Mindfulness for Hypnotherapists: What Mindfulness Changed About My Practice

Learning about mindfulness was a significant turning point in the way I practised hypnotherapy. I had already been working as a hypnotherapist for years, but mindfulness introduced me to ideas that began to shift the way I thought about therapeutic change. In particular, it made me think much more deeply about acceptance, our relationship with difficult thoughts and emotions, and the difference between changing an experience and changing how we respond to it.

Michael Yapko's work was particularly influential in shaping my thinking. His exploration of mindfulness and hypnosis helped me see more clearly how ideas from mindfulness could inform the way I was already working with clients. It was also an important reminder that hypnotherapy doesn't exist in a vacuum. We have a great deal to learn from developments in psychology and other therapeutic approaches, and bringing that understanding into our work can make us more thoughtful and flexible practitioners.

For me, the biggest influence of mindfulness wasn't learning a new set of techniques. It was a shift in perspective. Thoughts could be recognised as thoughts, feelings as feelings and emotions as emotions, without automatically needing to change them, suppress them or treat them as evidence that something was wrong. That change in perspective went on to have a significant influence on the way I used hypnosis.

Mindfulness for Hypnotherapists: More Than a Technique

There is still a great deal of confusion around mindfulness. It is sometimes used almost interchangeably with meditation and relaxation, and at other times reduced to the idea of simply being in the present moment. While meditation can certainly be used to develop mindfulness, and mindfulness can sometimes feel relaxing, neither of these descriptions really captures what I found most important about it therapeutically.

At the heart of mindfulness is a different way of relating to experience. We can become aware of thoughts, feelings, emotions and bodily sensations without immediately judging them or trying to make them different. We can recognise that having a thought doesn't make that thought true, and that experiencing an emotion doesn't necessarily tell us what we need to do next.

That distinction is particularly important when working therapeutically. Someone may experience anxiety and then become distressed because they believe they shouldn't be anxious. An intrusive thought may appear and become increasingly important because the person feels they need to understand why they had it or make absolutely certain that it doesn't mean anything. A difficult feeling can become much harder to tolerate when it is accompanied by a belief that it needs to disappear.

Mindfulness gives us another way of approaching these experiences. Rather than immediately trying to remove them, we can begin by recognising them for what they are.

Thoughts Are Thoughts and Feelings Are Feelings

One of the ideas from mindfulness that had the greatest impact on my practice was also one of the simplest. Thoughts are thoughts. Feelings are feelings. Emotions are emotions. They are experiences we're having, but they aren't necessarily facts about ourselves or accurate predictions about what is going to happen.

A client can have the thought that they're going to fail without failure being inevitable. They can feel frightened without necessarily being in danger. They can experience uncertainty without having to resolve it immediately. They can feel sad without interpreting that sadness as evidence that they're going backwards or failing to cope.

This may seem like a subtle distinction, but it can have considerable therapeutic implications. If every difficult thought needs to be challenged or replaced and every uncomfortable feeling needs to be removed, we can inadvertently reinforce the idea that these internal experiences are themselves the problem.

Mindfulness helped me become more interested in the relationship clients had with their thoughts and feelings, rather than focusing solely on the content of those thoughts and feelings. That perspective fitted very naturally with hypnosis and gradually changed some of the ways I worked.

Acceptance Can Be Part of Change

Acceptance is another aspect of mindfulness that is often misunderstood. In everyday language, accepting something can sound like giving in, approving of it or deciding that nothing can be done. Within mindfulness, acceptance has a very different meaning. It is about acknowledging what is present without adding an unnecessary struggle against the fact that it is there.

For someone who experiences anxiety, this might mean recognising the physical and emotional experience of anxiety without immediately becoming frightened that it is happening again. For someone experiencing an intrusive thought, it might involve noticing that the thought has appeared without entering into a lengthy process of analysing, checking or trying to force it away.

This doesn't mean that we no longer work towards change. Instead, it gives us another possible route towards it. Sometimes reducing the struggle around an experience allows that experience to become less dominant in its own right.

This became particularly influential in my hypnotherapy practice. Hypnosis is often presented as a way of making something different: becoming calmer, more confident, less afraid or more in control. Those can all be useful therapeutic goals, but mindfulness helped me recognise that there are also times when the most useful change involves helping someone become less frightened of what they're already experiencing.

Mindfulness and Self-Compassion

Mindfulness also brought self-compassion much more strongly into the way I thought about therapy. Many clients aren't simply experiencing anxiety, sadness, fear or uncertainty. They have also developed a highly critical response to themselves for experiencing those things.

They tell themselves they should be coping better, should be further ahead, shouldn't still be anxious or shouldn't be affected by something that happened years ago. Over time, that self-criticism can become part of the difficulty itself.

A more mindful and compassionate stance doesn't mean telling ourselves that everything is fine or avoiding responsibility for things we genuinely want to change. It means recognising our experience without immediately turning it into a judgement about ourselves.

Within hypnosis, this can open up a very different type of therapeutic experience. Instead of approaching a response as something defective that needs to be removed, we can help the client understand that it may have developed for understandable reasons. From there, we can work towards change without reinforcing shame or self-criticism along the way.

What Mindfulness Changed in My Hypnotherapy Practice

The influence of mindfulness on my work was therefore much wider than introducing mindfulness exercises into sessions. It changed some of the thinking behind the way I used hypnosis.

I became more comfortable allowing clients to notice an experience before attempting to change it. I became more interested in helping people observe thoughts without automatically becoming involved in them and in helping them recognise that uncomfortable emotions can be experienced without necessarily needing an immediate response.

It also changed the way I thought about successful therapy. If someone still occasionally experiences anxiety but no longer organises their life around avoiding it, that represents meaningful change. If an intrusive thought still appears but no longer leads to prolonged checking or reassurance seeking, the relationship with that thought has changed. If someone can experience uncertainty without feeling compelled to resolve it immediately, that can create considerable freedom.

Hypnosis provides an opportunity to explore these ideas experientially. We can help clients notice sensations without immediately interpreting them, allow thoughts to pass through awareness without following them and experience emotions without automatically trying to make them disappear. Mindfulness added another dimension to what I understood hypnosis could be used for.

What Michael Yapko's Work Added

Michael Yapko's work was particularly useful because he brought mindfulness and hypnosis into the same conversation. In Mindfulness and Hypnosis: The Power of Suggestion to Transform Experience, he explores areas of overlap between the two approaches, including focused attention, suggestion and experiential learning.

His work also draws attention to an important distinction between acceptance and change. Therapy doesn't always have to sit firmly on one side or the other. There are experiences we may actively want to help clients change, while there are others where learning to relate differently to what is already present may be more useful.

For hypnotherapists, this opens up a much broader way of thinking about our work. Hypnosis doesn't only have to be about replacing an unwanted internal experience with a preferred one. It can also help clients develop flexibility in the way they respond to their own internal world.

Hypnotherapy Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum

The influence mindfulness had on my practice also reinforced a wider belief I've developed over the years: hypnotherapy doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Our clients don't arrive with "hypnotherapy problems". They arrive with anxiety, chronic pain, intrusive thoughts, habits, grief, trauma, difficult relationships, physical symptoms and complicated emotional histories. There is a considerable body of knowledge across psychology and psychotherapy that can help us understand these experiences more fully.

Learning from other approaches doesn't mean continually adding unrelated techniques to a hypnotherapy session. Good integration goes much deeper than that. Learning about CBT, for example, can influence the way we understand relationships between thoughts, behaviours, emotions and physical responses. Learning about mindfulness can influence how we understand acceptance, attention, self-compassion and the relationship someone has with their internal experiences.

When we understand the principles behind an approach, they can influence our formulation of a client's difficulties and the choices we make about how to work with them. We can then use hypnosis in a more informed and flexible way rather than simply accumulating more techniques.

Why Mindfulness for Hypnotherapists Is Worth Exploring

For me, the value of mindfulness for hypnotherapists lies primarily in this change of perspective. It encourages us to consider whether everything uncomfortable needs to be removed, whether every difficult thought needs to be challenged and whether the absence of an emotion should always be our measure of therapeutic success.

It also brings acceptance and self-compassion more clearly into our work. These ideas can be particularly valuable when clients have spent years battling with their own thoughts, emotions or physical sensations. Sometimes the constant effort to control an internal experience has itself become part of what maintains the problem.

This doesn't diminish the role of change-focused hypnotherapy. It gives us more options. There are times when helping someone actively change a response is entirely appropriate, and there are times when helping them develop a different relationship with that response may be equally important. Understanding both gives us greater flexibility as practitioners.

Mindfulness for Hypnotherapists: Questions and Answers

What is mindfulness in therapy?

Mindfulness involves bringing awareness to present experience while developing a less judgemental relationship with thoughts, emotions and sensations. Therapeutically, its value isn't simply in helping someone "stay in the moment". It can help people recognise thoughts as thoughts, experience emotions without immediately reacting to them and reduce some of the struggle that develops around difficult internal experiences.

Is mindfulness the same as relaxation?

No. Mindfulness can sometimes feel relaxing, but relaxation isn't its main purpose. A mindfulness practice may involve becoming aware of something uncomfortable rather than moving away from it. The emphasis is on awareness and our relationship with what we're experiencing rather than necessarily producing a calm state.

What is the relationship between mindfulness and hypnosis?

Mindfulness and hypnosis are distinct approaches, but they have areas of overlap. Both can involve focused attention and experiential processes, and suggestion can play an important role in guided experiences. Michael Yapko has written extensively about the relationship between mindfulness and hypnosis and how an understanding of one can inform the other.

How can mindfulness help hypnotherapists?

Mindfulness for hypnotherapists can provide another way of thinking about therapeutic change. It can help practitioners work with acceptance, self-compassion and the way clients relate to thoughts and emotions, rather than focusing exclusively on changing the content of those experiences. These principles can then inform how hypnosis is used with individual clients.

Can mindfulness be incorporated into hypnosis?

Yes. Mindfulness principles can sit very naturally within hypnosis. We might help a client observe thoughts without automatically following them, notice sensations without immediately judging them or allow an emotion to be present without treating it as something that has to disappear. This can be incorporated into hypnotic work without simply turning the session into a mindfulness meditation.

Do hypnotherapists need specialist mindfulness training?

Hypnotherapists don't need to become mindfulness teachers in order to draw on some of its principles. However, there is a significant difference between understanding mindfulness and simply picking up a few mindfulness exercises. Training can help practitioners understand the ideas underpinning the approach, consider when it is appropriate and learn how it can be integrated meaningfully with existing hypnotherapy practice.

Mindfulness-Hypnotherapy Training at the Academy of the Inner Mind

My Diploma in Mindfulness-Hypnotherapy Training, which includes a choice of live workshop or self-paced, online courses is designed for hypnotherapists who want to explore this integration in greater depth.

The emphasis isn't simply on giving practitioners a collection of mindfulness exercises to add to their existing sessions. We look at what mindfulness actually means, the therapeutic thinking behind it and how principles including awareness, acceptance and self-compassion can inform hypnotherapy practice. We then explore how mindfulness and hypnosis can be brought together in a way that makes sense for the individual client.

Learning about mindfulness had a significant impact on the way I practised hypnotherapy because it broadened my understanding of what therapeutic change can involve. Sometimes we're helping clients change an experience. At other times, we're helping them change their relationship with an experience that may still occasionally be present.

For me, understanding that distinction has made hypnotherapy a more flexible, compassionate and realistic therapeutic approach.

References

Davis, D. M., & Hayes, J. A. (2011). What are the benefits of mindfulness? A practice review of psychotherapy-related research. Psychotherapy, 48(2), 198–208.

Yapko, M. D. (2011). Mindfulness and Hypnosis: The Power of Suggestion to Transform Experience. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.