away from this and leave it to the stage and street hypnotists to entertain. However I have been known to occasionally demonstrate hypnotizing animals such as cats and dogs. A party piece I sometimes perform is to use covert hypnosis and subtly suggest to someone something, such as a number or an object, then pretend to read their mind and tell them what they are thinking, rather in the style of Derren Brown.
Are you planning to sell your self hypnosis course on HypnoBusters or will you open up a new site for it?
Although nothing has been definitely decided, we will probably do both! This product is different from most of our other products as it is an instructional course and it contains several audios and written pieces, so it may be better placed on a separate site. However like I said, nothing has been definitely decided yet.