Like most ‘best’ questions, the true answer is the one that best suits you for what you want to do.

Yes, I know there are all the internet and magazine articles about the Absolute Best; Car, pizza, app, haircut, but that’s just click bait and marketing.

Also, of course, the question is badly phrased: the only real thing that affects us is: which one is best for ME.

And just like pizza, haircuts, and cars, hypnosis has a wide variety, because hypnotists, like the rest of us, like to shape their methods to work best for them.

So there are a variety of forms of hypnosis out there, something for everyone. But more importantly, there are many ways that reach people in different ways. We all absorb information and give trust in different ways.

If as a client you are asking what is the best form of hypnosis for me, then it is the one used by the hypnotist with whom you have the best relationship.

If you are a budding hypnotist wondering what form of hypnosis should I learn. I would say look at the two main ways, the Ericksonian/NLP styles of stories and metaphors and the Elman/Jerry Kein regression to cause forms of hypnosis. Do some research on the videos and resumes on the Internet and see which ones appeal to you the most.

And go to Hypnosis Conventions. If you’re in the US or Canada, the two big conventions are NGH (National Guild of Hypnotists) on the East Coast and HypnoThoughts Live on the West Coast. Both in August of each year, but always on different weekends. Go and absorb as much as you can and then follow your feelings from there.

Then take a good certification course in the style that appeals to you and expand your knowledge as you practice.

Perhaps for your guidance, we can divide it into two main streams of hypnosis. A form that consists of quick inductions and relatively short sessions and usually only one or two are needed for a given situation. This comes from Dave Elman. A hypnotist in the 1950s who taught the medical profession how to treat everything from warts to stuttering and, of course, pain control, with hypnosis. He only taught in the medical community, which is where he believed hypnosis was most useful. He taught doctors how to get a patient into deep enough hypnosis to do the job in a maximum of 4 minutes.

Thought to Give Background Dave Elman came from vaudeville and radio, even writing a few songs with the great WC Handy.

The other form of modern conventional hypnosis comes from Dr. Milton Erickson, the other giant of modern hypnosis, a psychiatrist and psychologist who had a deeply intuitive mind when dealing with his clients. He believed that the story we tell ourselves is the story we live. Therefore, we can effect change by changing the story we tell ourselves. Of course, stories are deeply ingrained in our psyches, and it’s Erickson’s genius and methods that made it all seem so simple.

He also believed that Mind loves to show us things in metaphors. So things that may be beyond our conscious awareness to comprehend are revealed in stories and analogies.

Erickson also believed that the unconscious mind was always listening and that, whether the patient was in a trance or not, suggestions could be made that would have a hypnotic influence, as long as those suggestions found resonance on the unconscious level.

So, we can say that, broadly speaking, Erickson and Elman (note also perhaps Ormond McGill and Gill Boyne, both pioneers who followed Dave Elman’s path) are the two main branches of modern hypnosis.

Apart from these two main forms of hypnosis, there is a more basic form, in which only light hypnosis is administered and then direct suggestion is offered. This is typically the form used with No Smoking or Weight Loss and simple Self Hypnosis tapes and scripts. It is also the form of hypnosis that is typically ‘shown’ to doctors in medical school, giving them no real idea of ​​what hypnosis is capable of.

From Erickson has also come what is called NLP, a method that Tony Robbins once embraced and later abandoned. NLP is also the basis of many sales courses.

However, Ericksonian hypnosis as a form is much broader and more inclusive than NLP tends to be. But both use the concept of language usage and behavior modeling.

Dave Elman’s concepts of rapid induction and regression hypnosis were spread at the same time by Gil Boyne and Orman McGill, and then in the 1970s and 1980s taken up by Jerry Kein, who when he was 13 years old begged Dave Elman to teach him hypnosis. The core of Elman’s style of hypnosis is what is called regression, or regression to the cause. That is, bringing the mind back to the ‘seed’ of the stress, anxiety or phobia, and then allowing the adult in the flesh to examine the original cause and understand or rewrite it as if it were no longer a threat. no longer able to have energy

Jerry Kein also used what is called chair therapy and universal therapy: the core of both was allowing the client to give and accept forgiveness. A fundamental teaching of almost every human religion or spiritual discipline. To forgive is not to forgive. It’s never about the offender, it’s about you, the forgiver. It’s getting that offender out of your bag and moving on. Forgiveness in hypnosis is about releasing the client. The other party has nothing to do with it.

Hypnotists love to learn and are always learning from each other. The hypnotists considered great hypnotists are not great just because of their inherent talent or ability, nor because they care more deeply than anyone else. They are those things and also that they have absorbed the learning and skills of the long line of Master Mesmers and Masters that have come before.

We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before.