Hypnotherapy and Hypnotizability
There is a very common misconception as to the importance of deep hypnotisability and hypnosis for therapy. Because of its representation in the media, people will often believe that for hypnotherapy to be successful, you need to be highly hypnotisable and able to achieve very deep trance.
Now being hypnotisable is, of course important. The depth of trance however is not. There are several depth tests that a person can employ to check the level of trance a person can achieve. In truth, for the average psychotherapeutic intervention using hypnosis as the vehicle, there is only a need for a fairly light trance state.
Indeed, the only time a very deep level of trance is necessary for an intervention is for pain work. In order to achieve hypnotic anaesthesia it is necessary to achieve a somnambulistic level of trance. For all other therapy this is not needed. Actually, there are occasions where a person achieves a deep trance, they become unable to follow the instructions that they need to follow for therapy, because they are so deeply in state.
All people have a level of hypnotisability, the depth a person achieves is genuinely not that important at all. So again, there is nothing to fear in having hypnosis as part of your psychotherapeutic intervention.
