The Giggle

In yesterday's sermon about hypnosis as religion, another topic of interest was brought forward. The giggle.

In an email from Michael, who is just now back from the NGH conference, he wrote the following poignant words:

On clients who giggle: This came up a couple of times in various sessions over the weekend. Consensus is that giggling is often a sign that the client is not ready to go into hypnosis yet -- either they have a fear/discomfort/uncertainty that hasn't been addressed yet or there is something else the waking client needs to discuss -- so you might want to stop and do some more pre-talk. Sometimes they're just a little self-conscious, in which case you can usually get past it by weaving something like this into your induction: "And because hypnosis is such a pleasurable state you may even catch yourself giggling a little here and there, and that's okay; it's just a sign of your mind releasing tension and can allow you to drift even deeper into relaxation."

This is wonderful advice and I thought it would be helpful, especially to those of you who are new to this or even those of you who are clients (or thinking about becoming clients). My very first paid client was a giggler. It was someone I had known a long time before that and it was a little disheartening. I had been told that clients might feel like laughing and to just tell them it was okay to laugh and get it out of their system. Hence to say that took quite a while but eventually the giggling stopped. The above approach is easier to work with and makes a lot of sense.

So thanks, Michael!