In "Interview with Peter Wolf on Clinical and Stage Hypnosis," Peter Wolf, counselor and certified hypnotist, told Suite101 about how he found hypnosis while following the shamanic path, his experiences with hypnosis, and how people are affected by the power of suggestion.
In his interview with Suite101, Wolf also discussed how hypnosis can help people with their personal issues. He also tells readers what they should or shouldn't do to prepare for a hypnosis session.
Hypnosis for Anxiety and Weight Loss
S101: What do people typically ask you to help them with when they come to you for hypnosis?
Wolf: “Mostly they see me about anxiety, habits, and patterns -- usually continuous patterns that somebody is experiencing and doesn't know why. I may then do a regression to a particular moment in time to find what is at the core. Most of the time people come to me about weight loss, which has nothing to do with weight. It’s usually how you associate to something, and you need to re-associate differently. Primarily that’s what I find hypnosis is best for."
Wolf's Advice on Preparing for Hypnosis
S101: If someone’s going to come to you for hypnosis, what can they do to prepare for that?
Wolf: “I’d say there are things they shouldn’t do. Some people do come for habits, like nail biting, sales, hair pulling and more typically habitual circumstances. You don’t deal with habits and we humans never break habits. We have to deal with what’s creating the habits in the first place. You deal with the real stress, anxiety and thought process before the habit began. Those are the fundamentals to deal with. Those are the things that hypnosis is really best suited for.
“So what should people not do? The first thing is, don’t come with judgment. Don’t come with preconceived notions. If you have never been hypnotized before, you may have a judgment about hypnosis itself and what you think it’s like. That’s the one thing I get the most from people. If we do a session where they’re not off in la-la land, essentially not a deep level of hypnosis, they think they “didn’t go anywhere” and weren't hypnotized. Well, where were you supposed to go?”
S101: A lot of times that comes from watching movies, or TV, or stage shows.
Wolf: “Yes, stage shows can actually give it a bad name or a bad image. I do do them, but I stick a little positive juice in there at the same time.”
Remembering What Happened During Hypnosis
S101: I think, though, that people are afraid of losing control, especially with the stage show stuff. They don’t recollect what they did.
Wolf: “Oh, they do if you tell them to. I always tell people that they will remember what they did. I always let people remember what they did. Always. All I can say right off the bat is that this is not stage show stuff. Nothing is going to happen to you that you don’t want to happen to you. The main thing is you can’t resist what’s going on. If you resist it, you’ll shut it off. You can’t fight your mind. You have to work with your mind and you have to work with me as well. For some people its best to start off with a programming type of hypnosis to condition them so they get used to it, where you’re not doing something heavy or big. Everybody has to do it at his or her own pace.”
S101: So, what can they expect?
Wolf: “The only expectation that they should have is an expectation of themselves. They should expect that what they’re doing is entering a state that they are very accustomed to, that they do all the time. Anytime they daydream, anytime they sleep, they’re entering a state that is very normal. The thing to understand is that we are accessing that state on purpose this time instead of doing it accidentally.”
Wolf's expertise with hypnosis has allowed him to help thousands of people over the years and to entertain many more with his stage show. In this part of the interview, he talked more about clinical hypnosis, why people would use it, and what they can expect when they go for a counseling session that involves hypnosis.
Wolf also discussed the experiences of individuals who volunteer for stage hypnosis and he discussed forensic hypnosis. The results of that discussion can be found in the article "Interview with Peter Wolf on Stage and Forensic Hypnosis".
Sources:
- Wolf, Peter, Counselor and Consulting Hypnotist.
Val Tobin - Val Tobin is a freelance writer, Isagenix consultant and owner of Serenity Now Gifts & Services in Newmarket, Ontario.
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