Has anyone here been hypnotized before by a therapist before? How was your experience? Did it work? Did it help you reach your goal?
I did hypnosis to quit smoking about 20 years ago. Worked beautifully.
It was a private session, in the same room as a group session would be held, I suppose, there were other lounge chairs around. I wore head phones, watched a big (at that time) screen and listened to her soothing voice reinforcing the fact that I wanted to quit smoking. Oh, and I did get to see the twirly thing, that was really cool.
At no time during it did I feel like I was hypnotized. In fact, while I was sitting there, reclined, the back of my head started hurting, you know, like when you are laying in one spot and things get sore and you adjust. Well, I was afraid to move and maybe mess things up so I laid there afraid if I move it will mess things up. Didn’t matter, worked anyways.
The crazy thing was this place was about 45 minutes away and I was a pack a day smoker. The whole thing, including interview, took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. When everything was done, I got in the car, shopped at a store to get a pop and drove home. When I got home my wife asked me how did it go and it was only then that I noticed that I didn’t smoke on the way home or even then had the urge to smoke. That, was eye opening because as any smoker knows, when you are somewhere for a while, the first thing you do when you get outside is light up.
Hypnosis, at least in my case, worked. YMMV.
I tried it last year in hopes of quitting a nervous habit. Like luvrbcs, I never had any feeling of being hypnotized, just being very relaxed and listening to the therapist speak. Unfortunately, for me it did not work. Maybe my therapist should’ve tried the twirly thing. 
Thank you both. I went to try to quit a social smoking habit, or “smoke when I drink habit.”
It’s tough to say so far if it worked or not since I haven’t really been tested. But I was around someone Saturday who was smoking and it wasn’t tempting at all.
The true test will be when I have a few beers. It would be wonderful if it worked. I had the same experience as luvrbcs. I didn’t think it was working and was pretty conscious the whole time. But then afterwards I was very groggy and felt weird. The therapist said I was very easy to put under. Not sure what that means.
Good luck, LWIBR, just don’t think about it.
DB, bummer it didn’t work. Ask for the twirly thing next time.
I have been hypnotized dozens of times and actually used to teach hypnosis. If the session did not work for DB, maybe you could try another therapist or maybe a second session with the same one will do the trick.
Only be wary of those therapists who tell you upfront that it’s going to take 10 session (or any kind of fixed number) to solve your issue.
The twirly thing is useful for fulfilling the client’s expectations, but I haven’t seen it done in ages. If it works for you, more power to the twirl!
Years ago, I ordered a Groupon coupon as soon as someone told me it existed. It was cheap and I’ve always been interested in trying hypnosis.
For the record, I went in wanting to crave sweets less. After we met she convinced me it would be more successful to make the goal a positive thing, like to crave healthy snacks instead.
Eating better was an earnest desire of mine, but just trying out hypnosis far eclipsed the actual problem I told her I wanted to work on. I would’ve come up with some other reason to try it if I had to.
As someone who does a lot of yoga and meditation, I have to say I left hypnosis feeling FAR more relaxed than I do after meditating or doing yoga. The first couple hours after felt comparable to taking a large dose of xanax, and I felt pretty good the rest of the evening.
After several sessions, it had absolutely no short term or lasting effect on my eating habits.
In the moment, it felt pretty similar to guided meditation. Not identical but similar.