How Life Coaching and Hypnotherapy Work: A Client Example

The best way to explain the work I do is to provide examples of past sessions I've led with clients who were clear about the changes they wanted to make during our initial consultation. 

Depending on the client, they may have changed their behavior, belief, attitude, and/or habit in as little as three sessions; sometimes longer, and sometimes less. I've had the fortunate opportunity to work with someone who wanted to be a better person. Their idea was to work weekly for as long as they felt it was of value to them.

Providing examples of past sessions also allows me to discuss the principles of coaching and hypnosis/hypnotherapy, including tools and techniques used during sessions, and the value of my intuition. 

Below, I dive into my client work with Daniel to illustrate how life coaching and hypnotherapy work can be used in tandem. 

Client Story: Daniel’s Goal to Become a Better Person

Daniel started with a consultation that led to our weekly sessions. The consultation focused on Daniel's interest in being a better person, as he phrased it, "be a little bit better, one day at a time." This was the very first time during a consultation that a client solely wanted to work on being a better human being. 

Our time together has explored his personal life, including his immediate family of wife, two children, and a grandchild, friends, and dogs, as well as his profession as a partner in a small law firm. In essence, Daniel has explored parts of himself; some parts were more obvious to investigate because they were more on the surface of his conscious mind than the subconscious mind.

Before continuing with Daniel, here is a good place to briefly share what I've learned through hypnotherapy regarding the conscious and subconscious mind. 

Understanding the Conscious and Subconscious Mind

Hypnotherapy relies on suggestions given in hypnosis in a conscious state of focused attention. The subconscious mind can then choose to accept or reject these suggestions. 

The conscious mind and the subconscious mind are metaphors for how the brain works. Many different areas of the brain are used to perform conscious processes, and similarly, other areas of the brain work when we're subconsciously doing something, such as driving a car.

It is the culmination of the mind's parts and mental processes that enable you to think about things in the present moment. Everything you are actively thinking about right now is deemed 'conscious thought'. You are conscious of it happening, and you are primarily in control of what you are thinking.

This 'consciousness' also applies to behaviours and movement. If you're consciously thinking about what you're doing, such as when trying to learn a new skill (e.g., a sport), then the conscious mind will be taking the lead.

If, however, you're doing something that you already know and have practiced extensively, such as tying your shoelaces, the conscious mind takes the back seat, and your subconscious steps in, completing the task without you needing to think about it consciously.

The subconscious mind stores your memories, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. It takes care of all your unconscious body processes, such as pumping your blood, keeping you breathing, processing your food, and everything else your body is doing right now without any trace of conscious effort. Above all, though, the subconscious mind learns. It is a vast warehouse of information, retaining all the knowledge you have encountered in your life.

Where the conscious mind can process 40 pieces of information per second, the subconscious can process 20 million pieces of information per second about the environment you're in, as well as 100,000 chemical reactions per cell per second. This means the subconscious mind is processing around 400 billion pieces of information every second!

The subconscious mind is not logical, and it often works a lot better with imagery and symbols, which is why simply telling someone what to do during a hypnotherapy session will not always achieve the desired result.

This is why hypnotherapists do not simply learn to use direct suggestions alone, but also employ a range of more indirect and metaphorical approaches to communicate more effectively on a subconscious level, helping to bypass any conscious resistance along the way.

The session with Daniel will continue in the next blog post.

*Please note I changed the names of my clients to protect their privacy.