Distractions in hypnotherapy are commonplace. Sometimes in one-on-one hypnotherapy sessions with my clients we can hear the traffic outside a bit. I know it may sound silly, but you can turn those distractions into calming sounds. I might say something like, “As you focus on the sound of the traffic in the background, you can feel your body going deeper into hypnosis”. Rather than try to ignore these distractions, we can actually bring them into the hypnotherapy session and use them as deepeners.
Recently, I had quite a challenge. I went down to my office in London and there were some workmen about ten yards away, digging up the road. I had a new client that day. As we started to move into a bit of hypnosis the workers started to use a pneumatic drill to pull up the pavement. The whole room was shaking and the noise was so loud I could even feel my chair vibrating.
My client and I joked about it and had a bit of a laugh and it actually made no real difference at all to the client. We were able to continue with the hypnosis and it went quite well. Afterward the client was surprised that it hadn’t bothered him. He said he didn’t believe that at first that the sound could be soothing as I suggested, but it became that way and he went deeper into hypnosis after we acknowledged it and moved on.
If anything, noises are more of a distraction to the hypnotist than they are to the person in hypnosis. Obviously outside noise is not ideal. A quiet environment is much easier for everyone to work with, but noise doesn’t have to mean that a person can’t enter a state of hypnosis or have a successful hypnotherapy session. Eventually, the client zeros in on the hypnotist’s voice and outside noises will fade away.
Distractions are impossible to avoid sometimes. Try to acknowledge the noise or distraction and then set it aside in your mind. Focus on the voice of your hypnotist or the voice in the headphones if you’re listening to a recorded hypnosis session, and just let it go. You should certainly try to find a place where you will have the least distraction, but if the conditions aren’t perfect you shouldn’t give up. Noise is nothing to be concerned about and shouldn’t prevent your hypnosis from going forward.
