Here’s Roy Hunter’s quote from his book, ‘The Art of Hypnotherapy’, “most therapists endeavour to fit their clients to a technique instead of fitting the technique to the client.”

This is fundamentally the basis of Client-Centred approach, as a facilitator, I hold torch to help the client have a better pespective and come to her/his own profound conclusions.

Hypnotherapy, generally, is a form of therapy that uses hypnosis to help individuals overcome a wide range of issues, including anxiety, phobias, stress, low self-esteem, procrastination, goal setting, and other personal or professional issues.

 Also referred to as guided hypnosis, focusing on relaxing the client and allowing him/her to achieve a heightened state of mindfulness or consciousness, where he/she experiences a detached outward attention and focuses, on a deeper level, on inner experience.

Hypnosis can help you experience the following benefits:

1. One of the biggest benefits of hypnotherapy is its ability to help individuals overcome negative patterns of behaviour and thoughts. Thus, with hypnosis, individuals can access inner wisdom through the subconscious mind and make positive changes in the way they think and behave.
2. Hypnosis can help you reach your goals, by simply reprograming your mind-set to achieve success in your personal or professional life.
3. Hypnosis can help with stress related issues by promoting the relaxation response effective in helping you enhance your general wellbeing, which allows you to feel more positive, at ease and revived.
4. Hypnosis can help you overcome or manage fears and phobias which can hold you back and restrict your life. By gently guiding you back to the event or experience that caused this issue you are better equipped to resolve, release, relearn and access the wisdom within to help you have better understanding to let go of that which does not serve you anymore.
5. Hypnosis can help resolve inner conflict allowing you to feel empowered with an increased ability to manage your emotions and improve internal communication.
6. Hypnosis can help you have a better focus as there’s a plenty that can rapidly overwhelm us… with hypnosis you allow yourself to break through these day-to-day concerns and focus completely on the problem at hand with heightened clarity.

Hypnosis cannot be done to you. This is one of the biggest misconceptions. All hypnosis is, essentially, self-hypnosis. Hypnosis will not work if you do not want it to work. You have to be willing and motivated to want change and therefore allow yourself to do so. The hypnotherapist can only guide you similar to a car passenger giving you directions on how to get to a particular destination, but you and only you alone remain the driver of the car. Therefore, you are responsible for giving yourself permission to participate fully.

As mentioned before, it is not possible for you to lose control, you are always in control because you are the driver. Unfortunately, this misconception about hypnotherapy robs you of the many benefits of this beautiful modality. The therapist can only help the client if the client is ready to help him/herself. The only control the therapist has… is to help their clients take control of their lives. Eleven11 uses a Client-Centred approach where the client is ALWAYS in the drivers sit.

Almost anyone can be hypnotised, all you have to do is give yourself permission to experience deep relaxation. Remember, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. Yes, some people experience fear of being hypnotised… the reason for this is usually because of the fear of success or imminent positive change. Yes, some people are scared of success. If you have ever been so absorbed and focused one thing that you have lost track of time or your surroundings, then, you can be hypnotised. Again, you just need to let go and give yourself permission to be hypnotised.

In a state of hypnosis, you do not lose consciousness, think of it as heightened “daydreaming”. You are aware of everything in your surroundings throughout the entire process. The difference with being fully awake and being in hypnosis is that in hypnosis you are laser focused on one idea at time, and this requires deep relaxation.

,Whilst in hypnosis, you are in control of everything, including what you chose to say or not say during therapy. To reiterate, a Client-Centred facilitation, always means that, 1.  You have full control of how much you want to share, 2. You are always encouraged to only share what you feel comfortable to share.

No, you will not get lost or stuck in trance. Hypnosis is a totally natural state that you enter daily as you are about to go to sleep or wake up. You are in hypnosis when you are deep in your daydream, or when you drive your car with no conscious effort. You are in a state of hypnosis when you are fully absorbed and focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. In Hypnosis you are always in control, , and if at any point during the session you feel you want to wake up for any reason at all, you are in control to do just that.

When choosing a therapist, ensure that you choose one affiliated with a reputable governing body or Association. This will provide you with an assurance of quality standards and practice regulation. The South African Institute of Hypnotism has a list of highly qualified therapist to help you. SAIH was founded in 1998 making it the most established institution of its kind in Africa and the certification is recognized by leading international bodies, such International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association (IMDHA), the General Hypnotherapy Standard Council (GHSC) and the Association for Professional Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy (APHP).