Is hypnosis NLP? IS NLP HYPNOSIS?

What is the difference?

The short answer is: hypnosis is not a form of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. And NLP can absolutely be used without hypnosis.

NLP is a therapeutic model, a set of techniques and processes that involve communication, problem-solving, and self-development, based on the proven techniques of famous psychiatrists and therapists.
Hypnosis is a form of focused attention that can be used to achieve a desired outcome. It is a natural state, not a therapeutic model and it is by itself not therapeutic in nature, as you can see in stage hypnosis. 
While both techniques can be used for self-improvement, they are thus distinct.

So, now that you know this, you can simply leave this page or… maybe you want to hear some fascinating backstory and the dark side of both techniques… in that case, do read on for the long answer!

Let start with the oldest technique, hypnosis. It has been practised for as long as we know, sometimes with enhancers in the form of consciousness expanding drugs, sometimes through ritual trances, like in the sleep temples of the ancient Middle East and Greek civilisations. The Greek word hypnos means sleep. Still today, there are religions that encourage an altered state of mind to enhance healing by laying on hands, swirling, dancing, drumming or speaking in tongues. But hypnosis is a survival skill older than humanity. 

hypnosis as a Survival skill

If you have pets, you may have seen them go into a trance. A cat that is zoomed in on a prey will not react to you. A dog that caught an interesting scent will go into slow motion mode and hates to be pulled out of their focused state. An even deeper form of this is a prey animal that will go into a collapse state when it is caught, it feels no pain, and almost stops breathing in preparation for death, as any good nature film will show you. Maybe you once rescued a mouse or bird from your cat, wondering if it was death, only to find it disappeared a couple of minutes later. These states of focused attention are survival skills, either to hunt and eat, or to increase chance of survival or decrease suffering in case survival is not in the cards. 

We also have these same skills. When it feels positive, we call it flow, highly focused attention. Or absorption, when we are zoned out in the cinema watching a great movie. It can be a neutral trance, like when we drive a familiar route, to work or back home, and we arrive at our destination without a memory of having made the trip (“highway hypnosis”).
It can also be a survival skill in life-threatening situations, when time slows down and minute details are recorded during a traumatic event. At its worst, it results in a collapse response, which happens to victims who cannot fight or flee out of their situation, for instance to kids or women who are too small to fight their abuser.
In all cases, our rational, critical thinking is less active, our emotional and brain stem functions are more active.  

In human unrecorded history, dancing, drumming and singing trances have been used by tribes, and induced trances by shamans, healers, medicine men and women through the ages.
In human recorded history, a deep state of hypnosis was used to operate on people in the age before anaesthetics. 
This deep state of bliss, in which the brain’s pain centres are shut down, is called the Esdaile state after Dr James Esdaile. Famously, he removed a 80 pound testicular tumour (elephantiasis) without anaesthesia. Today, it is used for people who are allergic to or too weak for anaesthesia but also for hypno-birthing or dental or other smaller procedures without local anaesthesia. We can also use it to process mental injury, traumatic events, deep grief. 

So, a state of trance or hypnosis can be wonderful, enjoyable, healing and helpful, but it can also happen in darker situations, when the person dissociates from their situation and their body. An hypnotic state can be actively encouraged for mental and physical healing and to install positive feelings, but can also be encouraged with darker motives.

Sects will always use emotionally-charged hypnotic language and states to brainwash followers into submission. Or somewhat less evil: marketing and advertising folks are appealing to your emotions, thus by-passing your rational and critical faculties to sell you products.

what is NLP vs hypnosis?

NLP is based on research and study of the famous therapists of 1960’s and 1970’s: Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Gregory Bateson, Fritz Perls. If you go back to their books and papers, you will find all the ingredients of NLP there. The language patterns, the systemic approach, reframing, states of mind.

NLP, Satir’s family therapy, Perls’ Gestalttherapy are therapeutic models. So unlike the natural, inherent skill of hypnosis we all possess, these are applied processes, or learned techniques. Because the NLP founders, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, studied Milton Erickson’s methods, whose go-to method was conversational hypnosis, a big chunk of NLP concerns itself with hypnotic language patterns and encourages an hypnotic state for better results with the NLP techniques. 

Famously, Bandler and Grinder would have the following discussion during their trainings: “Everything is hypnosis!” “No, there really is no such thing as hypnosis!” This discussion is as alive today as it was back then. Because, is there such a thing as hypnosis when it is a natural state happening all the time? Isn’t every emotion a trance-like state?

The merit of NLP lies in the fact that it translated the life-long experience and skills of famous therapists into neatly laid-out and learnable processes, allowing us to become students of these masters. Of course, I still recommend you to read the masters themselves on top of getting your NLP certification, if you are interested in becoming a therapist. 

The downside of NLP lies in the fact that the patterns, similarly to the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, explain in perfect detail how to influence others for your own benefit. The yes-set to achieve compliance, how to covertly use hypnotic language in conversations, Bateson’s double bind technique. They can all be used for sales, in marketing and advertisement, and unfortunately also by pick-up “artists” and other people with bad intentions. 

 

To know how you can use these states and techniques for your benefit, and how to ensure they aren’t use on you to your detriment, it’s important to understand them. In a following blog post, I will tell you more about this. Stay tuned!