What happens in my first session and why does it need to be 2 hours?
Most of my clients arrive in their first session with a kind of nervous curiosity: What will he ask me? What if I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling? What if hypnosis doesn’t work on me? What if it’s bad? These are normal questions, and the honest answer is that my first session is 2 hours so that we have enough time to answer those questions, directly or indirectly. I’ve tried a single hour for the first session, and for my client it just seemed like a rush of quickly telling your story and going through your options with a stranger in 30 minutes, so that there’s time for a hypnosis session that can only be generic, because you only barely scratched the surface of what’s concerning you.
90 Minutes isn’t enough time to understand anyone, but it does give me a significant head start in identifying what’s happened to you, what you need, and what you dont have that you need most importantly. 30 Minutes of hypnosis after a 90 minute chat, means that I have some real questions that I can ask your subconscious mind. Occasionally, I have the final answer that you need to hear in the first session, for example if you have a fear of driving, but in most cases your first session is all about refining questions like “How do I feel about this solution to my concern?” or “What’s stopping me from going ahead with this solution?” Most often, our first task is to find out why you are not acting on the solution that you already know you need.
How will I feel after my first session and will it improve my situation?
Most people feel a mix of emotions after their first session - usually surprise, calm, and hope. For anxiety and stress there is an immediate improvement and a feeling of well-being, while in situations that require a strategic solution, the dust seems to have settled, and the options are clearer. In most cases your first session does not resolve your concern, it plays your situation in slow motion, and allows you to pause on a frame that doesn’t make sense, or seems important, giving you time to study the cause and effect chain - whats actually happening - in a safe environment where you feel in control. You come out of the session with a deeper understanding of yourself and your how you are behaving, and why you are behaving that way, so that even if you need multiple solutions, they all make sense to you, like seeing a maze from the top. Hypnosis leaves you with a sense of having rehearsed a solution - of having tried it, and knowing how you want to improve.
Your first session includes:
- 2 hours of psychoacoustic hypnotherapy ($216 at $108/hr)
- FREE Gold Membership for life ($54 value)
Total value: $270 | Price: $216 | Savings: $54
What’s the science behind Andrew’s psychoacoustic hypnotherapy sessions?
Psychoacoustics is the study of the effect that certain sound frequencies have on brain states. When your brainwaves naturally synchronize with an audio frequency it’s called the frequency following response - or brainwave entrainment - and I’ve been designing my own psychoacoustic soundtracks since 2010. When I began practicing online, I was concerned that online hypnotherapy would feel distant, and my clients would miss the presence of a therapist in the same room, so I designed a soundtrack to stream behind my voice during sessions. When you listen with headphones and close your eyes, the sound takes you into a different world, so I might as well be in the same room.
My hypnosis soundtrack uses a binaural beat at 6Hz to encourage theta state - a brainwave pattern that occurs naturally during deep meditation and just before sleep, where neuroplasticity is heightened and subconscious reprogramming is most effective. The session works simply: At your appointment time, you put on your headphones and open the Doxy.me link from your welcome email. We start with a conversation - no soundtrack yet, just talking through what’s been happening and how you’d like to feel. For some people this is the first time they’ve described the whole picture to someone. I use an audio mixer that combines my microphone with the hypnosis soundtrack and sends a combined stream to Doxy.me so the transition from conversation into hypnosis is seamless - when you’re relaxed and comfortable I start the soundtrack, and my voice continues over it.
What’s it like being hypnotized online?
When it feels like we’ve come to an understanding about how to resolve the issues we’ve been discussing in the first part of your session, I suggest that we begin hypnosis. If you agree, you make yourself comfortable so you can relax your head and close your eyes, I start the psychoacoustic soundtrack at a soft volume, and use a spoken relaxation technique to take you into a deep state similar to a daydream - dreaming but not sleeping - relaxed but aware of what I am saying. The soundtrack creates a world in which you can visualize or imagine what I’m saying more clearly and vividly, and with more emotional engagement than you would in a normal daydream.
You are conscious throughout and able to communicate, although most people don’t feel the need to say anything because the script I use contains only solutions that we spoke about before going into hypnosis. There are no surprises, just a rehearsal space free of judgment, where you can consider your options, try out solutions, and discern more clearly what you want to do. This is so rewarding for me - when I bring my clients out of hypnosis they’re usually smiling, feeling that they’ve had a chance to stop and consider their options, and feel the pull of the solution that works for them. We talk about the hypnosis session for a few minutes afterwards, to bring you back into your natural conscious state.
Is online hypnotherapy dangerous and will I lose control?
If your online hypnotherapist is a properly educated licensed professional, and has good reviews, it’s safe to leave danger in movies, but it’s important to talk about control. Hypnosis is a receptive state in which you are suggestible to what your hypnotherapist is saying. You could say this makes you the passenger, and the hypnotherapist is your driver - my job is navigating the subconscious mind, which is difficult for you to do, so you trust me to do it. In a taxi you can look around and reassure yourself that you are going the right way, and hypnosis is not so different - you’re not paralyzed or incapacitated or knocked out - that’s stage hypnosis. When hypnotherapy is practiced correctly, you would reject any suggestion that is against your beliefs - you would get up and be irritated and angry. If I ever saw that it would mean I’m bad at my job!
I can’t make you do or say anything that you don’t want to. Using force in hypnotherapy is contradictory because hypnosis is consensual - If you like the solution we are discussing, you agree to rehearse it in hypnosis, along with other techniques I may select: Meditation training is standard, it helps you to relax and develop a calm authority in your mind. I quite often use a technique called “Inner Child” in which you imagine meeting yourself as a child (your subconscious mind), giving advice, and teaching your solution. I also use dream therapy, which allows suppressed memories and events to surface only when you feel safe and strong enough to deal with them. In this way, your subconscious mind is always in control of your memories, and will never let you remember anything that you’re not ready to deal with.
Next step - Book your First Session
If you’re ready to book your first session, it’s quite straightforward:
- Select “Book your First Session”
- Payment via Payfast
- Client Intake form to save time in your session
- Calendar to select your appointment date and time
- Confirmation email: - Hypnotherapy appointment date and time - Doxy.me online session link - Soul Sanctuary Gold Membership link
[Button: “Book Your First Session”]