Hypnosense - Terence Watts

Self Help from Hypnosense



Q. Can anybody be hypnotised?






Q. How do you hypnotise somebody?






Q. Is it good for performance enhancement?


  • Sporting performance
  • Career matters
  • Memory and Concentration
  • Stage performance
  • Study
  • Exams and tests
  • Presentation/speaking skills

Q. Is there anybody who should not be hypnotised?

A. To a large extent, it depends on the sort of therapy being employed. Some say that anybody suffering from epilepsy should never be hypnotised, but I have never heard of an epileptic fit being triggered by hypnosis. Where psychotic individuals are concerned, care needs to be exercised and regression/analytical therapy should most definitley not be employed. (See the paper about psychosis elsewhere on this site - click here to go there now) This type of therapy is also best avoided with pregnant women. I also will not use regression or analysis with heart attack/stroke victims.

Q. How does it work?


Q. What is hypnosis anyway?


Q. What does it feel like to be hypnotised?


Q. How can you tell if somebody is hypnotised?




Q. Can it be used to control people?

A. See above answer.

Q. Can you get 'stuck' in hypnosis?


Q. Is it dangerous in any way?


Q. How does hypnotherapy differ from stage hypnosis?

A. The hypnosis is the same, though many believe it is not. But it is the 'therapy' part that is different - the stage hypnotist is out to entertain others. The hypnotherapist is out to make somebody's life more enjoyable to live. See my essay Hypnotic Effects for more information. Click here to go there now.

Q. What's the difference between hypnotherapy and psychotherapy?




Q. What is 'direct suggestion' therapy?


Q. Is it successful with real phobias?


Q. Does it always work?


Q. How long does it take to produce a result?





Q. Can somebody's mind be too strong?


Q. Can anybody learn to be a hypnotist, or is it a 'gift'?

A. Forget those stories or articles where it is stated that somebody has the 'gift' of hypnosis! It takes hardly any time at all for anybody to learn how to hypnotise another, though some people are better at it than others, just as in any other skill. It is learning what to do with someone once they are hypnotised that takes the time and training; learning how to deal with different personality types, learning how to discover what really ails an individual (sometimes different entirely to what they say or believe is their problem), learning how to decide on the right sort of therapy, and learning how to terminate therapy responsibly when it becomes obvious that in any one case it is not going to produce the desired result.

Q. Can you learn it from books?

A. Yes - but you need and must have professional instruction if you intend to become a professional hypnotherapist. Anybody starting to work on members of the public without proper training is, in my opinion: stupid, arrogant, uncaring, unrealistic, scurrilous, a shyster, a con-man (or woman)... add as many negative/deprecatory/insulting adjectives as you like.

Q. Where can I find out more?


Q. I've heard about bio-feedback meters. What are they are and what do they do?

A. A bio-feedback meter is a way of keeping an eye on the internal states of an individual - anxiety, for instance - that we may not otherwise be aware of. The modern bio-feedback meters have an electronic display and operate via lightweight electrodes connected to two adjacent finger tips. There is little or no awareness of these after a few minutes. You can use it on self, to measure your own ability to relax, or on a client to monitor their levels of relaxation during the hypnotic induction, as well as their stress levels during regression work. These meters work on the same principle as a lie detector, by measuring the activity of the central nervous system. I use one almost all the time.

Q. What is an 'induction', and what is a 'deepener'?

A. An induction is just a passage of text spoken to the client. Most of the time, a slow soothing tone will be used, but there are other occasions when a more dynamic style may be more suitable. A deepener is more like a story designed to focus the hypnotised individual's attention to get him/her into a deeper state of hypnosis. Hence the name.

Q. Can you hypnotise someone without them knowing it?

A. You can, if you have the skills to do so. The use of 'hypnotic language patterns' and pacing and leading body language will do it. But you still could not get that person to do anything with hypnosis that they would not do without it. Hypnosis merely overcomes inhibition and the 'conscious critical faculty' - the part of our thought processes which tends to limit our behaviour or belief system.


A. From a professional point of view, hypnosis should be used ONLY for the benefit of patients and clients - and not for any other reason at all. That pretty much sums up the basis of most Codes of Ethics. From a personal viewpoint, though, it is only your own moral code that you would have to follow; so you could use hypnosis to enhance your sexual experiences, as long as you did not feel your were cheating in some way. You would be unlikely to persuade somebody to have sex with you if they were not already willing to do so, though. The legal position is less clear, since it varies from Country to Country and State to State.

Q. Is it worthwhile using 'props' to aid the hypnotic process?

A. If you want to. Background music helps, sometimes, and some therapists like to use a rotating 'hypno-spiral' or other focussing device, such as a strobe light(s) - but these can trigger epileptic fits in those who are susceptible. Bio-feedback (see above) is useful.

Q. What exactly is 'Past Life Regression'?

A. Theoretically, a look back to a lifetime experienced earlier in history - this can be thousands of years earlier, or maybe only a short while back, just before the current life span began. It is claimed that there is a therapeutic value in such experiences, in that they may account for certain psychological difficulties in current life. Numerous attempts have been made to prove the validity of various PLRs, but this has never been achieved - there has always been the possibility of the experience being nothing more than the recall of a long-forgotten memory from childhood in THIS life. Many experimenters are at pains to point out that they DO NOT CLAIM that a PLR is evidence of a previous existence for the individual concerned, only an awareness of a set of circumstances that occurred before that individual was born.

Q. Can hypnosis be used to create/trigger dreams?

A. Sometimes, though this tends to be somewhat unreliable. There has been much experiment with the use of hypnosis to create 'lucid dream states' (in which the dreamer KNOWS s/he is dreaming) but there has been no conclusive evidence that it works.

Q. How do I go about becoming a hypnotherapist/hypnotist?

A. Get some professional training. Probably the easiest way to find the best training school near you is to contact a few local hypnotherapists/stage hypnotists (whichever you are interested in) and ask them where they did their initial training. Yellow Pages will have several listed. My own: school site is as good a place as any to see what a professional school should offer. There is more information here: information page

Web Design Company - It Becomes Fluid Ltd