Again, no. These stage hypnotists have a lot to answer for! Let’s go back to the iceberg analogy – that 20% of visible iceberg is your conscious mind and the 80% below the water is your unconscious. Now let’s add a filter on the water line – yes, that bit between the conscious and the unconscious. The filter is known as the critical faculty, and its job is to accept or reject information that is consistent with our data banks in the unconscious. For example, if you find Karen in Accounts overbearing and you hear she’s been bullying a colleague, you are more likely to believe that to be true rather than if you heard it was Sue in HR who always goes out of her way to help you. It doesn’t mean it is true, of course, but your conscious mind has checked with the data banks, and the critical faculty will either accept or reject the information based on what your unconscious already knows to be true.
Now, when we are in hypnosis, one effect is to bypass the critical faculty. That’s how we can start making real changes. So as an example, let’s take our fictitious client Amy. Amy has a very successful career – she holds a senior position; she is well-respected; she is known as someone who gets results. Despite being recognised by the company and clients; despite being promoted; despite bonuses and regularly exceeding targets – Amy feels like a fraud. Her conscious mind receives all this information about her positive performance, but her critical faculty checks with the data banks in her unconscious mind, and it says ‘no’. For whatever reason, her unconscious mind KNOWS she is not worthy; in fact, she’s a fraud. It will tell the critical faculty to REJECT any praise or any information alluding to Amy’s success, and it will tell her she’s just ‘lucky’. However, through hypnotherapy, we can bypass this pesky critical faculty and begin to work with the unconscious mind to challenge her beliefs, and ultimately to change them. Once Amy has done this work, she can now enjoy hearing positive information about herself, and her critical faculty will ACCEPT it as truth.
Now, back to the mind-control. Even in hypnosis, a small part of the critical faculty will remain. This prevents people from accepting harmful suggestions, or those that are against their moral beliefs. Remember, we are using hypnosis to get back to the root of the real you – the you before society got its mitts on you! So, don’t worry – hypnosis is not mind control and I can’t MAKE you do anything that you don’t really want to do.