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Hypnosis terms

Hypnosis is actually a form of psychology, and as such, it has many different types of terms that you may not be familiar with. In order to fully understand the practice of hypnotherapy, it is important to know as many of these terms as possible. In that respect, we've created this article in order to help yourself to become familiarized with some of the more common terms thrown about.

Association - association is a type of procedure that many hypnotherapists use in order to help patients to change the way that they think about certain things. When a hypnotherapist uses association, they work towards suggesting to the patient that one action is associated with another action, causing them to want to behave in a certain way more or less depending on the goal of the treatment. For that reason, association is commonly used when it comes to helping people to deal with problems such as a smoking habit. If you are familiar with the Pavlov's dog experiment, it worked by Pavlov ‘associating' the sound of the ringing bell with the delivery of food, making the dog salivate when the bell rung just like it would if the food had arrived.

Delta waves - When you are hypnotized, the level of activity in your brain tends to change. There are many different types of brain waves that you go through in the average night of sleep. Beta waves are said to occur when you are awake, active, and alert; alpha brain waves begin to take hold when you are relaxed or reflecting, often occurring before bedtime. Theta waves are the next step towards sleep, in which an individual feels drowsy. Delta waves are the waves that are active in the brain when you are sleeping or when you are in a deep hypnotic trance. Dreams occur when the delta waves are active, and many hypnotherapists try to get their patients to reach this stage so that they are at the pinnacle of suggestion, making the hypnotherapist's work all the more easy.

Misdirection - this is another type of hypnotic technique that is used by hypnotherapists in order to bring the patient to a deeper level of hypnotism. In misdirection, the patient is coaxed towards moving their thought processes in a certain direction while, in all reality, the patient is moved in a completely different direction.

Rapport - rapport refers to the relationship that is shared between the individual that is seeking treatment and the hypnotherapist. The more healthy of a communicative relationship the two have, the easier it will be for the hypnotherapist to put the patient in a relaxed state, making hypnosis much easier.

Hyper-suggestability - this is a term that many hypnotherapists use in order to refer to the main problem that many people face in the real world. The problem is that the individual is too prone to being altered by the many suggestions that the world places on them, causing them to exist at the whim of their environments. Much of the work a hypnotherapist does works towards correcting the problems developed by the hyper-suggestability of an individual.