Hypnosis video: “What am I doing wrong?”
I watch a lot of hypnosis videos. I also subscribe to several social media sites that talk about hypnosis or hypnotherapy. I am active on the sites every day.
As an actual expert in hypnosis, as someone who has made hypnosis videos, I feel I can add a unique insight. Also, I see it as my duty to do something about the endless river of nonsense pouring out of the internet.
Hypnosis social media
The hypnosis social media are a great place to learn about hypnosis. You can watch hypnosis how-to videos. You can get scripts and ideas. You can read the question and answers forums.
You will find posts about all types of hypnosis. Many are from newbies and wannabes. Many are from people who seem to be in trouble. There are harmless questions like ‘I have an exam in three days. Can hypnosis let me learn everything before then?’
‘I think this guy hypnotized me against my will. He looked at me all night’.
‘Can hypnosis help me forget the ending of a movie, so I can watch it again?’
Then there are more worrying questions. “Can someone hypnotize me so I can make friends?” “Can hypnosis help me get over a relationship breakup?” “I've had depression all my life. Can hypnosis help me?”
These questions relate to serious and hard to treat conditions. They need a skilled therapist to establish why the client feels this way. And an even more skill to know how best to deal with it.
Limits to social media hypnosis advice
This is not something you should be asking strangers on the Internet. And yet that is exactly what happens. We have all become accustomed to turning to the Internet for every problem. We expect to get an answer straight away.
We have to acknowledge what an amazing resource the Internet is. If you want to know the capital of France it will give you the answer. Suppose you need an essay on the origins of the French Revolution. Ask an AI chat bot to do your homework for you. For the best way to grow potatoes, ask the chat bot.
But if you need to know why you can't make friends, you are not going to get a useful answer. You want to know how to get over a breakup. But is that the right question. May you should ask why your relationships keep breaking up? A chat bot will print out an answer. But if you ask the wrong question, it is unlikely to be right.
Hypnosis videos are not all the same
If you ask on Reddit or Facebook or Twitter most likely they will tell you to watch a video on YouTube. And the problem is, you will find a video on your exact problem.
This is not an accident. I'm not the only one who visits the social media pages on hypnosis every day. The makers of videos also visit the pages. They also read the questions,
And they make videos to match those problems exactly. The closer they can match your exact problem, the more views they will get, and the more money they will make.
The result is that there are millions of videos on YouTube on any subject you can think of. But they're not all good.
One question keeps coming up on social media. ‘I have listened to a hypnosis file from Youtube over and over and I don’t feel any changes. What am I doing wrong?’.
Well, you're not doing anything wrong. The problem is that the video is not a substitute for real hypnotherapy. If you have a problem making friends, there could be dozens of reasons.
The person making the video has no idea what these reasons are. So whatever they recommend is probably not going to do the job.
Suppose you watch a YouTube video, or listen to a hypnotic recording. The person making the recording gets no feedback from you. They have no idea whether it worked or didn't work.
The only feedback the publisher gets is whether it gets downloaded or not. They get paid by downloads, not by results. So all the effort goes into making it catchy. You have to click. So create a hook. The effort goes into marketing, not therapy.
Hypnosis video quality depends
The result is that publishers go for quantity over quality. They make variations on a basic structure. There is a hypnotic introduction, direct suggestions, a visualisation, and a count out. They then use the same structure over and over.
They release a hypnotic recording to help someone stop smoking, say. Half an hour later, on the next recording they substitute stop nail biting for stop smoking. And the next one is stop worrying instead of stop nail biting. And so on. It is easy to build up an impressive sounding catalog.
It is natural to assume that if someone puts out a recording it must be good. Especially if they have published dozens or hundreds of them. It must be good. But you have no idea whether they actually know what they're doing.
So the natural response is to blame yourself. The problem must be me. Somehow, I’m not responding to it the way I should. “What am I doing wrong?”
The answer, usually, is ‘Nothing. It’s not you. It’s the recording’.
