Why Hypnosis Scripts Aren’t Enough: You Need to Understand the Cause
- Linda Sevilla
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Years ago, I had a client come to see me with one of those symptoms that makes you go hmmm.
She was working on her PhD and was in the middle of writing her dissertation.
One morning, she sat down at her computer to work, as she had done countless times before, and couldn't remember how to turn it on.
She knew this was strange.
This wasn't a new computer. She hadn't suddenly forgotten how computers worked. She had been using this computer regularly while writing her dissertation not to mention for other tasks.
And the problem didn't last.
Her ability to turn on the computer came back. It was a temporary glitch.
But she was astute enough to wonder why it had happened.
She suspected there might be something going on subconsciously, which was what brought her to see me.
Now imagine you're the hypnotherapist sitting across from her.
What would you do?
It would be very easy to focus on exactly what she had told you.
She couldn't remember how to turn on her computer.
She needed to finish her dissertation.
So perhaps you create hypnosis to help with memory, concentration, motivation, and writing.
It might sound something like this:
Each time you sit down at your computer, your mind is sharp and clear. You easily remember exactly what to do. Turning on your computer feels natural and automatic. You feel focused and motivated as you work on your dissertation. The words come easily to you, and you enjoy making steady progress toward completing your work.
You could have her visualize herself walking into the room, sitting down, turning on the computer, and beginning to write.
You might create an anchor she could use whenever she wanted to feel focused.
You could tell her how much she wanted to finish her dissertation and how wonderful she would feel when it was done.
It all sounds perfectly reasonable.
And I would have missed the most important part of the case.
Why didn't her subconscious want her to finish her dissertation?
That was the question I wanted answered.
Hypnosis Scripts Can Only Address What You Understand
One of the most important things I have learned from working with clients for more than 25 years is that symptoms make much more sense when you understand them in context.
The subconscious is protective.
If it believes something could lead to pain, danger, rejection, loss, embarrassment, or some other unwanted outcome, it may try to prevent that outcome.
It doesn't necessarily do this logically.
It works through associations.
A leads to B.
B feels threatening.
So let's stop A.
Consciously, we can look at the resulting behavior and think it makes absolutely no sense.
From the subconscious point of view, there may be a perfectly understandable reason for it.
That's why I didn't want to tell this woman how easy it was to turn on her computer.
I wanted to know what finishing her dissertation meant to her subconscious.
So that was what we explored in hypnosis.
And what came up dictated the direction of the work.
The Computer Wasn't Really the Problem
My client and her husband had been having difficulties in their marriage.
At some point, they had made an agreement.
She was in the middle of completing her PhD, and her dissertation required a great deal of her time and attention. They decided they would wait until she had submitted it and then sit down and have a serious conversation about the future of their marriage.
Think about what that meant.
Finish dissertation.
Then:
Possibly end marriage.
Suddenly, forgetting how to turn on the computer doesn't look quite so random.
Her subconscious wasn't concerned about the computer.
It wasn't concerned about her ability to write.
It wasn't confused about whether she wanted her PhD.
It had made an association between completing the dissertation and facing a conversation she did not want to have.
As long as the dissertation wasn't finished, that conversation remained somewhere in the future.
So interfering with her ability to work on it made a certain kind of subconscious sense.
Of course, forgetting how to turn on the computer wasn't going to save her marriage. Her subconscious wasn't sitting there logically weighing the long-term consequences of its strategy.
It had simply found a way to put the brakes on something it associated with an outcome she feared.
Now I had something useful to work with.
The Hypnosis Had to Fit the Actual Problem
Imagine if I had spent our hypnosis session telling her:
You know how to turn on your computer.
She did.
You are capable of writing your dissertation.
She was.
You want to finish your PhD.
She absolutely did.
None of those statements addressed the association that was creating the conflict.
This is where I use what I call a hypnotic argument.
A hypnotic argument isn't a collection of positive statements.
I'm making a case to the subconscious.
I use the person's actual history and circumstances to show the subconscious where its reasoning is outdated, incomplete, or no longer useful.
In this client's case, I needed to separate two things her subconscious had linked together:
Completing her dissertation and what happened to her marriage.
The hypnosis needed to address facts such as:
Finishing the dissertation did not decide the future of her marriage.
The difficulties in the marriage already existed.
Delaying the dissertation wasn't resolving those difficulties.
The conversation would eventually need to happen whether she completed her dissertation this week, next month, or six months from now.
She had worked hard for her PhD.
Completing that work was something she could do for herself regardless of what eventually happened in her relationship.
And when the time came to have that conversation with her husband, she could deal with it then.
That is a completely different conversation with the subconscious.
I wasn't trying to overpower the protective response.
I was addressing the reason it existed.
This Is Why I Don't Teach Hypnotherapy as a Collection of Scripts
I understand why new hypnotherapists want scripts.
I did too.
When I was learning, I was always looking for them.
A script for anxiety.
A script for confidence.
A script for procrastination.
A script for weight loss.
A script for sleep.
It feels reassuring when you're new. If someone comes in with a particular problem, you can pull out the corresponding script and know what you're going to say.
And there are hypnotherapy trainings that sell themselves partly on the enormous number of scripts you'll receive.
Hundreds of scripts.
Sometimes thousands.
I don't think having scripts available is a bad thing. I've written plenty of them myself, and I give my students plenty of them throughout my training.
What concerns me is teaching someone that having the script means knowing how to work with the client.
Those are two very different skills.
If my client tells me she procrastinates, I don't yet know what she needs.
I know she procrastinates.
That's the symptom.
One person may procrastinate because finishing something means it can be judged.
Someone else may have grown up learning that doing well creates greater expectations and pressure.
Another person may associate success with becoming more visible.
Someone else may be avoiding a completely different consequence.
They can all walk into my office saying:
"I procrastinate."
Why would I give them all the same suggestions?
Surface Information Creates Surface Hypnosis
This is one of the gaps I see in a lot of hypnotherapy training.
Students learn inductions.
They learn deepeners.
They learn suggestions.
They collect scripts for different presenting concerns.
But they may receive very little training in how to sit across from a client and figure out what is actually going on.
What questions do you ask?
What are you listening for?
Which part of the client's history matters?
Why did that particular sentence catch your attention?
What associations might have been formed?
What does the subconscious appear to believe?
What could this symptom be accomplishing?
What is it protecting the person from?
And once you have those answers, what does the subconscious need to understand differently?
That's the skill.
The hypnosis comes after that.
A beautifully written script cannot compensate for misunderstanding the client.
Learning to Think Like a Hypnotherapist
This is a large part of what I teach my students.
I don't want them dependent on me for the right script.
I want them to be able to sit across from a person they have never met before, listen to that person's story, ask good questions, notice the clues, and begin making sense of what they are hearing.
I want them asking:
Why does this make sense?
That's one of my favorite questions when I'm working with a client.
Instead of looking at a behavior and immediately trying to make it disappear, I want to understand why the subconscious might have decided it was useful in the first place.
Once I understand that, I can create a session that actually speaks to the issue.
And sometimes the answer is nothing like what the original symptom would have led you to expect.
A woman forgetting how to turn on her computer wasn't really having a computer problem.
Her subconscious had connected finishing her dissertation with potentially losing her marriage.
If I hadn't uncovered that, I could have written the most beautiful hypnosis script in the world for memory, motivation, focus, and completing a dissertation.
I still would have been talking about the wrong thing.
That is the difference between having a script and knowing what to say.
And for me, that is where the real work of hypnotherapy begins.
Want to Learn How I Approach Hypnotherapy?
If you're curious about how I work with the subconscious and want to experience some of my teaching before deciding whether my training is right for you, you can explore the first two units of my hypnotherapy training free.
You'll get an introduction to Whole Brain Hypnotherapy and a better understanding of how I teach students to think about the person behind the symptom.
If you're dealing with a pattern of your own and would like to talk with me about how I work with clients, you can also book a free consultation here:
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