What is the "right" response?

Good morning (or whatever time of day that you are reading this)!

Yesterday, I posted about a client with a certain itch. I had actually meant to talk about something else, but got sidetracked on the details of setting it up.

The client had mentioned that after several times of being hypnotized, she didn't feel she could "go deep enough" for suggestions not to itch. She clarified that she felt she was trying too hard or trying to give me the "right" answers. Interesting. She even admitted to remembering my words that the "right" response is her natural response.

Interestingly enough, in my client notes it mentions that she is the type of person that follows instructions to the letter, and that she was/is an overachiever (her words). In giving me the "right" answer, she said she was just following my directions on concepts such as try to open your eyes, but you cannot. So, she didn't - open her eyes. My response to this was, if she felt like she was following my instructions to the letter, did she really? If so, what happened to the instruction "try"?

She thought for a moment and said, "But I wasn't supposed to open my eyes."

No. You were suppose to "try." But after thinking about this for a few moments, it occurred to me that this was her natural response. She had spent her life working on achieving the "right" response. It was natural for her to not open her eyes, to give a projected outcome. Hence, perhaps why the hypnosis has also worked for her. She knows what the outcome is supposed to be, therefore believes she must achieve it.

It also occurred to me that perhaps she was talking herself out of our past hypnotic work. If she was then thinking she wasn't deep enough because she was too busy giving me the "right" answers, she could give up the responsibilities of creating her own change. How handy.

So, we had the discussion about the "right" answers and I explained my theory that she did give me the "right" natural response. This seems to be going well, as we continue to work on more self-hypnosis concepts.

But what I learned is that the "right"response is the natural response, even for those who are trying to give you the project outcome they think you want. It doesn't mean the hypnosis won't work, it just means that they react to instruction differently than those who follow each step without the projected outcome.