What Is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy refers to the use of the hypnotic state in a therapeutic setting to bring about lasting change in a person’s psychological functioning, change that moves in the direction of the goals they set at the start of therapy. These goals can evolve along the way: once certain difficulties are resolved, it’s not unusual to realize you now want to work on something else entirely.

Scientific research into hypnosis in therapy has grown steadily since the mid-twentieth century. Numerous studies have shown its value not only for psychological difficulties but also for conditions that seemed purely physical, since body and mind are closely linked: when the body suffers, the mind is affected, and the reverse is equally true.

(To understand what sets the Ericksonian approach apart specifically, see the page Ericksonian Hypnosis)

How does a session unfold?

Practices vary a great deal from one hypnotherapist to another, there is no standard format. What follows describes one possible approach among others, as an example, to give a general sense of what a session can look like.

No two sessions are ever quite the same, the therapist continually adapts to the person’s circumstances and needs. A few common phases can nonetheless be identified:

• Initial contact (a few minutes): good rapport between patient and therapist is essential, since the therapeutic work requires real trust. If that rapport doesn’t develop, it’s better to change therapist than to force it.
• Reviewing the previous session (a few minutes): therapy is a collaboration, and it matters that the patient shares their impressions and how they’ve felt since the last session.
• Induction (10 to 20 minutes): the length of this phase varies depending on circumstances and how accustomed the person is to entering the hypnotic state.
• The therapeutic work itself (15 minutes to 1 hour): often active work, sometimes largely unconscious. The perception of time is altered under hypnosis, an hour can feel very short, and fifteen minutes very long.
• Coming out of trance (a few minutes): a gradual return to ordinary waking awareness, comparable to waking up from a nap.
• Scheduling the next appointment (a few minutes), usually brief: it’s often better to return quickly to everyday activities, allowing the unconscious to integrate the work that was done.

This single-induction pattern is only one possible scenario. Sessions are often fractioned, with several shifts back and forth between the hypnotic state and ordinary waking awareness: the therapist may guide the person out of trance and back in several times during a single session, depending on the needs of the work underway.

How does a course of therapy unfold overall?

There is no fixed rule: it all depends on the person and the reasons that led them to start therapy. A few broad phases can still be identified, and they often overlap rather than follow one another strictly: defining goals, learning hypnosis, exploration, building self-confidence, deep change, and consolidation.

The length of a course of therapy is difficult to predict in advance. Sometimes a single session is enough, sometimes more are needed, it depends entirely on the person’s personality, the issues involved, and their motivation. Even the longer courses of therapy rarely exceed about twenty sessions.

The frequency of sessions isn’t fixed either. It’s common to start with a more intensive rhythm, one session a week for the first two or three, then gradually space sessions out to give the mind time to integrate the changes made.

Ending therapy is generally decided by mutual agreement between patient and therapist. This doesn’t rule out returning occasionally afterward: significant changes can take several months, or even years, to fully stabilize, and it’s not unusual for a disruptive outside event to prompt a return for one or two follow-up sessions to reinforce progress made.

Successes and failures

Hypnotherapy is not a miracle cure, and failures do happen. They usually come down to a few well-identified causes:

Cause of failure	What can help
Giving up before seeing results	Persevering, and prioritizing work on self-confidence
Poor rapport with the therapist	Changing therapist
Fear of the unconscious	Better understanding what the unconscious really is
Fear of hypnosis	Better understanding what hypnosis really is
Unrealistic expectations	Learning what hypnotherapy can realistically offer
Unconscious resistance to therapy	A more complex case, one Milton Erickson himself acknowledged could not always be overcome

Most of these pitfalls can simply be avoided by talking openly with the therapist about any difficulties encountered along the way. Therapy is built together: without the patient’s active cooperation, results can be delayed, limited, or even prevented altogether.

The therapist acts a bit like a sports coach: advising, guiding, and offering exercises to build missing resources and remove blocks, but it is always the person themselves who acts and makes progress. As in sport, it’s the athlete who receives the medal, never the coach.

What’s next?

• Understand the hypnotic state that hypnotherapy relies on → What Is Hypnosis?
• Discover Milton Erickson’s specific approach → Ericksonian Hypnosis
• Learn to use hypnosis on yourself, outside a therapeutic setting → What Is Self-Hypnosis?