Have you heard the word “hypnotherapy” casually come up here and there? It’s beginning to become more widely known and accepted as a form of healing. You may have preconceptions of hypnotherapy that involve swinging pocket watches and theatrical stage performances — but the reality of hypnotherapy as a therapy tool in today’s world is far more grounded in science, ancient wisdom, and the remarkable capacity of your own mind. As a licensed therapist, hypnotherapy is one of the tools I offer in my practice, and I’m excited to pull back the curtain on what it actually is. Let’s start with the foundation: how the mind works, what hypnotherapy is rooted in, and where it comes from.
Understanding the Mind: The Iceberg Model
To understand hypnotherapy, it helps to first understand how the mind works. Think of the mind as an iceberg. The conscious mind — the part you’re actively aware of — makes up only about 10% of what’s above the surface. The remaining 90%, hidden beneath the waterline, is the subconscious mind.
The subconscious is essentially a vast storehouse of every experience you’ve ever had: every joy, every heartbreak, every habit formed, every fear encountered. It records feelings, sounds, emotions, trauma, and life experiences. It’s listening 24/7, has been absorbing information since the moment you were born —It works by association, holds long-term memory, and — perhaps most importantly — it protects you at all costs.
The conscious mind, by contrast, acts as a kind of gatekeeper. It evaluates incoming information and decides what to believe and what to pass along to the subconscious. But here’s where things get interesting: if the subconscious already holds a deeply stored belief, the conscious mind can struggle to override it — even when logic says otherwise.
A Simple Example: Chocolate and Comfort
Imagine you went through a difficult breakup and found comfort in chocolate. Your subconscious mind logged that experience: chocolate = emotional relief. Years later, you consciously decide chocolate isn’t healthy and try to quit. Your conscious mind says, “This is bad for me.” But your subconscious pushes back with a deeply stored counter-message: this keeps me safe when I’m hurting.
The two minds are in conflict — and the subconscious almost always wins, because it’s operating from a place of protection, not logic. As Dr. Joseph Murphy explores in The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, whenever there is a conflict between conscious effort and subconscious programming, the subconscious programming wins every time. In this example, the subconscious flashes back to the deeply embedded emotional memory of the breakup — remembering how chocolate provided comfort, a dopamine hit, and a sense of survival. That emotional memory is powerful, and it holds its ground.
If we can gently locate and remove that stored association — the block that says you needed chocolate to get through that heartbreak — and rearrange the beliefs and values connected to it, the conscious mind can finally believe the new narrative, pass it along to the subconscious, and lasting change becomes possible.
What Is Hypnotherapy? The Science of Brain Waves
Hypnotherapy isn’t magic — it’s neuroscience. The brain naturally operates at different frequencies, known as brainwave states:
- Gamma waves — heightened focus and cognitive function
- Beta waves — alert, active thinking
- Alpha waves — relaxed, meditative, calm awareness
- Theta waves — drowsy, dreamlike, the edge of sleep
- Delta waves — deep, dreamless sleep
You actually pass through alpha and theta states naturally every day — most noticeably when you’re drifting off to sleep or gently waking in the morning, that in-between space where you’re aware but not quite fully awake. Dreams and images float through. Your mind feels open and unguarded.
Hypnotherapy deliberately guides you into this space. I call it the healing state — sometimes referred to in more popular terms as a trance or hypnosis. In this state, the conscious gatekeeper relaxes, the subconscious becomes open and receptive, and healing can begin.
How Hypnotherapy Differs from Meditation
A common question I hear is: Isn’t this just meditation?
Meditation is the practice of clearing the mind — quieting the noise and resting in stillness. It’s deeply valuable. But hypnotherapy takes the next step. We enter that same state of mental clarity and deep relaxation — and then we engage with a specific intention. We establish communication with the subconscious and your internal wisdom, identify what’s blocking you, and actively work to remove it.
Meditation clears the field. Hypnotherapy plants new seeds.
Hypnotherapy Through History
The practice of inducing altered states for healing is ancient. References to trance and hypnotic states appear in writings from Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, China, and India. The earliest known recorded use comes from the Sleep Temples of Imhotep in ancient Egypt — over 4,000 years ago — where rhythmic chanting, herbal medicines, prayer, and guided suggestion were used to transport people into altered states of consciousness and facilitate healing with the help of their spiritual deity.
Modern scientific hypnotherapy is only two to three centuries old, largely defined by attempts to understand how and why these methods worked. One of the most influential figures in its modern history is German-Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer, whose name gives us the word mesmerize. Mesmer was influenced by both Isaac Newton and Paracelsus — Newton’s theories on gravity and invisible forces, and Paracelsus’s belief that magnets and the heavenly bodies produce a fluid that interacts with the human body — which together shaped his concept of “animal magnetism.”
In 1958, the American Medical Association recognized hypnotherapy as a valid medical treatment — a landmark moment in its journey toward mainstream legitimacy. While the AMA no longer holds an official position on hypnosis today, the decades of research that followed have continued to affirm its effectiveness. Both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association have since endorsed it as a legitimate therapeutic tool.
Curious about what hypnotherapy actually looks like in practice — and whether it might be right for you? Stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll walk you through what to expect in a session, what the healing state feels like from the inside, and the wide range of challenges hypnotherapy can help address.
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or a therapeutic diagnosis. If you are experiencing an emergency or crisis, please dial 911 or have an adult safely transfer you to your local emergency center.
