tldr: Yes, hypnosis or hypnotherapy is generally safe for people with mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, fears and phobias etc
But that is really one burning question that people might have
After all, there are a lot of misconceptions flying around due to lack of information or lack of awareness
And media doesn’t help in that regard, preferring to play along the usual tropes of mind control, losing memories, or just sleep
Because negative sells and eyeballs roll far more easily with shock, horror, and fear
Especially when it is heavily misunderstood
Anyway, today I want to break it down by sharing certain possible “risks” or “dangers” regarding hypnosis
Yes, hypnosis is a tool, and just like any tool, it is all about how you use it
You can use a kitchen knife to cook a great dish of love for your family~
Or you can use it for something mundane like cutting open a package delivery
Or you can use it to cause harm to someone
There is no tool that is inherently good or bad, it is based on the intent of the person and how they use it for themselves
And of course, whether they have the knowhow on how to use it in the first place
The right knowledge is crucial
Needless to say, for any task or industry, the right knowledge is indeed important
Without it, one might take more time to complete the same task
Worse, one might make more mistakes, which might cause harm to themselves or people around them
The chef without the right knowledge of how to use a knife, might cut themselves by accident for example
And yes, this definitely applies to people who attempt to do hypnosis on themselves
It is called self-hypnosis, and yes that is real and possible
To be fair, self hypnosis is generally safe, rather it is specific techniques which I will caution against doing on themselves
Quite a few of the simple and safe hypnosis techniques I shared on my blog
Those are fine
However, one branch of techniques I will caution is regarding regression and timeline techniques
Is it possible to do a regression on yourself?
Yea sure, but again there is a risk
You see, a regression or timeline technique usually involves going back into the past memories to resolve an issue there
The risk of doing it on yourself is that if the past memory you are revisiting is a particularly traumatic event
Then you might end up retraumatizing yourself instead!
A client recently shared this with me
She asked her unconscious mind to show her where her root issue came from
The “memory” that came up was herself drowning in 1980
But here’s the catch – she is born in 1983!!
She realized she might be in her past life and just saw how she died previously!!
That shocked her and she decided to end her self-hypnosis
Naturally this also means she didn’t resolve her issue on her own
Now I’m waiting for her to be ok to proceed with a professional hypnotherapy session
What about doing hypnosis on someone else?
Unless you have proper training, again there are risks involved
Now you might also be thinking
How am I going to do hypnosis on someone else when I don’t even know how hypnosis works?
And generally you might be right
Unfortunately, there are a number of hypnosis books which provide hypnotherapy scripts
Whether it is a script for mental health issues like anxiety or depression, or a script to see one’s past life, and so on
Similarly, if one ends up in a traumatic event when you are reading such scripts to them, how are you going to handle it safely?
Several years ago, a client borrowed a book from the library and read a hypnosis script on going back to a past life to her son
And her son end up seeing himself as a German soldier in a particular army, killing a number of people and seeing blood everywhere
Because the book didn’t describe how to handle it, or resolve it properly, she just told him to come out of hypnosis and open his eyes
He did exactly that…
And saw the bloody battlefield scene overlaying his view of reality!
Although he did see me for a chat, unfortunately he didn’t think he had any issues so didn’t want to do hypnosis with me
Either that or he got scared by what his mom did to him, and thus would rather not do any more hypnosis
Regardless, that must have traumatized the boy quite a fair bit
Worse, we have no idea if it will have long lasting effects on his psyche..
Yea, you can see how I feel about regression techniques especially if one doesn’t have formal training on hypnosis at all
Professional hypnotherapy for mental health issues
Truth is, to me, everything about our habits, addictions, values, beliefs, mental health issues, relationship patterns etc etc all goes back to our mind and how it works
And hypnosis is an excellent way to reprogram and resolve the negative stuff towards what we really want
Peace, freedom, happiness, and so on
And that’s why knowing that your hypnotist is trained and experienced is a big deal
There is something I want to quickly touch on, something called abreactions
Simply put, an abreaction is usually an emotional and sometimes uncontrollable reaction to an experience
I’ll share two cases for context
The first client saw the Grinch under hypnosis and shocked herself out of hypnosis!
In fact, she also started crying and grabbed my arm in fright!
Another client had her issue coming from a past life
In this past life, she was a little girl maybe 8 or 9 years old, and was kidnapped by a gang!
With a bag over her head so it was dark, and her hands were tied and bounded together, it was such a frightful experience!
Her abreaction is that her physical body also had that bound effect on her hands
They automatically got stuck together and onto her face, similar to how her past life was tied up
Even when I brought her out of hypnosis, her body couldn’t get unstuck and I had to physically pull her arms apart to assist!
Her abreaction was the most I’ve seen, especially with her arms still so stiff after coming out of hypnosis
Thankfully, such abreactions are super rare
To add on, in both cases, after calming them down
We managed to do a successful hypnosis to resolve their issues after their abreactions
Talk about turning negatives into positives, am I right?
Are there dangers to hypnosis for mental health issues?
There are no dangers as long as the hypnotist is trained and experienced, well equipped to handle abreactions if it occurs
Otherwise, yes, if you are doing hypnosis without formal training, or getting a friend to do on you
Please be aware there are some risks involved
Especially if the hypnosis is for mental health issues like anxiety, depression, PTSD, trauma etc
Not that other psychological issues like relationship patterns or eating disorders are any better
Even if the mildest of issues does not seem to be any form of mental health issues, there is still some program running in the mind
A final word before we end off for today
If you are looking for a hypnotist to help with an issue that you have, go ahead and ask them some questions to get a sense of their experience and how they can help
I’m going with the consensus that you won’t know what school or training will be good, so ask some questions about their experiences, their clients
Once you have an understanding that the hypnotist is legit, knowledgeable, and skilled
Then you can rest assured you are in safe hands
Now if you want to chat with me, click the purple button at the right side of the page to get started
Until then, hope you have a great week ahead! 😀
