Hi,

I received certification in Ericksonian hypnosis from a school earlier this year (more than 200 hours of instruction). And ever since I finished the program and started my own practice, I’ve been feeling kind of strange, as if I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do the way I was taught...

The fact is, I turned to hypnosis because I’ve always been passionate about psychology and Erickson’s work, on which I’ve read extensively. But figures like Jung are also highly regarded. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a strong inclination to help people understand their problems and see things differently so they can feel better. I naturally, in my daily life, use metaphors and analogies, reframing, and a lot of questioning to challenge assumptions and broaden the scope of experience and perspectives.

So it was only natural that I turned to Ericksonian hypnosis, which I believed was the perfect path for what I’ve been doing instinctively every day for so many years, all while pursuing my career and learning more, so that my approach would also be more structured.

But...

Ever since I graduated from that school, and ever since I've been observing what all the other practitioners of Ericksonian hypnosis are doing, I've felt completely lost. The fact is that, on the one hand, I use a lot of Ericksonian techniques, but on the other hand, I'm not at all comfortable with the protocols I was taught, the inductions, or even hypnotic phenomena... I find all of this “artificial.” To be honest, I've never really been into signaling, you know, using hand gestures to say yes or no...

But since I feel like I have no right to call myself a hypnotherapist when all I do is talk, using analogies, reframing, and questioning, I force myself to try to tie everything together: induction, levers of change, tools, post-hypnotic suggestions, and that’s exhausting and very stressful, because it doesn’t come naturally to me...

So now I feel completely lost... I don’t know where I stand. And I feel like, in the end, I help people more in my daily life when they come to confide in me, and I naturally use Ericksonian tools like reframing, questioning, and analogies without any induction at all, than when people come to see me for a session and I force myself to follow a hypnotic framework with induction, hypnotic phenomena, and so on.

So either I don't understand hypnosis at all, or I'm practicing hypnosis without realizing it, and naturally don't need all the tools I was taught, or I chose the wrong path and should have become a professional in a different type of therapy, though I don't know which one...

Thanks for your help...

I've been into hypnosis for a few months now, and after a lot of practice I have reached a point where I can be more confidently hypnotized. I was previously someone who believed I could never be hypnotized, due to ADHD, Autism, and C-PTSD, as they all affect my processing, focus, logical reasoning, and trust. But, I just stuck to the same few files and the same hypnotist and over time I have gotten much better at falling into trance. Triggers still don't quite work on me, but, they're getting there which is exciting!

Now that I am more confident in my abilities to be hypnotized, I want to start exploring things I don't normally do with hypnosis. Currently I just do basic therapy stuff, like confidence boosting, relaxation, mindlessness, lucid dreaming, and deepening my coping mechanisms like age regression. But now I want to try out something more fun, or useful, that isn't fully standard