What is Hypnosis?

For over 200 years science tried to understand and explain Hypnosis, but at best they came only close to it. Even today science cannot fully explain how and why Hypnosis works and what actually happens in Hypnosis.

But knowing that Hypnosis is just a small aspect of the human mind can give us some assurance that in the full picture one day science will have the answer.

Until that day we have to go with the understanding of psychiatrists and neuroscientists and the observations of us practising Hypnotherapists.

The above-mentioned experts understand the general characteristics of Hypnosis and even created a model of how it works.
In general terms, Hypnosis is a trance state in which the hypnotised subject (in our case the client) is

• extremely suggestible
• deeply relaxed (to the level of the client's ability to do so) and 
• has heightened imagination

Hypnosis is not sleeping, although for an onlooker it can look like that. Unlike the state of sleep, hypnosis allows the client to be alert all the time. That means, the client hears and usually remembers everything that is said, the client can reject thoughts that are contrary to the client's believes and morals and is in general fully conscious.
However, the client is also very focused, which means that out-of-focus stimuli may not fully or even not at all be realised or processed.