Imagery in Hypnosis

Since the brain, the mind, learns in images, imagery is the natural way to communicate with the subconscious mind. Because imagery and the subconscious speak the same language – imagery becomes a powerful tool to use for change!

Imagery is an experience that involves all of the senses. While visualization can be an element, seeing images, it is not always a part of an imagery experience due to individual receptivity. In imagery, clients are encouraged to notice what they may “see....and also, notice the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the touch, and emotional feelings.” Imagery constructs can accomplish new experience that is fuller and richer than visualization alone. It all depends on the client’s receptiveness.

When an imagery process is being experienced, the client is in a state of hypnosis. It is a lighter state of hypnosis if the client speaks out loud during the process. Some clients respond to this ‘communicative’ imagery while others respond to the imagery approach of total emersion in the hypnotic state. Although it may be a matter of preference, or to the degree that receptivity will afford, the response variation could also be more dependent on what is going on in the client’s life.

While there are different types of imagery processes, all work in imagery has an autonomous feel to it. Many facilitators of imagery feel that the client finds their answers within. “Allow an image to form that represents....” is a phrase heard frequently when working in imagery. Allowing an image to spring to mind rather than forcing it, is more encouraged. Even guided imagery scenarios, which may include archetypal symbols, allow room for the client’s own subconscious symbols to arise.

All hypnosis requires an understanding, on the Hypnotherapist’s part, of mind symbols and how to find the client’s symbols during the therapeutic process. Imagery is an excellent tool for that discovery. It can bring subconscious information up to conscious awareness. Each client has their own unique symbols based on their life experience. These symbols can be extremely important, especially when the Hypnotherapist is building inferred suggestions. For those clients who receive more inferentially, imagery can be very effective. And, even for the literal receptivity, imagery is a process that can easily impress the subconscious mind. In the last decade, imagery has taken a giant leap up in use and in popularity. It has been proven to be highly effective, specifically gaining high marks in the health arena.

Visualize

This is a term that is frequently used by Hypnotherapists to help the client produce new positive pictures to look at while they are in a state of hypnosis. By visualizing, the client can “see” in their mind’s eye a specific something. Since the brain learns by pictures, visualizing is a tool that can help the client to see themselves in new ways and begin to break up old learned habits, conditions, or behaviors.

Imagine

While the client is in a state of hypnosis, the hypnotherapist might ask the client to “imagine” various positive scenes or images that have to do with the issue being worked on. Often, for someone who has difficulty “seeing” with their eyes closed, or visualizing, the word “imagine” will stimulate pictures, or other sensory experience that the brain will understand and learn–-like hearing sounds, textures to the touch, smelling certain fragrances, tasting, or emotionally feeling.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

Richard Bandler and John Grinder combined knowledge of psychology, linguistics, and computers – the result? NLP. This approach encourages you to be in charge of your own brain – and not the other way around. NLP teaches you to use your mind’s ability to visualize and imagine the sensations of sight, sound, movement, smell, and taste so you can shape your own thoughts. The NLP premise is, once you have told your brain how you want to think about something, you will start to feel differently about it – even behave differently. NLP is a cognitive approach. Hypnotherapists combine NLP based concepts with hypnosis in order to reach and impress your subconscious mind with your new thoughts.

The Mind-Body Connection

Go way back to the 4th Century B.C.E., and there the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates comments, “there is no illness of the body apart from the mind.” It seems as if people have been making that kind of observation forever. How do you prove it? Since the 1970's some researchers have been gathering information about what’s going on in the inside – chemically speaking that is.

That emerging research proposed what we might actually have is a body-mind. Until 1970's, the standard concept was more of an electrical system. The brain analyzes input and sends out electrical signals which cause the body’s response. The brain was the sole place for your mind, both conscious and subconscious. Then brain chemicals, neuropeptides, were discovered. And, the unexpected happened – these brain chemicals are found in all sorts of other cells throughout the body. And that research began to happen with the development of a new field of study, Psychoneuroimmunology – and with this, scientific researchers were encouraged to cross disciplinary boundaries to study the effects of the mind on the body and healing.

Some researchers believed these biochemical “information substances” or messenger molecules carry emotion – the feelings, the beliefs, the expectations – throughout the body. This model proposed that the brain is well integrated with the rest of the body at a molecular level. The mind is viewed as a nonphysical network that interacts with the physical components of brain and body. It might resemble a kind of body-wide continuous loop in which all body cells and organs contribute information simultaneously. Not all neuroscientists and immunologists agree with the mind-body proponents. They maintain the more traditional view. They say, just because the brain peptide is in some non-brain cell, doesn’t prove it’s communicating anything.

If you accept the Mind-Body concept, that the “information substances” are the chemical communicators of emotion, the possibilities are intriguing. Mind-body scientists suggest that perhaps the body is the repository of the subconscious mind, and that a repressed traumatic emotion can be stored in some specific area of the body, and affect the function of that part of the body. Interestingly, this is similar to the concept that Dr. John Kappas developed, and hypnotherapists have worked with for years, called Body Syndromes. His Body Syndromes concept has its own unique twist as it is more metaphysical in nature. It states that “whatever the brain can’t handle, it puts it into the mind, whatever the mind can’t handle, it puts it back into the body.” Where’s the mind? It is part of brain, but also extends beyond, about six inches outward from the skin, all around the body.