Were you taught not to spend any time listening to the Conscious Mind? Is your intake process a few quick questions before diving into the hypnosis? If so, you could be missing out on a valuable opportunity.
The intake process is where you listen to the client’s Pain Story. The Pain Story is the Conscious Mind’s Tale of Woe. It’s a story about where they’re at now. And how they think they got here. So, there’s a fundamental problem with the advice to not spend any time listening to the Conscious Mind.
Where the client is at now is stuck in the Pain of the problem. While it’s true the Conscious Mind doesn’t have all the information you need its cooperation if you’re going to be successful. The Conscious Mind can’t fix the problem because it doesn’t have the whole Story. But you still need to give it some time and attention. If you don’t, it will just try to run the show. That’s because the Conscious Mind needs control. And it will block you if you don’t give it the attention it needs.
To the Conscious Mind control equals safety.
If you don’t satisfy this fundamental need before you begin the hypnosis, the Conscious Mind will just get in your way and try to control because it wants safety. The problem that’s happening at a Conscious level of Mind is that the client doesn’t have control in some area of their life. It’s the Subconscious Mind that has control. This puts the Conscious and Subconscious level so Mind at odds with one another. So there’s a conflict.
When these two parts of the Mind are not aligned, that’s when the trouble begins. And that’s when symptoms appear. The symptoms show up in your office as physical or and emotional or a behavioral problems. But they have one thing in common. They are symptoms of an underlying, internal conflict. Your job is to help bring these two parts of the client back into alignment. You can’t do that if you dismiss one side in favor of the other.
One is not better than the other. Both are integral to the client’s well-being. So work with both. The thing to remember is that the Conscious and Subconscious Mind both want the same thing. There is no real separation between these two parts of the client.
It’s one mind.
Both parts of the Mind serve the same purpose – to be happy. That requires safety. It’s just that they have different strategies for accomplishing this purpose. Taking the time to listen to the client’s Story can help to satisfy both the Conscious and Subconscious Mind’s primary need for safety. This can get you incredible rapport with a client.
Now think about this …
To the Subconscious Mind, safety means survival. And the Subconscious Mind is duty-bound to protect the client from any perceived threat to survival – real or imagined.
While you’re conducting the intake you’re interacting with the Conscious level of Mind. But the Subconscious Mind isn’t someplace else. It is right there with you. It’s sitting there off to the side, quietly observing.
While you’re interacting with the Conscious Mind of the client, the Subconscious Mind is assessing you. And it’s deciding whether or not you can be trusted based on how you interact with the client.
If you don’t win the trust of the Subconscious Mind it will protect try to protect the client from you. It will block you. So you need to prove that you can be trusted and earn its cooperation.
This is what listening to the client’s Story does. It’s not wasting time. It’s demonstrating that you can be trusted - that you’re safe to listen to. And the client must be willing to listen to you before they can follow your instructions.
