Overview

The plan is to follow each of the following steps in order, going over some overall negotiation and risks, explaining the structure of a hypnosis session, and then going through each stage.

You may do several sessions within each stage, but you should not progress to the next stage until you are familiar and comfortable with the previous stages.

  1. Beginner Stage is a progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). This is intended to run through the structure and get familiar with hypnosis in general.

  2. Journeyman Stage uses the Elman Induction. This is a workhorse session that focuses on deepeners and suggestions.

  3. Adept Stage uses a fractionation induction. This starts to play with session structure and introduces the concept of triggers.

  4. Expert Stage uses a reinduction trigger and extemporaneous patter. The session structure is loose, and uses more advanced suggestions.

The stages are named after D&D levels, so don’t go around calling yourself an expert hypnotist because you’ve gone through the guide. This is enough to get you off the ground and exploring in new directions.