Hypnosis is also a way of focusing attention. It can be directive, where a therapist helps clients achieve an altered state of consciousness, or it can be self induced, such as a familiar drive home, caught up in a mental reverie.

Formalized hypnosis usually involves an induction stage, which can be as extensive as a progressive relaxation exercise, or as short as counting backwards from 10 to 1, depending on the ease with which a client can access focused attention. Practice increases a client's ease in achieving this state.

Once a state of focused attention has been achieved, changes the client wants to implement in their life can be introduced.  This is the treatment stage.  Like guided imagery, the changes the client wants to implement can be introduced directly or through symbolism.

After the changes have been introduced, the therapist will re-alert the client and discuss the experience.

Like the other practices discussed on this site, hypnosis also engages the creative hemisphere of the brain, and helps to design new neuronal pathways that offer alternatives to the mind in deciding which behavior to engage in, while responding to worrisome situations or thought processes.

Past Life Regression Hypnosis

Past life regression hypnosis falls under a slightly different category. It is a rare circumstance where someone can actually prove what their past lives have been, and scientific research is inconclusive.  Yet healing does occur through this process. There is evidence to sugest our minds do appreciate and respond to metaphor, and the success of past life regression may be as simple as the idea of living out an alter ego and solving a problem in an imaginative state. Or, it could be something else entirely...

I am honored to have been trained in past life regression by the legendary Brian Weiss, MD, which was the realization of a special dream of mine ever since reading his first book, Many Lives, Many Masters in the 1980s. He and his wife Carole are every bit as wonderful as you might hope.