Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume 5, Issue -2, 1 August 2020 | Page 12

And of course, “relax deeper into trance” is a direct suggestion to go deeper
embedded within a permissive framework. These four words can be
distinguished by saying them slightly slower or deeper. The unconscious mind
gets the message.
But we can go even further with some clients.
Deepener Two: Make going deeper contingent upon physical
phenomena
Rather than employing obvious deepening techniques, we can link the
suggestion of going deeper into hypnosis to an inevitable or already-present
phenomenon. For example:
“In a few moments, as you breathe out, notice how much deeper into lovely
hypnotic trance you can go.”
We have simply linked something we want to have them experience – going
deeper into hypnosis – with something that will definitely happen – them
breathing out.
If someone is a talented hypnotic subject, we might even link a suggestion for
going deeper with some hypnotic phenomenon that is already happening. For
example, if your client is experiencing hypnotic arm levitation, you can use
this phenomenon to help them go deeper:
“As that are arm continues to lift higher, all by itself, you can really enjoy
going deeper and deeper into hypnotic trance.”
If and when the arm begins to drift down, we might say:
“And I really don’t want you to go twice as deeply into trance until that hand
drifts all the way back down again...”
Here the pressure is totally off the client. You’ve told them you really don’t
want them to go deeper into trance... that is, until something happens that
was always going to happen anyway.
But there is one more deepening technique I want to share with you – an
ancient technique that is absorbing and fun to use, yet often overlooked.
Deepener Three: Worlds within worlds
If we see hypnotic ‘depth’ as a kind of layering of consciousness, then we can
adapt our technique to this idea. For example, one layer might be very light