“I’ve had enough!”, she yelled as she opened her eyes and snapped out of hypnosis.
She left the Zoom meeting while the therapist stared in disbelief.

A week later, she sent an email. “I can’t imagine what results you thought were worth retraumatising me in order to achieve!”

I am sharing with you a real story I was told about a beautiful lady who had been suffering with complex post traumatic stress due to living in a physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive household for many years and a hypnotherapy session gone terribly wrong!

This hypnotherapist who specialises in subconscious reprogramming and NLP had had so many successful sessions with excellent results in the past. He knew the process step by step like the back of his hand and he had all the digging tools required to uncover and address the root cause of any presenting problem first, so that he would have a clean slate to program with the new beliefs, thought patterns, and helpful habits that the client requested . He prided himself in his investigative skills and that once he uncovered the root cause of a problem, the client transformation was inevitable. And it is true, he really is good at what he does.

However, this session was different.

It started out with the client unable to relax during the guided meditation. In fact, it seemed that the more he tried to relax her with breathing exercises and visualization, the more irritated and reactive she would become.

She finally appeared to relax, and so he began to regress her to scenes from her past that were the root cause for her presenting problem. She saw nothing.

He tried again with different techniques. She said she was feeling really drained. He heard that a part of her was resisting uncovering those scenes.

He did some parts work exercises to release the blocks to remembering these experiences. The client tensed up. She could feel the tension in her arms and legs as she started clenching on her teeth. Despite being in hypnosis, her breathing intensified and she began to sweat.

He thought to himself, “Good, we are close to uncovering something significant.”

He began to regress her once more to a significant scene that is the cause of her presenting issue.

“I can’t do this anymore” She was fuming. “I don’t think we can continue working together.”

The session was over.

She told him later that she felt he betrayed her trust as a therapist.

It didn’t matter that she was irritated.
It didn’t’ matter that she was feeling tired.
It didn’t matter that she was tense all over.

In her eyes, he abused her just as she was being abused at home.

This is what she perceived.

And what’s worse, is that since their session, she has been having nightmares and flashbacks that she can’t get over. Her body is in such a dysregulated state that she can barely function.

She told him that now she has to see another therapist to heal from this experience!

As you can imagine, this hypnotherapist is now feeling guilty and his confidence took a hit.
He could tell that he missed something, but he didn’t know what.

He wondered if he should have prolonged the guided meditation so she can relax into a deeper state of hypnosis, or if he should have done the parts work first before attempting the regression, or even, if he should have skipped all of that and gone straight into installing the new program.

As Abraham Maslow once said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it was a nail.”

But what happened is not just that he fell into the trap of overly relying on this “hammer”, the one modality he was trained in, in that case he could just train in new modalities.

And it is not just that he treated this client as a “nail” because in that case he can get really good at identifying and verifying that the client he is working with is in fact the type of client he is trained to work with.

The problem here goes much deeper.

You see, because even if he will only use a hammer and even if he will only work with nails, not every nail is ready to be hammered!

What if it’s a rusty nail? What if it’s a nail that is bent? What if the nail is positioned at an angle? These are not hopeless cases, but there is work that needs to be done before the hammering begins.

And even more than that. What kind of surface are you hammering the nail into? Is it wooden? Is it plaster? Is it marble? Is it moldy? Is it soggy? Does it have termites?

And now even further, once you will hammer that nail into the wall, you are planning to hang something on it, right? How heavy will that thing be? Does it even have the attachment to hang on this kind of nail? Will it be in a heavy traffic section in your home and can be knocked down easily, pulling the nail out with it?

There are ways to work with most situations, but first, you must have a complete picture and understanding of what it is you are dealing with. This is why I take my sweet time on every discovery call to assess the client’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual state, to identify their specific needs and to plan out how their transformation will be integrated into their life post session.

And I have learned early on that we cannot work with someone’s mind and ignore the state of their body. This is why the Three Step Breakthrough System begins with clearing the body and regulating the nervous system before we even attempt to begin the subconscious programming work, and why it continues with embodiment coaching to rewire the body to be aligned with the mind’s transformation.

And because we are dealing with dynamic human beings, and not nails, this is why I continue to take my sweet time in every session and interaction with the client to assess their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state and capacity. That might mean we decide to switch modalities last minute or even to postpone a session altogether. Whatever is necessary to put the client’s safety and wellbeing first.

And because this work we do is not about what happens during the sessions alone, and it is also about what has happened before the sessions, in between the sessions, and after the sessions, this is why I do not have a set schedule for when or how often I follow up with my clients and I make it easy and accessible for them to contact me whenever they need. They love that.

And we cannot guide a transformation without being mindful of how it will be integrated with the client’s ever-changing reality. I think this is why many of my clients have decided to continue working with me long-term with the Custom Breakthrough Program that is designed just for them.

It is also why I have shifted to offering the Custom Breakthrough Program to new clients rather than just individual sessions. This program isn’t for everybody. In fact, I am not for everybody. But, if you would like to learn more about this program, see if it is the right fit for you, and discuss a plan that suits your specific needs and circumstances, let’s have a chat ?