Every hypnotist will quell one of your biggest fears surrounding hypnosis: What if hypnosis is like mind-control? Especially if you haven’t been hypnotized before, you are probably wondering if, during your trance, you’ll be at the complete mercy of the hypnotist. And every hypnotist worth his/her salt will tell you emphatically that hypnosis is indeed not mind control.
But wait a minute. How can hypnosis live up to its definition of conscious surrender at the behest of the hypnotist to create subconscious change and at the same time not be in a sense, mind-control? Don’t you need the hypnotist to control your mind to some extent for he to get beneath rational cognitive blocks you are having trouble changing? What gives?
This is somewhat true. You do need to trust your hypnotist to not abuse his/her powers of suggestibility, as the mind is in a malleable state while under trance. But just because you are in a sensitive and highly impressionable state, that does not mean anything can be slipped inside of you. No one can ever completely forsake the faculties located in their frontal lobe — their conscious mind, or super-ego if you will.
So even if I the hypnotist is deeply embedded in your brain and wrenching it out in there, he/she can’t slip “hand me one hundred bucks” in your head unnoticed. Furthermore, a lot of hypnosis is self-generated: it demands the use of your imagination and ability to create sensations in your mind. So by no means is the hypnotized taking a passive, absorbent role. You are equally important in the process of hypnosis as the hypnotist is.
So, fear not. Hypnosis is not a paradox. Hypnosis works.