Session #224: Roy Hunter’s Four Cornerstones of Successful Hypnotherapy

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 224, Roy Hunter on the four cornerstones of successful hypnotherapy. Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, your professional resource for hypnosis training and outstanding business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette.

You’re about to listen to a fantastic hypnotic conversation, and let me kick this. Properly by telling you right away. Go over to work smart hypnosis.com/roy, as in Roy Hunter, my guest on the program this week that there’s a number of resources, there’s a download you can get access to on that page, a handout that explains a lot of what we’re going to talk about and some resources you could actually put to use inside of your sessions.

So, Before we jump into it, go ahead right now and head over to work smart hypnosis.com/roy, r o y, and that’ll actually give you the resources that go along with this phenomenal conversation. And with that, let’s officially jump in welcoming back to the program, Roy Hunter, out of the Seattle, Washington area.

And Roy is someone who I’ve. From quite a bit over the years and was actually, let’s call it this way, in the top 10, the first 10 people who were actually on this program that actually recorded live with Roy at the Hypno Thoughts Convention back in August, 2014 for episode 10 of this podcast series.

And let me call it out first before I figured out what the hell I was doing. So this conversation is a whole lot better than that one. And Roy and I were connecting online a couple of weeks. and actually it came about because of a conversation. As of course it goes in the online groups and Facebook people arguing about various techniques and recognizing that sometimes the disclaimers, the mindsets behind a lot of how we work with our clients are expertly addressed in advance, given a proper pre-talk, which kind of led to a discussion to say, Roy, let’s have you come back on the program and just teach something very specific that he shares called the Four Cornerstones of Successful Hypnotherapy.

And we’re gonna hit this theme in the dialogue that so often in the work that we do, not just within our business, but also in terms of how we help our clients. Frameworks equal freedom, that by having a framework at least gives you a launching grad. It leaves you, gives you a place to start the process off.

And let me go ahead and detail briefly what these four cornerstones according to Roy, are that we kick off the process with post hypnotic suggestion and imagery, which for what it’s worth, I love the dialogue around post hypnotic suggestion and what that exactly means, as I would phrase it, basically every hypnotic suggestion for change.

Is a post hypnotic suggestion. Yeah, all of them. The exception would be that the stage hypnotist often refers to post hypnotics, and those are the funny things that are happening out in the audience after the show is technically over, but let’s call it out. The show is still going on, but in a hypnotherapeutic environment, all suggestions for change.

Our post hypnotic suggestion. Then from there, the model of discovering the cause or cause is and how to deal with the situation. When a client comes in and says, I know why I have this problem, and you’re gonna hear an expert solution in terms of how to address that, which for what it’s worth, here’s what I love about this dialogue.

It’s all from the mindset of client centered hypnotherapy, client centered hypnosis, which even though Roy is known as a guy who does a lot of progress, You’ll hear him say it. He only does age regression with perhaps a third of his clients as much as he’s known for being the parts therapy guy and having written the book on parts therapy, which is purple for what it’s worth, or a smart hypnosis purple anyway, uh, for being the guy who’s known for parts therapy, again, only using it.

For about a third or even a quarter of his clients. And you’re gonna hear us detail the actual methods and gift references to where you can check out how to learn more about how he figures out whether or not to go one route or the other route. So, so far, just a bit of a, uh, preview, post hypnotic suggestion and imagery that step one, step two, discovering the cause or causes.

Step three is all about release, which listened through this conversation because the most efficient form of using forgiveness as a theme in hypnosis. I am still to this day using the methodology of forgiveness that I learned from Roy when I first took a class with him. I believe back in either 2010 or 2011, I’ve learned all sorts of variations.

Some involving yes, violently pounding pillows, which I never found to be a fit. And so often clients would actually chime in. I don’t want to hit this person. That even with the framing of it, just that was not the style of anger that they needed to release. So a kinder, gentler variation of forgiveness.

That one nugget. Is worth this entire podcast session. And then of course, bringing it all full circle to subconscious relearning. So it’s about finding that place of subconscious resistance and then from there, releasing it and relearning, which right in that format here. You’re gonna learn the aspects of how to navigate throughout these four cornerstones when suggestion and imagery may be enough to produce a change, which that’s where we spend the bulk of the initial part of this conversation.

Cuz it’s all about the flexibility working with your clients. Really, it takes some notes on this conversation. There’s a lot of wisdom inside of it. And again, head over to work smart hypnosis.com. Roy, r o y. That’ll actually just redirect over to the show notes for this specific episode where you can get that PDF download that we talk about.

Plus, towards the end of the conversation, you’re gonna hear Roy talk about his two online programs for age regression and parts therapy, which again, over at that work smart hypnosis.com/. Roy Link, you’re gonna see the exact details to get those at an extremely generous rate. Um, which for full disclosure, I’m not taking any affiliate on that.

I’m just helping to share that because it is phenomenal. It’s really built a solid foundation of how I work with a lot of my clients. And again, the mindset of flexibility. Flexibility, flex. So head over right away. Check out those resources and those programs that are available. We’ve made it easy on [email protected] slash roy.

And with that, let’s jump directly into this content packed session. Here we go with episode number 224, Roy Hunter on the four cornerstones of successful hypnotherapy. Well, uh, the way I started is, um, exactly. The way Charlie taught it in the class way back in 1983. He of course, used suggestion and imagery a lot with suggestions and hypnosis.

We often would debate back in the eighties, Over whether to use direct suggestion or indirect suggestion, and I use both. I blend them together. But oftentimes, if a person is motivated with minimal emotional resistance to accomplishing a goal, Suggestion in imagery or just about any technique you choose to use will be sufficient if the client at least goes into a light in a, a light state of hypnosis or medium or deep and has a motivating desire to achieve the goal.

But oftentimes a person resists the positive suggestions and Charlie’s opinion was that when there is subconscious resistance to whatever approach you choose to use, You need to consider that there are four objectives. I call ’em for four cornerstones of successful hippotherapy because what I love about this, just to jump in for a second, what I love is the mindset that, you know, sometimes we can get those changes just with suggestion and imagery and I’m, I’m of the same mindset that it’s that blending of the direct suggestion as well as the indirect suggestion that really just helps to compound out that result.

But I know, and I know we’re gonna get into the themes of regression as well as parts therapy inside of this. Yes. But that mindset that we’re not necessarily using the same protocol for everybody that you know, there’s some out there that say if you don’t use this one technique, you’re not gonna get results.

When, when maybe. I think it’s the best answer to that when there may be some situations where that is the best response, but others where it’s just not that necessary. Absolutely true. So I have used an approach that has passed the test of time to the point where probably f. 40% of the smokers who have seen me have never needed me to go through the four cornerstones of successful hypnotherapy.

And quite possibly a third of the people who’ve seen me for weight management over the years have never needed parts or regression because they have succeeded based on the positive approach that I use. Which, uh, what’s the, I partly learned from Charlie and partly developed on my own. Yeah. The catchphrase of that, the positive transcript.

Correct. I call it the benefits approach, having the client identify his or her benefits for achieving a goal and in the imagination, which is a language of the subconscious, I have them test drive their benefits by imagining their total enjoyment and attitude of gratitude for achieving those benefits.

Yeah, Yeah. Beautiful. And when they have a strong motivating desire and a minimal amount of subconscious resistance, I’ve had many clients see me over the years who have never experienced either parts or regression. Well, I think that really highlights just the flexible nature of how the work should be and how we should be in that client centered mindset that I’m, I’m flashing to the example of a woman who’s on my Yelp page that she left this positive review about eight or nine years ago, having dropped a significant amount of weight, motivating the regular exercise that she’s now kept up ever since.

And as I think back, we kind of stayed in that benefits approach. Style of work the entire way through, because as we kind of looked around to see what other methods may be helpful, that was all we really needed in that situation. Yes. And I’ve, although I don’t personally use the swish, I have heard of lasting successes with that.

Mm-hmm. for some of the people some of the time, and whatever approach you use, Charlie used to talk about the hypnotic formula, which is belief, imagination, conviction, and expectation. So if a person can imagine his or her success, and they believe hypnosis will help them get there when they expect results.

Once you convince both the conscious and the subconscious that the results are permanent, he called that the hypnotic formula. I changed the order of it to spell an acronym, B B I C E. And in fact, one of my former students years ago when he got into practice, he called his practice B hypnosis based on the hypnotic formula

But when there is strong subconscious resistance, To the positive approach. That’s where you have to go through all four hypnotherapy objectives, because if you only do two or three of them, you may not have lasting results. And I love that. Yeah. I love that mindset of. Seeing what’s necessary and working along that pathway because that, that mindset of uncovering subconscious resistance.

This is, this is not a story to put down life coaches. This is a story to put down one specific life coach that I met them years ago to networking event, and they came over and their introduction to me was, I see people for the same issues you do. So I would never refer to. And I smiled and I extended my hand and said, Hi, I’m Jason.

Nice to meet you too. And , we got, we got into the dialogue about . You know, Well, here’s the place where the hypnotist can now support the work that you’re doing. Have you ever had that moment where you’ve worked with somebody for that action plan and then they come back the next week and they haven’t done it and this person responded?

Yes. Fire them because they’re not motivated and I respond well, in my world, that’s where we go. Hallelujah. We’ve discovered a position of unconscious resistance. Let’s go in and uncover that and resolve that and begin to build things back up. So, So could you walk us through those four cornerstones? Give us like a quick overview and then perhaps we’ll go step by step of that.

The starting point is, in the first session, I give them post otic suggestion in imagery if they’re seeing me for habit control or motivation. I have them list their benefits for achieving a goal, progress some forward in time to fantasize their benefits for achieving the desired goal. And imagine the attitude of gratitude that oftentimes increases a motivating desire to achieve lasting results even if there is subconscious resistance.

Oftentimes, I don’t need to complete the second, third, and fourth step because the first step is sufficient when there’s a strong motivating desire to achieve the desired goal and minimal subconscious resistance. But the problem is we know from experience that many smokers need more than one session to quit, and you can’t effectively help someone reduce.

With only one session. You have to see that person generally several times depending on how much weight they wish to release. So when there is resistance, the second step is to discover the cause. And notice I did not use the word diagnose. Yes, because Gordon Emerson in Ego State Therapy that was published by Crown House Publishing in 2003 said in writing that if either.

The client or the therapist has a preconceived opinion about what the subconscious cause is. There’s a 50 50 chance that that opinion may be incorrect. , and I can validate that because years ago a professional hypnotherapist saw me for a problem that he was working on, and he told me he knew exactly what the core cause was and he wanted me to regress him back to that incident and his subconscious.

Indicated that he had already cleared that in a regression a couple years earlier, so he had the wrong event. So I suggested that he let his subconscious take him where he needed to go. See, this is where I have to ask you the most obscure comedy reference. Have you ever heard of the comedian Emo Phillips?

Uh, actually I have not. Oh, okay. I know you’re into humor. I’m, Perhaps I need more humor in my life. . Well, it’s where the follow up question of, of course, everybody remembers uhf, the Wede Yankovic movie that dozens of people saw. But what I’m getting at is a comedian, I think you’ll love this line. He has in a standup comedy, the line that I used to think the brain was the most intelligent organ.

And then I realized, Who’s telling me that? . So it’s where, you know, we’re coming in and, and in that moment of diagnosing, I know why I have this issue. Um, how, how do you navigate that conversation if someone is coming in and saying, I have this fear of flying because I eat in secret. Because where they’re coming in with that conscious, preconceived notion as to why that issue is there.

I’ll literally. Let the person know that there’s a world renowned psychologist and published author who’s also a hypnotherapist, and of course I’m referring to Gordon Emerson. Mm-hmm. , who discovered many years ago that if either the client or the therapist has a preconceived opinion about what the cause is.

There’s a 50 50 chance, the opinion might be correct, but also a 50 50 chance that opinion might be incorrect. So it’s wiser to allow the subconscious to guide you where you need to go and let the subconscious reveal the core cause, regardless of which technique is used to discover that cause. Yeah, no, I’m sure.

Are there sometimes those moments where they do come in and say, This is why, and it ends up they are correct? That is true. About 50 50. So stay odds. I like it. So Charlie gave the example. I still remember to this day, way back in 1983, when he was talking about discovering the cause. He mentioned about a person who was literally pulling his hair.

Eyelashes out because of unresolved stress and anxiety. And he went and saw somebody who just used a script, and what happened is a month later, because the core cause was not discovered and released, he traded one adjustive response to stress for a worse one. Now he was digging his fingernails in his arms and occasionally using a knife and creating cuts and scars.

So his problem. Got worse rather than better. Which correct me cuz I know that it to follow some of your process, which for those that don’t know, I’ve done a lot of training with you over the years. I’ve hosted you for events here at my former office before moving, and actually I give my students a copy of Art of Hypnosis now the idio motor sequencing that you do to kind of figure out the next step that’s actually inside of Art of hypnotherapy.

Yes, it is. It’s also in the art of hypnotic regression therapy. That’s That’s right. Yes. Bruce, Simon and I co-authored. Mm. Yeah, Which, that becomes that process where I love that. Again, this is the mindset and uh, for what it’s worth, there’s an anecdote of a class that I taught a couple of weeks ago, and here was someone who came in.

I tend to get a mixture of people who are brand new to hypnosis as well as some who are coming in with significant experience, and he was trained in a mindset to bypass that first session, as you’d say, positive transcript. And immediately go after all this cause work. And he’s asking why is it not working?

And I, my response was, You still have to satisfy the conscious mind. That they came in for that initial goal, in this case of eating less sugar, and that first phase of positive suggestion and imagery may have been enough to resolve the issue, but it’s that idiomotor testing that we’re indirectly referencing here.

That’s where you’re then seeing if further work is going to be necessary or perhaps correctly on this if they’re crashing and burning to say it politely, , and just nothing is working well if you do the job properly. Yes. And the client still backslides. I have learned from experience that most of them, though there’s no guarantee, most of them will come back and see you again.

Mm-hmm. , get that backslide. Yes. But you have to do a good intake, establish a good rapport, and basically the client-centered approach means. If one technique fails to work for that person, even though it worked for three previous clients, you change techniques. Exactly. Yeah. And you don’t need to know every technique there is to know, but I believe it’s important to have width and depth of training in the art of hypnosis.

And I believe that the day should come sometime in the future where everybody needs to be trained. Competently in regression therapy, even if he or she rarely uses it. Sometimes a person goes into spontaneous regression and you better understand the difference between guiding and leading and understand the risk of pulse memories and realize the subconscious deals with perceptions because when I do a regression, for example, I’ll let the client know in advance of the trance.

We don’t always remember things exactly as they happened because our own emotions at the time can alter our perceptions. Two siblings, for example, can either have a fight or witness an event and give different versions five minutes later to a parent. Mm-hmm. . So when I guide a person back in time, for example, to discover the core cause of a fear of flying, they’re responding to a perception.

Even if the event they think they remember is not remembered accurately, they’re responding to the perception. Whether or not it’s factor fantasy, and most likely it’s a combination of. What I love about, what I love about what you just said is that clearly, as we know, regression is a bit of a polarizing category in our hypnotic world of some who are a hundred percent for this is the only true method of change.

If you’re not using it, you’re not gonna get results. And on the other side of things, there’s a group of people who say it’s the absolute worst thing you can possibly do. Yet they’re in the room with your client. Roy, you’re actually giving them the disclaimer. That kind of answers both of these extremes of going, It’s the perception that we’re addressing.

It’s the emotional reaction that we’re now resolving. Where over time, the memory, Melissa Tears was on the program a couple of months ago and talking about memory consolidation, that the science suggests that the best way to remember something is to forget it, . Cause by re, by revisiting it over and over and over, the story is changing.

But really what we’re working on is that emotional reaction. That’s what the emotional work is. To, to uncover and address, right? It’s the emotional reaction or the emotional bond to whatever the perception is that must be released. So you release your emotional bond or the emotional connection that you have to whatever the perceived core cause is.

And there are techniques involved within regression that can help you do that. The problem is if you simply discover the cause, Bring a person up out of hypnosis, you can keep them in regression for months. Unfortunately, uh, some psychotherapist did that in the eighties and nineties, and that was one of the reasons that regression had a bad rap because I had a client years ago who saw me for fear of feathers.

She spent nine months going through regressions each time. He would regress her into an event with a bird as a child and then bring her up outta hypnosis for cognitive counseling. Yeah. Consequently, it took her several months to realize her fear of birds got worse, not better. Well, I think that’s, that’s the important thing cuz to track through these four cornerstones so far.

One was suggestion and imagery. Two was discover the cause and you’ve already hinted it. Number three, which is that of release of course. And this is where in some of the older textbooks in our field, There’s the, the phrasing of sit back and watch the miracle unfold as if just simply discovering cause was enough to create the change of, you know, I’d phrase it this way and tell me your thoughts on this, that maybe we were less of a cynical community back about 50, 60 years ago, where, I’ll say it politely.

We were giving doctors a much higher level of regard when nowadays we get sick with something, we go to the doctor, they tell us this, they give us the pills, and we. I don’t know about that. I’m gonna go see someone else, which we should have that caution with all that we do. But I think maybe 50, 60 years ago when a lot of these original books were being published on regression, it was enough from, you know, call it the, to put it in hypnotic context, the prestige suggestion.

Because it was coming from a position of authority. Oh, because I was chased by a Turkey when I was six years old. . Cause I’m not six years old anymore. I can now realize I have dominion over the creatures and I can be okay around turkeys. Well, a person basically involved. What’s involved in the release is not only do you release.

The real or imagined perpetrator from his or her apology that they owe you. In essence, if you think somebody else caused your problem, they didn’t cause your problem, they did something and you bought into the negative emotion and created your own problem as a result of that other person’s actions. But you have to forgive them the of the apology because you might live the rest of your life and never have that person say, I’m sorry, but you also have to forgive yourself for buying.

The problem in the first place, which that is to the encompass in release. Yeah. And I’d share to date that is probably the most efficient form of doing forgiveness that I’ve seen in hypnosis. Could you, could you say that again just so people I’m sure hear that when I do a regression. . Yeah. I help a person not only release his or her emotional attachment, but part of that release is I ask him, Do you forgive yourself for buying that in the first place?

Mm-hmm. , and I ask for the finger idiomotor response for the yes finger Then, In order to make sure that there’s no other event that has to be released. I also ask for the finger response. Is there any other situation that must be discovered and released? Because sometimes I get the initial sensitizing event, but there’s an activating event.

Which is kind of a switch that turns the problem on. That might be days, weeks, months, or even years later. So I have to clear both events and then even if they’re 20 events in between, they tend to topple like dominoes. Yeah. So very rarely do I have to do more than two regressions for the same presenting problem.

And you know, to go back to the conversation from previously that if, if someone does come in and they have, let’s call it the hypothesis, they’re coming in and saying, I have this issue because, To, to sometimes let the process be a little bit more directed to now say, and now go to that exper, I, I give it ex example of this.

Here’s the woman that, I mean, I, I’d phrase it to my clients that there’s basically two types of fears. Fear number one, thankfully is the majority that I was afraid this was gonna happen, but it never has. But I’m still afraid of it. And the minority is, I was afraid this was gonna happen. And it did and it wasn’t good.

And that’s why I feel this way, which again, thankfully is the minority. But here’s the woman who came in and I, I actually wasn’t even planning on using regression with her. She spontaneously went there herself and part of the process. And you know, if you’d like to follow that emotion and resolve whatever that is, nod your head, was what I had built in that scenario.

and she came in. I have a fear of flying because I survived a crash landing. The plane, the cabin filled up with smoke and we had to land somewhere. Um, you know, um, Unplanned location, which is a pretty good reason to have a fear of flying. It turns out. Yeah. Yet on her own. Brought me back to the experience, and let me get oddly specific here.

When the brother locked her in the little tiny closet under the stairs, the Harry Potter bedroom, for the readers of those books, and it was that feeling of being trapped. Is where a lot of that feeling started and this feeling of not being able to escape, which was now translating to, you know, it was funny cuz she came in the next appointment going, You know what’s weird?

I’ve enjoyed driving better. I’ve enjoyed the subway better. Huh? . That it was kind of the biggest pressing thing was the flying the other, She had just kind of accepted that this was going to be uncomfortable, but I’ll get through. But it was really the connection of, let’s call back to the phrase you used of the activating event, that then it was my responsibility I saw to then bring up that event that she came in with the story of, to at least satisfy the conscious mind that that needed to be addressed.

I wanna thank you and compliment you for what you just said for two reasons. One, I’ve noticed a very encouraging aspect of hypnotherapy is that when you genuinely help a person overcome a problem, oftentimes it’s a springboard. And they end up getting several other benefits more than what they thought they were paying for when they first came for hypnotherapy.

I finally gave that a name. I now call it residual trance effects cuz it makes it sound more official. . I love it. good on you. Post that on Facebook, Jason. Yeah. Hey, maybe we’ll podcast about it sometime. What do you think? Yeah, we’re recording. Sounds good. Yeah, I like that. . Ah, I’ve, I’ve had many clients over the years tell me other things they’ve overcome.

In fact, if time permit. Oh, we got time. Guy saw me to quit smoking over 30 years ago and he would not let me discover the subconscious. Cause when he came back for his second session and said, I’m still smoking like a chimney, but I just want you to do the same thing you did last week. He comes back for the third session.

How are you doing? Have you had any reduction in the urges? Nope. But I just want you to do what you did last week, , and the week before. And you know, meanwhile I’m confused. This guy isn’t making any progress and it just doesn’t make sense that he does not want me to discover the cause. So a year and a half passes, and this is when I was surveying my long term success rate, he calls me.

Says, Okay, I’m ready to come through your smoking cessation program now. And I said, Before I take your money, I wanna find out what makes you feel you’re ready now. He said, Well, real simple. You remember how you said all hypnosis of self hypnosis? I said, Yes. He said, When I felt myself being very mellow, and the first time you said non-smoker.

I suddenly had this intuitive flash, it would be better to quit drinking first. And I haven’t tr I haven’t touched a drop of booze since your first session year and a half ago. , Yeah, . He succeeded on, uh, quit smoking this time around. Years is more exciting. Mine was a couple years back coming in for sleep improvement.

And my first session, you know, suggestion and imagery. Is traditionally, let’s use all of the things you’re doing prior to bed to anchor into. Now you’re calming down, the body’s relaxing, the mind is releasing. Cuz I’d say that sleep is a non-issue. You work with everything around the sleep, so the sleep naturally occurs and he comes in second session.

Wow, this was amazing. I’ve slept through the night every single night. You know, even the nightmares were gone. I’m looking at my notes going, What? Nightmares? And he goes, Oh, I’ve had night terrors every night since I was 12 years old. . Wow. Didn’t the other reason, the other reason I appreciated your comments about the spontaneous regression is because you just gave a very important reason why every practicing hypnotherapist and my opinion, Needs to learn how to handle a regression because if you don’t know the risk of false memories and you don’t know the difference between guiding and leading, and you don’t know how to facilitate client A reactions, what are you going to do when a client goes into a spontaneous regression?

Because they do happen from time to time. . And I think, you know, the phrase that I share is that all these techniques are good. You just have to use them. It’s only a matter of how you put them into use, Right? And even from there, you know how we can then modify those same strategies to go into another direction, which I know this isn’t necessarily a podcast on that idiomotor response, but that’s again, easily found in those two references and some other courses, which I know that fourth step to keep us rolling here.

So we’ve gone suggestion and imagery. Discover the cause or causes releasing. Let’s pause there on the releasing, What strategies are often coming to play in that release segment? Well, if I’m doing parts therapy, and let me mention parts therapy is based on the concept. We wear different hats. You’re talking to my hypnotherapy instructor part.

I have an inner grandpa part. I have an inner romantic that loves my wife. We all have an inner child. According to Brad Shaw, we all have an inner preschooler and inner grade schooler and inner adolescent. When I got married, I had an inner husband. When I had my first child, I became an inter, I had a new part, an inter parent, but part therapy is where you talk to the part causing the presenting problem and you talk to the part wanting to overcome the presenting problem and you act as a mediator.

There are lots of variations of parts. Therapy, ego, state therapy, voice dialogue, which goes back decades. Resource therapy, which Gordon Emerson, who was a protege of John Helen Watkins, evolved. He evolved ego state therapy into resource therapy. Gordon took my parts therapy workshop years ago in Melbourne, Australia, and he liked the protocol that I’ve given to parts therapy.

So being a psychologist, he got a much more in depth protocol and he evolved it into resource therapy. So Ego State Therapy is kind of the parent of resource therapy. And then you have, years ago, Virginia Sater had her parts party, which became parts integration and nlp, and the Six Step Reframe as a grandchild of Virginia Saters work.

So, My recommendation is that every hypnotherapist in order to become more client-centered, should have regression in his or her toolkit and understand one of the parts therapy variations. There are several out there, so you don’t need to know parts therapy per se, although the parts therapy that Charlie Tebet asked me to continue after his passing.

Has passed a test of time and I’ve evolved it somewhat through the years to a very workable format and in parts therapy when the parts gradually come to terms of agreement. And the inner conflict is replaced with terms of agreement. That’s when release takes place, which I love. Yeah. I love the flexibility there of not necessarily saying this is the one and only model, but instead here are several models and there may even be times where you know, we can pivot from one to another if one is not quite clicking, if one is not quite connect.

There’s a hypnosis instructor who took my parts therapy workshop some years ago. He also took under Dr. Edwin Yeager subliminal therapy, which is a variation of parts therapy that he pioneered over four decades ago. A professor of psychiatry who was willing to think outside the box. So he, this instructor I’m talking about uses parts therapy sometimes, and he uses subliminal therapy sometimes.

Mm-hmm. . Now, I don’t think you have to know more than one, but I do believe that it’s important to know. At least one of the variations of parts therapy. Yeah. Otherwise, you’ll be limited. If a person has an inner conflict, sometimes there’s no technique other than parts therapy or one of its variations to help a person enjoy lasting success.

Yeah. So parts therapy is not the only game in town, but it has definitely passed the test of time, which even that release segment that may be further suggestion and imagery based on what the, what deal with what emerges inside of the process. Now let me share a learning experience to explain subconscious re.

Years ago when I was a newbie in practice, I had this smoker who saw me. He came back in, he was backs sliding and he didn’t know why. So I went to, went through the idiomotor response suggestions and got a yes on past event. So I did age regression because there wasn’t enough emotion to use the affect bridge.

Mm-hmm. , he stopped me at age 15. His father caught him smoking behind the barn with a couple of school buddie. And before sending his buddies home, he reamed his son in front of his two friends and embarrassed him. So in the regression when he was going through the dialogue, And I had him do the assault role play during the regression.

He said, Dad, you don’t have the right to tell me, uh, not to smoke when you’re standing there blowing cigarette smoke in my face. You’re a hypocrite. Only he said a blanking hypocrite. Yeah. You can fill in the blank. Already have. Yeah. Okay. So I thought, problem release. This is great. Well, he came in a week later.

He backslid after three days. Mm-hmm. . He was waiting at a very long stop. And then saw a guy in the Porsche next to him smoking and he said he was fantasizing the taste and smell of the cigarette. And he said, I’ve always backslid. I’ve tried 12 other times to quit. I knew it was only a matter of time before I backslid, so I stopped it to seven-eleven and smoke a pack.

Knowing I would see you today and be able to, uh, get back on track, I realized I forgot the important subconscious rear. . That is where once the core cause has been discovered and released, you now have a subconscious that is far more receptive to post atic suggestion and imagery in order to relearn the new desired behavior or could be reprogrammed and at subconscious relearning.

The goal is to help the client believe both consciously and subconsciously. That his or her success is now permanent. And if you’re into eft, you can use EFT in the subconscious free learning or nlp, whatever techniques you wish, in addition to direct and or indirect suggestion and imagery or ericsonian metaphors.

So, You use what you choose to use. Now, I’ll say to EFT practitioners, EFT does not work for everybody, but I have heard of some practitioners that get great results with EFT because I know that sometimes the cause can be discovered spontaneously by the subconscious. The person does not have to consciously know that this subconscious discovers a core cause.

Because occasionally I’ve actually used a script written by the late Arthur Winkler that allows the subconscious to discover anything that has caused or contributed to that problem and understand it from a new, more mature, wiser point of view. And it’s a wonderful script. And. Oftentimes people don’t even know what the core cause was.

I used that script years ago when a man with 17 different issues saw me and he wanted me to help him with all of them. And I went through the list and I said, This one you’ll need to see a physician for. I don’t want to cross the invisible line of unlicensed practice of medicine. This one you probably should talk to a counselor about because it involved a problem where he needed cognitive counseling and basically, I let him know that I could help with about a dozen of his situations, either 12 or 13.

And I said, For weight loss and smoking cessation, it’s best to choose one first rather than trying to work on both at the same time. And I said, Out of all of these, which is most important to you, what would you like to work on first? All of them. Yeah. . And as, uh, you know, I was thinking, weren’t you listening to me?

The last bottom line, since he could not make up his mind, I did this hand to face for therapy script. I’ve modified it. I have, uh, it’s a concept that’s more important than the exact wording, but it’s the most brilliant script ever written. So that’s what I used as a starting point. He no showed for a second session.

Didn’t return my phone call, and I just wrote him off. I thought, well, I chalked him up as a failure and I just picked one at the 17 because I didn’t want to have 17, or, I mean, I didn’t want to have 12 items in the fail category for only one client. But then, uh, nine months later, this gentleman comes in for smoking cessation and in the intake.

How’d you find out about me? Oh, you saw my work associate. He said he came in the last fall with a list of 17 goals. You did one session and he accomplished 16 of them.

That’s in a way one of the most amazing sessions I ever facilitated. But I guess he had enough desire to overcome those, that he just needed the right motivation. Well, the value of checking our work, , Well, I did the follow up, but he didn’t bother to return my phone call, so I just wrote him. Yeah, Only to find out nine months later that he was more successful than I thought possible.

Nice. But anyway, the subconscious discovered the cause and released it all during that script, and the subconscious relearning took place with the end of the script that as your subconscious finds a new resolution. Your subconscious will allow your hand to touch your face. So I remember his hand touched his face, but I did not know which of those 17 problems he resolved

Yeah. It never would’ve dawned on me that he would accomplish, which you just did an amazing, uh, tease there, by the way of going. It’s an amazing script, but it’s more of the concept than it is the actual words. So just briefly, can you walk us through that concept of what’s, what’s inside? That your conscious mind is free to listen in or drift and wander while you’re subconscious to can explore any and all past or present situations that have caused or contributed to that problem.

And you’re not saying your problem. You’re impersonalizing it, that problem as though you no longer own it. Yeah. And your subconscious can explore and understand. Past and present events from a new, wiser, more mature perception. And it doesn’t matter whether your conscious mind is aware or drifting and wandering.

And basically the concept is you continue in that manner along with suggestions that as your subconscious continues to explore and understand everything from a new. Perception that your subconscious finds your ideal resolution and keeps drawing your hand closer and closer to your face, and when the hand touches the face.

I’ve seen some people literally burst out on tears of joy. Occasionally the hand doesn’t touch the face, and then I end with suggestions that your subconscious can continue exploring relevant data and help you find your ideal resolution. Mm-hmm. . And it might be that their ideal resolution might involve seeing a marriage c.

Which brings up a situation. Another reason for understanding these four objectives as a smoker came to me. You, and this has actually happened several times over the years with smokers, You can only help a client release a problem if it’s something that he or she has power to release. But if the problem is caused by somebody else’s behavior, he was smoking as a way of punishing his wife for being Fri.

He needed a marriage counselor because if I’d have been able to help him quit smoking, how do we know he might not have taken up drinking as a way of punishing his wife? Mm-hmm. , He needed a marriage counselor, so if the problem is due to unresolved marriage problems, You can’t really help someone release his or her emotional attachment to that they need to resolve the problem in order to overcome the presenting problem.

Does that make sense? That does, and I mean, it brings up, and this is often a point of conversation in classes where, I mean, I have the one story where the, the best I could say to somebody, and I don’t have all of the details, but I have the end of it. Uh, which just is by way of referral. It was a quick phone call that, Oh, I know this person.

They said, You’re great. I’m kind of busy right now. Could I come in on Monday? I’m gonna work on confidence. And that was the initial phone call. So thinking, Okay, great, let’s do this. And realizing that I had to now deliver the phrase that, you know, to say it politely, the only possible result of what would happen in this room is.

You’re confident you’re feeling okay with what’s happening at home and lets your imaginations fill in the details in different ways. And clearly calling a hypnotist probably wasn’t the first step you should have taken. And she just sat there for a moment and smiled and said, Thank you, and then sought care.

And now, uh, the offender is no longer around to, you know, basically arrested for what was going on. So to recognize. This is where some of that idiomotor response that we talked about that we hinted previously is going to reveal that. You know, I’d say that in some way everything is a current unresolved issue, yet it’s the current unresolved issue that is beyond your capabilities because here’s what’s presently going on, where sometimes there may be that moment ago, this is when we should address this.

Well, what I go through the idio automotive response questions, if I get a yes on current unresolved issue that trumps any other yes response. And in my eighth question is, can hypnotherapy help us resolve this? Mm-hmm. . And if I get either a no or an I don’t know, then I ask, uh, I give suggestions for the subconscious to reveal the cause to the conscious mind.

And then emerge the client from hypnosis after some ego strengthening suggestions, because that’s the yes answer that is most likely to result in a referral to another professional. Yeah. If it’s an unresolved marriage problem, they need a marriage counselor. If it’s being with an abusive significant other, then I don’t want to touch that with the 10 foot pole.

Mm-hmm. , because years ago, one of my twin daughters. Left an abusive husband, and at the time she was getting away from him, I was fortunate enough to have two abuse counselors in my hypnotherapy class. Both of them gave me the same information that if he knows that I’m directly helping my own daughter, he would perceive me as a thief stealing his property.

I never thought of it that way before. Yeah, and they both told me that in unison. So that’s a little off topic, but the point is you cannot release somebody. If the problem is an ongoing problem. Another example was a work related one, a lady saw me for stress and the anxiety. She was working under an abusive manager, a Boeing company, who would not allow her to get transferred to another job with a higher salary.

He was working her overtime. Without pay, which I think happens to be a corporate cancer, but that’s a personal opinion. Yeah. Yeah. So let me ask you this, and I know that, you know, this is sort of that foundation of the process to look at these cornerstones of, again, suggestion and imagery, discovering the cause release, and then subconscious relearning, which, what I love about content like this, education like this is that especially as we’re new to hypnosis, even as you know, we’re well seasoned and still seeing a bunch of clients.

There’s actually freedom and frameworks by having at least a system to think through that. Here’s this place where suddenly something pops up in the session and here comes this new issue. Or here’s a session I just did right before we connected for this recording where I’m expecting we’re gonna go in and continue working on the original issue, but she goes, Oh, let’s work on this now instead, because that’s going great.

How about this? To see that, okay, here’s a system. I could think about it. Is there a story that comes to mind of, you know, sort of the classic case study example that you think best illustrates these four steps? Charles Tez said so many hundreds of times. I literally got tired of hearing it until what emerges.

Yeah. And sometimes. Another presenting problem will emerge that is more serious than the one they called to see you for in the first place. Mm-hmm. . And oftentimes by helping them resolve the other issue, if it’s more important to them, is enough for them to resolve both issues. And occasionally they’ve seen me for both issues.
So everyone’s different. People are like snowflakes. There are no two exactly. Which is why I believe strongly in client centered hypnotherapy fit the technique to the client. Don’t try to fit the client to your own technique. You can use scripts at a first session or in the subconscious relearning portion, but when.

Suggestions and imagery or whatever technique you choose to use, whether it’s EFT or nlp, doesn’t resolve the problem. If there’s subconscious resistance, then you can consider these four hypnotherapy objectives as your objectives to help the client enjoy lasting success. So I also call this the foundation of client centered hypnosis, which is why on my handouts and also in the books, There’s a diagram of a foundation suggestion and imagery goes with an arrow to the next corner.

Number two, discover the cause or causes, and then number three, release, and then number four, subconscious relearning. Then the arrow goes back and forth between suggestion and imagery and subconscious relearning because once the cause, Is discovered and successfully released. The subconscious is now much more open to the positive suggestions for reprogramming the subconscious so that the client can believe both consciously and subconsciously that his or her success is lasting.

And in my workshops on parts therapy and also regression therapy, I devote a section. Of the two day workshop to this, and I do have, by the way, both my parts therapy workshop and my regression therapy workshop in high quality, high definition MP four video file. You can watch it on your own computer. You can get this off my website, or you can email me for instructions.

If you want to download an immediately from Dropbox, you can email me r o y r o y h u nt e r.com. That’s Roy Roy Hunter dot. Yeah, and actually will make that simple. That email address is just Roy Roy hunter.com and if you go to the show notes specifically for this podcast episode, we’ll get fancy, or at least I’ll ask my tech team to figure this out.

that will put a big button there that if you just simply click that, it’ll actually auto populate the email to, to connect over and get. To those programs, which will, we’ll leave it slightly cryptic here for the test of time as podcast often have a bit of an evergreen, but you’ll see that there’s actually a very generous offer that will put up there for, uh, you said for both the parts and the regression one, right?

Correct. They’re 1 75 each, but if you buy them both together, it’s uh, 250. Outstanding. Yeah. And these are two complete courses that you’re able to go in and see them all. Digital access, which the, the benefit of that is you’re able to go in and review the content over and over and get those nuances. If you find there’s a sticking point in your process, something doesn’t quite go so smoothly in the session, you’re able to go back and review that information, which remind me, I believe there’s demos in both of those.

Yes, that is true, and in fact the demo on the regression is the same one that Cindy Appendix in the Art of Hypnotic Regression Therapy, a clinical guide that Bruce Ier and I co-authored also, if you would like to Jason, You can make this four cornerstones of successful hypnotherapy two page handout available as a PDF for people to download for free if they wish.

Yeah, we’re actually just make that simple and people listening to this once it launches will make it easy. If you go to work smart hypnosis.com/roy. As in Roy Hunter, that’ll actually go over to the show notes for this episode where you’ll get the instructions to grab those two digital programs, get that free download, and just learn a whole lot more.

Roy, this has been fantastic. It’s rare that I actually have someone come on and just teach something and just really lay out the content. So thank you so much for sharing that time with us. Oh, it’s been an honor and I’ve given this as a keynote presentation at Hypnosis conferences in both Hemispheres over in England as well as in Australia.

But I want to say and appreciation, Jason, that I greatly appreciate that you teach and practice client center hypnotherapy. Thank you for being a credit to the profession, and I share the real catchphrase though. Thank you for that. I share the real catchphrase that I bring to it, which is that we’re in an amazing renaissance right now of.

Very artfully designed techniques and some extremely creative processes. Yet when you’re working in this client centered format, my catchphrase to it becomes, and I’ll bring you into this, uh, as it’s a bit of a self-deprecating reference. It doesn’t matter how clever you think I am, it doesn’t matter how clever you think.

Roy is though, he’s pretty damn clever. It’s really getting that client to the place where they’re able to do that release work for themselves. They’re able, absolutely the dots for themselves, and it’s now even greater meeting than some made up metaphor or you know, type process that you’ve guided them through because now you’re letting them identify and release and to go into these sessions with the entire tool bag open and realize.

Whatever’s appropriate in that moment. We’ve now got it the ready, and this is a cool opportunity. Thanks for sharing that discount offer for people to grab both of those programs and learn in the comfort of their own homes. So before we wrap it up, any final words to share before we, uh, call it a program here?

This is an amazing career and I’ve, in my three and a half decades plus, I’ve seen this go from being in kindergarten as a profession to perhaps high school or maybe even college level. We still have a ways to grow and go in this profession. Uh, But we need more of us to teach and practice client-centered hypnotherapy rather than promoting one program or one approach.

That’s the end all cure all, because there is no technique that is so good. It works for all the people all the time, sometimes. I’ve run across a hypnotherapist that uses regression on almost everybody. Probably less than a third of my clients have ever experienced regression in my office, and probably not more than 30 or 40% of my clients throughout three and a half decades have ever experienced parts therapy because I believe strongly in fitting the technique to the client.

Hey, it’s Jason Lynette here once again, and as always, thank you so much for listening to this on a regular basis, subscribing online, sharing your reviews on various websites and putting it up on your social media streams. And once again, I’ll share the stage on this one. Head over to work Smart hyp. Dot com slash Roy, r o y.

That’s where we can get the resources, everything referenced in this conversation. We’ll also link to all of Roy Hunter’s books that are available on Amazon. Again, I provide copies of Art of Hypnosis to my work Smart Hypnosis Live students, as it provides a solid foundation to launch into the process.

And also on that page, you can get the downloads and get the instructions to grab a hold of either regression. Parts, or as I would recommend, grab them both from Roy at an amazing deal, which again, there’s no affiliate on that one, just sharing something really valuable that I’ve learned a lot from over the years from a good friend.

So check that out. Work smart hypnosis.com/roy. See you soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.