Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.
This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, Session number 318. Jess Marion on NLP versus Hypnosis versus coaching. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette. Your professional resource for hypnosis training and out. Standing business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette. If you have spent any time around the different Facebook groups that are out there for hypnosis, or you’ve attended a training or you’ve even gone to a conference, you’ve heard this question, would you use hypnosis or NLP from that?
And my answer, and you’re gonna hear the same answer from my guest this week, is traditionally, Yes. Now the answer becomes yes because again, so many of these techniques at the core have the same formulas and principles inside of them. Though I wanted to invite Jess Marion to come back on the program she’s been on several times before.
Now to specifically unpack this question and also seeing that. As a lot of the work that she does now fits under the category of hypnotic coaching. To hear a little bit more about whether we draw those delineations, how we start to draw that out, how we create those lines, and really when and where do we start to go in the specific directions.
Now, as Jess often delivers wonderfully in these conversations, so much of this. Backing up in the neuroscience in terms of what we now know in terms of the brain, what the process of hypnosis actually helps to resolve, and really the importance of trance, however we go about defining it and what that actually means neurologically in terms of the structure of the brain, as well as the structure of the flexibility.
Of creating change. So this is what I really appreciate about the work that she does, along with Sean and Sarah Carson of bringing this practical approach to the neuroscience of the work in such a way that we don’t just sit back and go, Oh, this is what we’re doing. It’s instead, here’s how we put this to use.
Here’s how we integrate it, and at the end of the day, what’s more important? Here’s how we create the change. So listen carefully for some outstanding updates in terms of research, some of which is only about four or five years old at this point. Details in terms of how we, let’s say, begin the change process to frame the work.
And we’re gonna hit upon one of my favorite topics, the fact that hypnotic suggestions and change. Are not just about words. I really appreciate the intention that Jess talks about here in terms of gestures, in terms of tonality, in terms of how we navigate the entire change experience that every benefit, the nonverbals, the verbals, the experience of change.
That’s what creates the change. There’s a few resources that just mentions inside of this conversation, so head over to the show [email protected]. There’s a search function on the page. By the way, you can find all the different podcasts that will make this one easy. It’s episode number 318, so if you go to work smart hypnosis.com/.
3 1 8. That’ll bring you right over and find all the resources that we’ve talked about plus previous times that Jess has been on the program, talking about themes of either secondary gain, whether there is or whether there isn’t, plus a whole mentality in terms of how we go about the change process.
While you’re there to check out the shortcut website, Jason Webinar. Dot com. We’ve actually put together recently an on demand webinar presentation, a free online workshop called Six Steps to A Six Figure Hypnosis Income. These are the six main bullet points that I keep revisiting time and time again, and having tracked the people who are members of the hypnotic.
Business systems community. These are those same similar six points that if we keep revisiting them and level up our scale in terms of how we go about these six key pillars in terms of our business, that’s where it becomes even easier to scale Time and time again, that’s a free on-demand presentation.
Check that [email protected]. And Jess and I also talk about hypno thoughts live in this conversation. We’ve both got events coming up. Check that out at ht. Dot net. And with that, let’s jump directly into this very special April 1st episode. Here we go. This is episode number 318. Jess Marion on NLP versus Hypnosis.
Versus coaching. So I’m here with Jess Marion for I believe the third or the fourth podcast. But Jess, good to have you back. How have you been? I’ve been great. Thanks so much, Jason. It’s always fun to do these with you and I’m looking forward to today. Yeah, so there’s a theme that I thought of reaching out to you on and having a conversation, which I’ll set up.
The riddle that often comes out of a training that either I’m hosting myself or watching other people in interactions online where so often someone would go, Well, should I use hypnosis for that? Or should I use NLP for that? Which one? And I kind of wanna just open up this scan of worms and have a conversation with you around that.
Sure. Okay, so what’s the answer, ? The short answer? The short answer is, Uh, that’s my answer too. All right, so everybody join us next week. We’re gonna have a great, Okay, keep going. . Yeah, I do the same thing. Why, Why, why is your answer yes? Because I don’t, I don’t really see a difference between the two on, on a practical level.
Mm-hmm. , if we think, if we take a broad perspective, just kind of like the academic view, we can say, Yes, these two modalities, these two traditions have a different history, have a different lineage, but they do intersect primarily through Erickson, Kinda the uniting force between hypnosis and nlp. If you think about hypnosis, you know, ancient healing modality up through.
18 hundreds and the early part of 20th century, it was in many ways kind of relegated to the side shows, and then it started to move back into favor in the realms of medicine and psychiatry. And then we have the lineage that we have today. Long story, very, very, very short. Yeah. Now we take nlp. NLP really came out of the sixties and seventies.
John Grinder, Richard Bandler. The basis of NLP originally was looking at linguistic structures and modeling excellence, modeling what Sater. and for its pearls we’re doing, and also this fascination with how we can use language to get people back in touch with pure sensory experience without all the conscious filters and meaning making that the brain normally does.
Because the belief was if you get them back in touch with pure sensory experience, it undoes a lot of the problems, uh, that we face. And yes, that that can happen. Richard and John. Onto this until John’s neighbor and friend Gregory Bateson, who happened to be very good friends with Milton Erickson at the time, said, Well, you only have half the story you need to go visit Milton Erickson, famous family therapist, hypnotherapist, uh, and get the other side of how you can use language to create generalization to purposely create distortions and deletions in order to help clients.
So John and Richard did that. So now we have the intersection of the original form of NLP and Milton Erickson introducing trance into it as it exists now, you could still make, you could still partition. These two lineages out. However, I, my personal view is if you do that, yes, there’s a certain type of historical and academic legitimacy to that.
However, on the practical level, the same, The mechanisms that make hypnosis work are the same exact mechanisms that make NLP work. NLP does not work without trance. Yeah, you could do a sub modality change, but unless you leverage trance either directly or indirectly, it’s not gonna stick that the old sub modalities will bounce back.
And the reason for that is that trance is going to do some very important things in terms of our neurophysiology that allow for greater neuroplasticity and allow the brain to be able to. Divergent new connections that it wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. So as far as I’m concerned, NLP without Trance is kind of, uh, like a broken pencil.
Pointless, uh, in terms of change work. And what was that, three and a half minutes time? I think that’s the most. Complete answer I’ve ever heard for that. I love that. Thank you. Which this is where eventually I’m gonna go back in and re-list to all that again myself several times over. I’ve got a similar short answer, which kind of ends in a riddle.
That does make sense that when you look at, if you want to try to differentiate the two. We’re gonna come back to the whole NLP without trans conversation because I AB absolutely on board with you on that, but it’s where to remember part of the story. Yes. It was a study originally around modeling and linguistics, and yes, they were tracking Milton Erickson, a well known hypnotist of the day, but also for its pearls also at Virginia Satir, which by the way, Jess, I don’t know if you know this yet, but having run Virginia Hypnosis, For the last 12 years or so, and by the time this releases, I’m gonna be down in Florida and we did rename, Virginia Hypnosis.
It used to be named after the state of Virginia. We’re at least keeping Virginia hypnosis for another year now named in honor of Virginia Satir. Oh, that’s fantastic. It’s 12 years of search engine optimization. I am not about to let that go anytime. No, but re But remembering this, Yeah, Remembering though the story that yes, they were tracking a hypnotist in other people.
So which one do you use? Hypnosis or an lp? And my answer is yes, but the riddle becomes that because of that backstory, all of hypnosis could fit inside of nlp. But not all of NLP could fit inside of hypnosis. But that’s not to say that the skills that are also then from other modalities of modeling that came out of NLP are also useful to the hypnotist, therefore, once again, Yes.
Yeah, and I would take a slightly divergent view of that. and I tend to take a broader perspective of hypnosis and say the sum total of NLP can fit into a hypnosis framework. Whether you’re using it for therapy or for business or for presentation skills, it all fits in, but it, you can’t fit all of hypnosis into nlp.
The way I like to look at it, and this model comes from, from Sean, Sean, Carson, and I, I think it’s a very useful model for understanding the differences of between. And that is four quadrants that are based on two meta programs. So if you just like imagine an a y axis and an x axis on the Y axis, you’re going to have internal frame at the top, external frame at the bottom, and on the X axis, you’re going to have procedures on one side, options on the other.
If we think about classical hypnosis, think like Dave Elman, hypnotherapy, direct suggestion, classical trans. That is really gonna be sitting in the quadrant where both external frame and procedures overlap in that you have a hypnotist who is very much so in charge of the interaction, and they have a procedural way in which they move the client through the change process.
So, you know, close your eyes, take a deep breath, relax all the muscles in your body. Try to open your eyes and find, you can’t, You’re a non-smoker, that type of thing. And I, I, granted this is an oversimplification. I’m just trying to keep it short for time. So that’s the first type of hypnosis we have. Then in the quadrant above that, where you have internal frame and procedures, you have nlp, you have the.
Slash you know, some C B T. You also have EFT where you have a procedure, you have a step by step process that helps to create trance. However, there is a bit more freedom in that the hypnotist or facilitator or coach is going to. Walk you through the procedure, but then check in with you. Okay. So how’s that working for you?
What’s happening now? It’s a different, it’s a different locus of control in that, from the hypnotist into the client. Well, the catchphrase, there’s a workshop that I ran one time where the catch phrase to some of the people in the room were, Because the audience that I often draw, half of them were business people looking for the languaging.
Yeah. The other half were hypnotist looking for techniques for change. Yeah. And, and the joke was that the people who were brand new to all of this were learning it much faster. And to the hypnotist, I kept having to say, Stop doing hypnosis. Yeah. . It was not. And now you feel that confidence moving throughout your body and as is moving throughout your shoulders, feel your No.
Everyone else in the room was following the standard. As you do this, what do you notice now? Yeah, it’s, it is a shift. It’s a shift in paradigm for a lot of practitioners and you know, we take it a step further. If you move lateral to nlp, C B T E ft, you have internal frame options, which is going to be Eric Neo Ericsonian, Hypnosis.
I say Neo because Ericsson himself did a lot of direct suggestion where it’s going to. I’m gonna tell you a story and you’re gonna go into trans on whatever new connections and meaning you make out of it. In relationship to this problem is, is your path to freedom? Maybe I’ll elicit arm levitation and give some process suggestions.
The client is going to change, but I’m not going to tell them as the hypnotist how they’re going to change. They have the option, and as far as I’m concerned, you know, who’s leading the show. It’s ultimately going to be the client’s wise, unconscious mind. That can be very tricky for people who are very comfortable on the other half of the spectrum, who like procedures, because there aren’t really procedures here.
There isn’t a step by step process. To, to take someone through. And then the last quadrant, which is where I am mostly sit, uh, which is in the hypnotic coaching slash H N L P, which is externally framed, but options. So I have, I’m very much so in charge of where the session goes. I, you know, we have the starting point.
I know where the client needs to be because their body has shown me at some point in the session. But in terms of how they get there, throughout each little thing we do, I’m listening for objections. and then pivoting based on whatever objection comes up, whatever the, Oh, I feel good now. Yes, but, mm-hmm , blah, blah, blah.
Now all four of these modalities, they all rely on trance. Uh, whether we wanna use hypnosis and trance to mean something different or the same thing. I use ’em. Simultaneously in most instances. But I get that some people wanna parse out the language, that’s fine. But for me, trance is the, the life blood that flows through all four quadrants and all four can work.
It just depends on what you are comfortable with as a practitioner and what’s going to work best for the client in front of you. You know, if I have a client in front of me and I have a lot of these clients in New York City who are internally framed and options, they do not wanna be told what to. If I try and do direct suggestion or an Elman induction with ’em, it is such a massive break of rapport.
They’re not coming back. So ultimately, flexibility is the key. So if you come back to when to do nlp, when to do hypnosis, yes. Nice. And with that said, you know, I, I think it would be useful at this point to make a delineation between hypnosis, as many practitioners may use the word versus trance for me, uh, hypnosis does not require an induction trance does not require an induction.
Yeah, you see trance, you hear trance naturally occurring throughout the coaching session. You don’t need an induction in order to create that circumstance. My worldview is, I know that certain things that will happen in the session will automatically create fractionation. I know they’re likely to create trance or hypnosis, so I’m just waiting, listening, and looking for when trans naturally appears, and then I’m going to use.
I recognize that that is going to be a big jump for some practitioners. So to somebody who might be new to this, instead of thinking like, Okay, well do I do a formal induction first? Give ’em direct suggestion, bring ’em out a TRA and do an NLP pattern, or do I do an NLP pattern? Then do a formal induction.
Give them the suggestion, bring them out. I would say instead of thinking that way, just experi. With doing an NLP pattern, but using your hypnotic language, using your hypnotic tonality, and then calibrating without doing anything like direct suggestion or procedural base to create trance, just calibrate.
Does this client go into trance through this NLP pattern? Yes or no? Sometimes they will, sometimes they won’t. If they won’t then step back and do a more overt formal hip hypnotic induction also, and I know like I’m just putting it all out on the table here, . Yeah. The other caveat to this is if you are marketing yourself as a hypnotist, At some point in the session, you better do a, an overt induction and direct suggestion because people who seek out hypnotists, they’re expecting that experience.
Exactly. And if you don’t provide it despite, like you could know that like this client is changed, like the problem is gone. You have used all your other, all your other fun magic, your nlp, your EFT have not a coaching, ericsonian storytelling. But if you don’t meet that expectation, at least initially, They can, there’s three outcomes, maybe four.
The first outcome is that they’ve changed. It doesn’t matter. They’re gonna come back. Awesome. The next outcome is they would’ve changed, but then they’re gonna reflect after and go, Well, I, I wasn’t hypnotized, so I couldn’t possibly change. And they’ll undo the change. Yeah. Or they’ll come to the end of the session and say, I paid you to do hypnosis and you didn’t do hypnosis, and then you have an unhappy.
That’s an important lesson, which, you know, it’s where I, I’ve talked for years about the difference between the words hypnosis and hypnotherapy, how really it’s more so a conversation around the word therapy and very much less to do with the word hypnosis. Yeah. And there were some who, you know, very prominently say they’re not looking to buy hypnosis, they’re not the, you know, sell the change.
If we’re talking the business model, then again, as I hinted at part of the story earlier, From everything that I’ve done, I’ve been the guy who is at Virginia Hypnosis offering hypnosis, and welcome to Virginia Hypnosis. I’m your hypnotist, and the H word is all over everything that I do. A and while, Yes, this next story has some very clearly anecdotal elements inside of it.
I can think back to two people. Which, let’s phrase it this way first, to set up the story, I learned my lesson from the first one where here’s everything that we did conversationally. I’m just layering stories and you know, chunking down into some of the specifics, but then suddenly, you know, slight of mouth strategies to suddenly pull them out and they realize they have more options than they gave themselves credit for and it’s the next appointment and she.
Yeah, but when do we actually do hypnosis? Cuz nothing did anything last week. Yeah. And then a few months later and nearly identical session with someone else. And I, I’ll tell you, it was just like five minutes. Okay, Now close your eyes, five. Feel relaxation, you know, quick, progressive muscle relaxation.
Got ’em into an arm lock. I use a lot of hypnotic phenomenon, what I do. Open your eyes. Look at that thing. It gets even stronger. Close your eyes. Decide what it means for you to break free of this issue. That’s when that arm will lower. That’s when your eyes will reopen, which I didn’t do anything. Direct suggestion specific.
Yeah. In that little quick five, 10 minute hypnotic interlude, which even from my just experimentation didn’t go any further than decide what this means for you to break free. Mm-hmm. never once said, You’re gonna eat this, you’re not gonna eat that. And again, yes, it’s an anecdotal example, yet the other client night and day difference got the result and, you know, raved.
So be, be aware of what expectations. You are presenting, so that, that brings about this question then of do you look at it systematically in terms of how to blend this all together? So I look at it as, do what works. Yeah, thank you. So you have to experiment and find, For you as a practitioner, it’s always gonna be, and I mean like you just general, everybody listening and myself included, it’s always gonna be a balance of where are, where’s your comfort level, what are you comfortable with, and where are you willing to stretch?
In terms of skills building, so I, you know, my, my main model, I do hypnotic coaching, which, which is state based. So I listed the problem state. I listed the desired outcome state. I’m going to elicit something called an end-state energy, which in NLP terms, that’s going to be a value or an identity level archetype.
That kind of is the attractor to move a client through change. Then my entire coaching process is going to be in one way or another, a series of collapsing anchors, and we do that through regression work. We do that through visualization. We do that through, You can do that through eft. I’m going to do whatever works or whatever I feel is going to be the best pivot based on the structure of the client’s problem.
And the main metaprograms that the client’s unconscious mind lets me know they’re running in the session. So it’s really about pivoting and instead of thinking about NLP versus hypnosis versus EFT versus, you know, your example of a very nice pro ericsonian style process instruction. I don’t really make a separation between any of this in a session.
It’s fine to talk about it in terms of having the model like the quadrants, so you kind of understand where your natural comfort and tendencies are. However, in the real world working with a client, it’s about flexibility and responding to what’s happening. In the here and now. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna come back to NLP needs Trans.
I definitely wanna have that conversation, but let’s, let’s start to build some opening structure to this. There’s a person who’s reaching out to you. There’s a person who’s either in front of you. My, my kick this year is that framing is everything. So how does that process kick off for you to then start to elicit, Where am I gonna go next?
So the, the way. I do it. I use something called the coaching pattern, which is conversationally eliciting the problem and when I’m eliciting the problem from the client. So, you know, what do you wanna work about? Tell me about a specific time and place when you’ve had this problem. Or tell me about the last time in place you had this problem, which the last time in place actually has a nice ambiguity because it’s at the last time they experienced it, but it’s also, that was the last time you’ll have this problem just for the language nerds,
But as we’re talking, as I’m, up until now, I’m helping them associate into the problem. I’m listening. And I’m watching to the best of my ability for the moment where they cross from being in a neutral physiology to entering the problem state because where that threshold is, that’s gonna be my first indicator as to a, where we need to set up the resources.
And also it’s gonna gimme a lot of insight into the overall structure of the problem. So as the client’s talking about the problem, there’s certain things that they might say that are going to like ping in my. Like, you know, a client who says, uh, you know, well, I just, I just can’t see myself doing this.
Well, they told me a big part of the problem right there. They don’t have a visual representation and they feel they need one. Yeah. So with a client like that, my open and gait might be, Well, what is it like when you feel yourself doing it? And then I’m gonna listen for the pushback. It’s going to be the either, Oh, I haven’t done that.
Okay, we’ll step into that. What is that like? Or it’s gonna be, Well, that’s not possible. Well, great. That’s gonna give me more information about the problem. So that’s kind of the, the, the first component is, uh, I’m listening for hints about what the structure might be. Which highlights beautifully the whole reality that the clients don’t know that they’re doing this, but they expertly speak in techniques.
Yes. That by, by hearing the issues, by hearing the words, the patterns, you know, easiest one is, well, it just feels like part of me wants this and part of me wants that. And if only we had a thing for that. I know, right? Like something like. Unify the parts. Maybe one of these days. Yeah. , or was it like the greatest gift as a client comes in and says, Look, I have this problem.
I can tell you exactly when and where it started. Mm-hmm. . Awesome. We’re in the fashion world, memory consolidation, so I’m, I’m listening to that. I’m also, it’s not just the patterns that they’re speaking in, I’m also listening for what is missing. In terms of their experience within that context, what are the details that they’re lift, that they’re leaving out?
What are the sensory channels that they’re not paying attention to? Because that’s also gonna gimme some insight into what’s happening within that problem. And having an idea of the general structure is going to let me know. Once we actually jump into the piece of change work, where am I opening? Ga?
It’s going to be after I ha feel like I have enough of an understanding of the structure, then we need to help break, break the client’s state, get them back into more neutral physiology because it’s only half of the equation. I don’t presume to know what a client needs in any piece of change work. Only the client knows, and I need them to tell me, but if they’re plugged into the problem, they’re either going to say, I don’t know.
They’re going to say, Uh, I don’t want to be this way, or they’re going to automatically give the opposite of whatever the problem is. And the opposite is not always the best state to use. It’s not always the ideal outcome. So we want to help them break the state. You know, just some like chit chat for the coach or the hypnotist, changing your physiology, symmetrical physiology, straight spine, smile on your face, that type of thing.
Then, you know, that’s how they’ve been. We wanna find. How does a client want to be different? And as I’m asking the client this, if we’re face to face, I’m gesturing to the client’s future and I’m gesturing up. Cause this is multi-level communication, to invite them to get a picture of how they wanna be.
If it’s on the phone, I’m going to directionalize my voice. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t quite work. The same as if it’s face to face, but essentially, Moving my voice so the client knows, okay, we’re moving to somewhere new. I love that. I love that kind of specificity in terms of where we make the gestures, where we direct the voice, that it’s not, you know, just this set of words versus that one run the pattern.
This specific way we’re using everything becomes part of the suggestion framework to start to break out of what was there before and begin to create something different and how even just a simple shift in tone. Creates that fractionation, creates that shift, that now we’re doing something else now and that’s how it’s been in the past.
You, you mentioned something a moment ago around the themes of not necessarily going to the opposite. Can you expand on that and like give an example? Sure. Okay. Here’s an example outta a client who’s going in for a medical procedure and they were really, really nervous about it. So great. You know, if you ask them how do they wanna be different, like when I talked to ’em on the phone, I didn’t even have to ask when I did the consult, they’re like, I just don’t wanna feel anymore.
I just wanna be relaxed. Logically, if we hear okay, nervous to relax, of course, like that makes sense. But in terms of doing a piece of change work, those two states are so diametrically apart, especially in a high stress situation like a medical procedure that it’s going to be too much of a jump. Like sure.
You can get the client into a good state in the office, You know, you might be able to do that so that they’re feeling calm in the, in the situation. However, that’s really difficult and that’s like, I don’t like labor intensive stuff. Like let’s make it easy. Well, I think, tell me if this correlation lines up and uh, I’ll make the story brief.
I get a call from a student of mine and she goes, I’ve got a guy who wants to come in and he gets like a near PTSD style reaction. When people sing the Happy Birthday to song to him, to which the first thought is, Oh, something happened now. Her question was, How deep do I have to get him to now tell him that’s his favorite song?
Oh my God. , I know. To which I actually, I had a story of someone who was nearly identical in the issue that if she heard Jingle bells. Yeah, same issue, which again, Something happened. She’s elementary school, church production. She’s the funny elf who’s supposed to burst outta the package and sing a song and do a funny dancer run off the stage.
Well, the scenery was built by children, okay? And the package did not open. So the chorus kept singing jingle bells over and over while she’s in a box, you know, thinking, I can’t get outta here, I’m gonna run out of air. Yeah, let’s just keep singing this song. And again, the question was, How deep to tell them it’s now your favorite song.
And the thought was, that’s a bit too big of a leap. You know? It’s where working with speakers, as much as I do that these days, uh, it’s important to ask how dynamic does your presentation have to be That my government contractors who are there reading slides from a behind lectern are different than the passionate, you know, lobbyist raising money.
I had someone years ago, Who does fundraising for foster care programs. And he said, I’m not an actor, but that’s a presentation I am putting on a one man play. Yep. To, as he put it, to convince millionaires who had both parents loving them to donate money to a cause they did, they didn’t know existed.
That’s what he does. So into the story was the correlation of we all have songs that we know and it’s not a matter of like or don’t like. Yep. And to bring it to that territory, the same. Yes, we can do hypno anesthesia. Yes, we can change the fear, but at the end of the day, they’re sticking needles in skin for the blood to be drawn.
And that might not be comfortable, but there’s things that we go through that we tolerate versus love . Yeah, exactly. And you know, in, in the case of, of the, the person having the medical procedure, what makes more sense in terms of a state is engagement, curiosity, excitement, that type of thing. A, a high energy positive.
Because then it moves the mind off of what’s actually taking place in terms of the body. It, instead of being internally focused, more downtime when one is uptime and really externally focused, which is still trance, but it carries a different energy to it, and the energy is more consistent and more congruent with what was happening there.
Now in the case of like the, the. The girl who unfortunately had the jingle Bells box, you know, favorite and I think this is a trap that a lot of practitioners, especially first starting out can fall into. Favorite is a judgment. Yeah. It’s not a state, so it’s not really useful for change work. Plus there are like massive ecology issues.
Could you imagine like someone whose favorite song that from now on is Jingle Bells and it’s like July and they just have to play it all the time. Like they’re gonna lose friends really fast. . So in my work, I really keep it state based. I keep it state based, but then we’ll work with archetypes, We’ll work with values, we start with state based, and then as soon as I drop them, kind of circling back to, you know, how we actually do this, once I’ve associate them into the their desired outcome state, which, you know, professional judgment and also how they feel makes.
Within the context that they want the change. It’s really important that we need to associate them into the outcome state, even before we do the the full piece of change work because we need to have a mental representation of how they sound and how they look when they’re resourceful. The entire rest of the session, I am calibrating where is their body.
Anytime we do one little twist. . I’m not relying on them to consciously tell me. I’ll ask for some conscious information, but the body speaks first and tonality and gestures and posture and breathing. They convey way more information than the words themselves do. I’ll let people quote Therian study, which says 93% of communication is nonverbal, and I know there’s gonna be like one science.
Nerd who will be my hero listening to this, will go well. Those, those studies are contentious. Yes, they are. However, it’s a useful model to understand even if the figures aren’t correct, that tonality and physiology are way more important than language choice. So then is useful. But yeah, we need to be focusing, especially as practitioners, everything I do with my physiology and my tonality with a client is purpose.
It’s not by accident. Yeah. Yeah. This is the difference between like somebody who might not be confident doing a formal induction, like the new practitioner who’s like, ready to try something and they, they go to the, their client. Do you wanna, do you wanna go into trance? Yeah. Do you want to go into trance?
It’s a totally different experience and it’s all I heard from the first one was, Okay, let’s try something I saw on YouTube . Yeah, completely. And it’s the same words, it’s just the tonality and the pauses were in different places, which I love that intention of, you know, everything’s there for a specific reason.
So let, let’s go to the promised information here then. Mm-hmm. , uh, the idea cuz where, where many people would make that original question. Of NLP versus hypnosis. Perhaps they’re putting it into the framework of one is, let’s say formal trance and let’s say the other one is the perception of indirect trans.
But then you hit on something that I a hundred percent agree with, that it’s these techniques. Either create or discover trance that’s already there. You know, even if it’s something like some spinning technique. The moment they’re imagining movement and noticing it, we’ve got hypnosis. The moment they’re looking at a thing and imagine it now, you know, flying out into the future, flying out in the distance, and then, you know, coming back like the paddle ball thing, uh, which I think I got that from you too.
Uh, going out like the paddleball and then coming back. Once they’re imagining something that’s not necessarily there, we’ve got, let’s phrase it as some level of hypnosis, some level of trans at that point. Yeah. It’s a positive visual hallucination. Absolutely. Yeah. So then recognizing that, do you think that sort of begins to change the way that we approach some of these NLP principles that, you know, it’s either, Tell me if this aligns with you, that phrasing of we’re either creating or discovering.
Yeah, I, I think so. Yeah. And I think there’s space for. Mm. So, you know, one, one of the, the, the trap that we can get in is to think either or, right? Black and white thinking is not a particularly resourceful way of going through life in general. Well, once again, never ever, ever use absolutes. , exactly. Yeah.
You know what? Flexibility, Flexibility is key. You know, the way that I navigated this, cause I did my H hypnosis training first and then I did my LP training. Was that when I was, when I first started to kind of breach the divide, if you will. I would do. I would do, and I’m doing that in air quotes. Yes. And an ultimate pattern at the beginning of a session before I would induce formal tra just to try it out and see what would happen.
Then I thought, Well, why don’t I try this instead? I’ll, I’ll do the formal trance, but I’ll, I’ll put the NLP pattern inside of the trance, which, you know, gives you more formal hypnosis techniques you can do. Uh, the downside is that in terms of calibrating physiological feedback, physiological feedback tends to be muted and more difficult with deeper.
It’s still there, but you really have to fine tune your calibration skills to catch it because trance, deep trance specifically, and I look shallow, trans deep trance. It’s a metaphor. It’s just what we have to talk about this stuff. Okay, guys, , uh, deep for tra there is that inhibition of speech. There is, you know, catay or on the other side, relaxation of the muscles and it’s highly dissociative.
The clients are not going to. Big, robust states that aren’t trans while type of trans, that’s a massive thing to highlight there, which, you know, even going back to I, I, my origin with all of this was stage hypnosis and just because that person was to use the professional terminology, The flop didn’t necessarily mean they would take the suggestion.
Yeah. The same as here’s the person who is one step away from drooling and I need to stop using the terminology of, they’ve now turned into yogurt. Splattered in the chair, the, the correlation of that quote, you know, zoned through the floor kind of situation. It still came back to the ecology of the change.
Was it still something the person wanted to create? Did we have the right information in terms of addressing it? So, you know, the metaphor, the riddle that I’ve presented in trainings is what level of hypnosis do we need to produce change? Any, Yeah. And all levels of hypnosis are created equal, though, we’ll nerd out on this one.
Some levels are more equal than others. ? Yes. . Yeah. I, This is like, I, I think this is a really important point because there, there’s been such an interesting evolution of discussion in the community. About, you know, the nature of trance or the nature of of depth. I’m of the view of anything you can do in quote, light trance, you can do in deep trance and vice versa.
Yes. And there are some people who say, Well, depth doesn’t actually exist. I would reframe that and say, Yes, that’s true, however, There are greater degrees and lesser degrees of association into a hypnotic state and dissociation from the outside world. There is a difference and you know, if, if I can kind of nerd out and talk a little bit about the neuroscience, that’s why I’ve had you on so many times cuz we can nerd out on this stuff so, so, so nerd away.
Okay, so this is like, as of. The current research over the last 10 years? You can, Yeah. There’s always new research. However, this is a model that I find useful. It’s actually a blending of two models, blending of the studies that were coming out of the Stanford Hypnosis Lab, uh, through Dr. Spiegel, as well as the studies coming out of the, of Imperial College in London using psychedelics.
Now you might wonder what the hell does hypnosis and psycho psychedelics? What do they have in common? Well, in 2016, Spiegel’s Lab worked with like 500 some odd participants, and you’ll have to forgive me. Uh, I don’t have the exact details in the forefront of my mind, but they induced, quote, deep trance, and they, they have their scales as to what they determine depth is, which we can all agree to disagree.
Validity of that, but in science you need some sort of measure just to create uniformity. Well, to jump in too, the challenge becomes just like hypnosis as soon as we all can agree on one specific definition, Yeah. We’d go further along, which from, from my model of things, I’ve sort of redefined hypnosis in terms of my internal language of, it’s a process of mutual psychological influence.
In which hypnotic depth in which hypnotic phenomenon is possible. So by leading with the influence, by leading with that, it tells me the tools that are necessary that then create it, which at the end of the day we’re, we’re having the same conversation. But it goes back to, well, I’m measuring depth from a different parameter then as opposed to, again, yogurt splatter in the chair.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And you know, I’m flexible about that. This how people talk about depth or say it’s not a thing. Like I’m cool either way. I just know that what I do works. And to me, that’s what matters. . But for the Stanford guys, more important. What, what was it years ago? When was first getting involved with everything?
It’s like, well, what’s the definition of hypnosis? And well known instructor goes, Well, it depends on who’s in front of me. Yep. And I was very upset at the time. And about a year later, I’m like, That’s brilliant. Which is not to say we’re hiding something from one school of thought to the other. Well, it’s even looking at hypnotic depth.
This is a cool experiment for a training to go. What was that like for, or even to ask any client describe that, what was that like for you? And suddenly you’re getting a very different description of the experience. Here’s a guy that we can say was the last in person client in Virginia, and he would describe, he.
There’d be this click where all of a sudden I was getting like these like, you know, sort of kaleidoscope images in my brain and like suddenly like a magic eye. I could suddenly see the thing I wanted to do. Which one? I was massively jealous cuz I want that. But that was his subjective experience of what we would label as depth when from my side of things, he’s responding to more profound phenomenon and that’s what I’m label.
As depth. Yeah. So two conversations, but again, he’s down 20 pounds and quite happy. So, um, that’s what I care about. Yeah. So it’s, you know, and, and that’s the thing is like people will describe it differently. However, us as the practitioner, you know, if you calibrate your clients, they’re all going to exhibit very similar physiologies, you know, with the exception of, I, I’ve worked with people from, uh, Bali who have a very different narrative around trance, and they do a lot of shaking, like a lot of convulsing mm-hmm.
but. Other eyes still roll up. You still have the relaxation of the face, you still have catay. So you do see there are these kind of universals in terms of the physiological expression. Of this type of altered state. But I can circle back to, to the studies, because this is a metaphor. It’s one that I find useful in terms of understanding what we’re doing and the NLP with or without trance.
So the studies in 2016 outta Stanford lab found that people who were in deep trance, they had decreased activity in two regions of their brain. And these two regions, these two regions have to do. Connection with the body as well as filtering and deciding negation. So filtering the information that’s coming in and deciding either yes or no.
Now, what’s really fascinating, Is that these two regions of the brain that tend to, to dampen down, they don’t turn off, but they do. The activity becomes quieter, are part of something called the Default Mode Network. The default mode network is a series of networks throughout the brain whose whole job it is, is to hold our sense of self and reality in place.
It’s to keep our autobiography in place. It is, it contains the filters of nlp. Many of the filters, not all of them. Uh, it is the closest that we have to the critical faculty. So when this is active, it’s really tough for new information to be accepted, to enter in, to be accepted, and for neuroplasticity in terms of change.
To begin to take hold. Now that’s half the equation cause I mentioned Imperial Labs, Imperial College Lab in London and psychedelic studies around the same time. Uh, a guy named, guy named Robin Carhartt Harris since 2009, 2010 ha has been running experiments looking at what’s happening in the brain of people who are taking sil.
Not taking it recreationally, but taking it for profound changes in life. So they’ve been using psilocybin to treat addictions, alcoholism, depression, as well as people facing terminal diagnoses. So it’s both a neurobiologic as well as psych, uh, psychological component and throughout. And there’s a ton of these studies.
One of the main things that happens as a result of how psilocybin interacts with the, with the serotonin receptors is that the default mode network becomes quiet. And when that happens, the brain enters a state called entropy. And that what that allows, what that creates, and I think this might be a part of why people have these profound life experiences when.
Taking Souli been in these studies is that when the default mode network becomes quiet, it allows for divergent parts of the brain to fire at the same time part regions of the brain that were never connected before. This creates greater neuro flexibility and it creates more options in terms of states’ behaviors, values, beliefs, and identity.
So now we have a guy in London looking at what psychedelics are doing to the default mode network and the therapeutic positive. We have a guy in Stanford looking at what hypnosis is doing and discovering that it’s also having an impact on the default mode network. And we know that that has hypnosis has positive therapeutic ramifications.
So the way that I view trance, whether it is formally induced through hypnosis or it is induced as a result of the therapeutic relationship, or it is indirectly induced through the number of experiences that we facilitate as change workers. When a client enters trance, the default mode network begins to dampen down, does not switch off, uh, and likely does not dampen down to the same degree as it does in the psilocybin studies, but we know that that part of the brain is becoming more flexible, quiet.
The person is more open to have. Novel experiences, and they have greater neuro flexibility to create positive change and to rewire their life. So for me, this is not a question of hypnosis versus nlp. The question is, in how many ways can you facilitate trance while using NLP or storytelling or anything else?
Because you know that trance is going to be the main medium that’s going to create neuro flexibility and therefore positive change for the. Nice. Oh, that was good. . I love that as the mindset, which we, we go back to some of the definitions if we go to Dave Elman, you know, bypassing critical faculty and the acceptance of selective thinking.
And the beautiful thing is that it’s not, you know, just for the sake of, let’s call it cherry picking, but we’re finding as the neuroscience, as the research is advancing, It’s reinforcing the premise that’s been there for so many years, and that’s really where we find ourselves in this incredible renaissance.
And a lot of the work that you do with, um, you know, as well as with Sean and Sarah in terms of looking at what’s the research, how do we actually do this, and keeping it all massively practical. Where, where can people best get in contact with you to find out? Sure. So just kind a closing thought on the research.
This is what, where my thinking is at right now. By the time this comes out, maybe I think something different. Uh, flexibility is really important here, guys. Don’t hold anything too sacred and I have to remind myself of that. But you can find [email protected]. The best way to really reach out is to either email [email protected].
You can follow us on Facebook at the intelligent hypnotist. You know, you can reach out to me. On my private Facebook page. Cause my private Facebook page is really just me, all my hypnosis friends. Anyway, . So just look for Jess, Marion and, and send me a FR a friend request. Awesome. And you are doing a pre-conference at Hypno Thoughts this year, right?
Yes. I’m doing a two day quote unquote level two of Hy Not at Coaching, which is my main modality, which I talked a bit about at the beginning of this. If you missed level one, which was last year, no worries. Uh, if you sign up, you’ll get access to the recording, so you’ll be all caught. Well, we’re doing lots of advanced things with language, using language to facilitate very specific states that are beyond words.
We’ll be playing with advanced parts work, uh, and a lot of other cool stuff. It’s gonna be a lot of fun, and you can find more information about that at the intelligent hypnotist.com/hypnotic-coaching. Cool. We’re linked to everything in the show [email protected], and looking forward to having you on once again, I’m sure sometime in the near future.
Any final thoughts as we wrap it up here? Yeah, I just wanna thank you so much Jason, and thank you everybody who’s listening, uh, for going along this, this ride with us. Uh, I hope you’ll find some of this stuff of value, of interest and, you know, just stay curious, stay curious, be flexible, and have fun.
Jason Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program and for keeping the conversation running as well over in the Work Smart Hypnosis Public Community, which is a free access group over on Facebook. Check out the show notes [email protected] to find out more about the intelligent hypnotist, the training, uh, trio that Jess is part of as we privately call them the marionette.
And then while you’re there too, check out jason webinar.com. That’s a shortcut link. It’ll bring you over to an on-demand free exclusive hypnosis workshop. All about the business of bringing those people in and helping them out in terms of change. Six key elements to revisit time and time again to keep your business growing.
That’s for free over at Jason Webinar dot. See you soon. Stay safe. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.
