Moving on to the Pre-talk

The next stop in our discussion of what happens during a hypnosis session. Last we discussed intake processes.

So, you have filled out the intake form and you sit, maybe twiddling your thumbs, drinking a cup of tea and wondering what comes next. The hypnotist shows no signs of moving and seems like he or she is just chatting with you.

"Great," you think, "I did not come here for idle chatter. Let's get on with it."

The things is, you are getting on with it. This is the part of a hypnosis session called the pre-talk. It is extremely important. This is the opportunity for you to ask all the questions that maybe circling your mind, and you should ask them. Even if it seems like a silly questions (or the dreaded stupid question) - ASK IT! If the hypnotist makes you feel bad for asking anything, well, you should just get up and thank him or her for their time and get the heck out of there.

This is also the time when the hypnotist will give you more background on his or her processes, maybe a little background on the subject of what has brought you there, and will learn about you. Your expectations of the session may be discussed and you may find yourself doing some little tasks that help the hypnotist learn about how you process information. Are you a visualizer, more audibly reactive, or Kinesthetic, to name a few? They may also determine where you fall on an analytical scale. We will talk about this next in an upcoming post.

There are many hypnotist who feel the pre-talk is the most important part of the session. Not only does it lay the ground work and set the tone for the hypnotic work, it often begins the suggestion work. There is often a form of hypnosis at play during this time. It is called conversational hypnosis. Now do not panic. This is no different than many conversations you have through out your life, especially the conversations that influence you to behave a certain way. It is employed in advertising and debate. In fact, you have probably done it to others (been the hypnotist in this case) without ever knowing it.

This is a good stopping place here because it deserves a post in its own right. So stayed tuned. Shortly we will cover the concept of analytic types, conversational hypnosis, and suggestion work in traditional hypnosis.