It is important to realize that agreement tactics are very useful in conversational hypnosis, this is mainly because they bypass the critical factor and get the person to start to see things your way.

If the critical factor is not bypassed or put to sleep then the resistance of your subject will be in place and your suggestions will not make it through. Once you use the agreement tactics to get past the critical factor it will open the doors of suggestion. You will be able to present information, ideas, thoughts and suggestions to your subject that will seem completely plausible to them in their altered state of mind.

The first of the 4 Agreement Tactics is Plausibility, which is stated as when a person is in the habit of agreeing with you then the next statement doesn’t have to be one they would find as true as your last statements. Plausibility works on a sliding scale depending on the depth of trance a person is experiencing.

The second Agreement Tactic is the Agreement Habit. The Agreement Habit is based on ‘going first’. This is to immerse yourself in an idea before you invite your subject in so the experience is real for them. This is important for the Agreement Habit as it is to get someone in the habit of agreeing with you. You cannot do this fully if they do not believe you agree with the thoughts you are presenting to them yourself.

The third and fourth Agreement Tactics are brought to us by a master hypnotist Milton Erickson as he used these often in his hypnosis. The ‘Yes Set’ and Piggy Backing of Suggestion were among Erickson’s favored techniques.

The third of the Agreement Tactics, which is the ‘Yes Set’, is very useful in getting agreement from your subject’s. In a ‘Yes Set’ you will begin with statements that are true so you are activating the part of the brain that enjoys agreeing. Once you have gotten a person to start to agree with you it is likely that they will continue.

The ‘Yes Set’ can be demonstrated in three different ways. The first way to use a ‘yes set’ is to repeat what the person is saying to you. This is exactly as it sounds, use what the person has said to you by repeating it back to them so they agree that that is what they said or meant. This is accomplishing the goal of the ‘yes set’ by activating the agreement part of the brain.

The second way to put a ‘Yes Set’ into action is to state the obvious facts. Use in your conversation statements that are verifiable facts. If there is no question that what you are saying is a fact then you will again activate the yes neurology in the subject’s brain causing agreement.

The third and final way to produce a ‘Yes Set’ is to make truisms. Truisms are sayings that a culture has conditioned its inhabitants to believe as unmistakably true. The statements are a way that people view the world or a part of the world. These statements will largely be found true by almost all people you speak to.

The three different types of ‘Yes Sets’ are used very often in conversational hypnosis. This is partly because they are ideas that you can work into a conversation, they cause agreement and they can be manipulated to fit almost any context you may be working with your subject in.

The fourth Agreement Tactic is the Piggy Back Principal. This is the idea of attaching suggestions to other statements or ideas that are already going out to your listener. This is a very popular and successful way to get suggestions into the minds of your subjects.

This is done by first getting your listener into agreement with you, this can be done through compliments, yes sets, following along with their thoughts and repeating back. You goal here is to create an environment they are willing to accept, and then you add a suggestion to it. Compliment them on the great job they have been doing and then add how they can improve on it.

This works because as humans we are always willing to accept praise and agreement. And the fact is if you are accepting one part of the statement you must be accepting the whole statement on some unconscious level. Now that they have unknowingly accepted your suggestion they will at some point bring it into their behaviors, thoughts or actions.

The best part about this agreement tactic is the more you do it the stronger and more powerful your suggestion becomes. You can piggy back as many facts and suggestions as you want as long as you keep the meanings clear so as not to confuse your subject.

You can also piggy back suggestions onto yes sets. This is done simply by stating a single or series of verifiable facts and then adding a suggestion on to the end of the last statement. An example of this would be, “When you get out of the car, lock the doors.” This works because you will inevitably get out of the car at some point and because the mind accepts this as true you will be more likely to now lock the doors as well.

The third way you can piggy back suggestions is to present feedback to your subject that will have them accept it, this should be done in a smooth and elegant manner of speaking. This utilizes positive reinforcement by first creating a yes set, then adding a compliment and then attaching a suggestion to the end.

This way of piggy backing is successful because we all enjoy and accept compliments. Compliments in this sample are somewhat of a sugar coating for the suggestion; you cannot accept the compliment without also accepting the suggestion. Compliments also tend to extract positive behaviors from us and make us more agreeable and accepting anyway.

The Agreement Tactics of the Yes Set and Piggy Backing Suggestions are very important and useful in conversational hypnosis. They were among the top choices of the master hypnotist Milton Erickson. He brought us the perfected art of these two Agreement Tactics and used them often in his hypnosis practice as you should consider doing in yours.

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Agreement tactics are a great tool in conversational hypnosis. Not only are they a way for you to keep the conversation going, they get your subject into the habit of agreeing with what you are saying.

Without agreement the person you are making suggestions to will not bring them in as true ideas that they can use to change their lives. There must be something in the words you suggest that they find agreement with on some level in order to put them into action.

Agreement tactics will help you to really get into your subjects head. One of the first things an agreement tactic will assist you with is to distinguish the alertness of a person’s critical factor.

If the critical factor is in full swing they will still be able to criticize and analyze the information you are giving to them. Not only does the critical factor turn on the analysis of ideas it also starts to conform them to the ways in which that person views the world. They will see your suggestions only as they feel the world should work and not for the simplicity they need to make changes.

If they are doing this it may be difficult for them to find agreement in your suggestions and therefore they will not take them. The bottom line on critical factor is that if it is awake and functioning it will prevent change in your subject, which is the opposite of your goals as a hypnotist.

The answer to this is to have the ability to bypass the critical factor with your words, put that part of the mind to sleep. Once you have accomplished this you will be able to present information to the person and make everything seem acceptable on the basis of it can be. Everything needs to be taken in as plausible and possible so your suggestions will stick.

Agreement is the art of putting the critical factor to sleep. This will make it easier to bring in new ideas and create new realities where change can occur. There are four agreement tactics that will help you to lull the critical factor to sleep and we will do a short introduction of them here, these will be discussed more in depth in another article.

The first agreement tactic we will discuss is Plausibility. Once people are in the habit of agreeing with you it is much easier to get them to agree to ideas that they may not have completely agreed with if you were to just start with and state that idea.

This has happened to most people when trying to convince someone to see something our way. Take a moment to remember conversations you have had in the past, maybe you were in deep conversation with a friend on a point you view differently or debating a topic with a work colleague.

When you do this you would first lay out the ideas of the topic that you know they agree with, and then you would slowly work into the parts that they may or may not agree with and finally hit them with the big point that you are debating.

Now you may or may not have been successful in getting the agreement from them. If you were not this segment will help you with that ability.

In plausibility the easiest way to get a person to agree with you is if they are already in the flow of agreeing with the things you are saying. Once you have made several statements they can agree with your next statement can be one that they would find as true as your first statements. If it is a plausible idea they will tend to agree or just go along with it because you have turned off a part of their critical factor.

It is important to know that plausibility is based on a sliding scale; the more of an altered state of mind the person is in the less plausible your statements must be. The less entranced they are the more plausible your statements must be. It works to your advantage if you can get and hold a good altered state of mind.

If your subject is in a full state of trance then the plausibility of your statements can be zero and they will still be in a full state of agreement with your suggestions.

The second agreement tactic is the Agreement Habit. This tactic is largely based on the ‘go first’ concept. In going first you will start to create realities for your subjects to enter into and share with you.

This is vital as it is hard to get a person to believe a set of circumstances if you yourself do not believe them. You can act as if you believe them however your sub-communications will show people that you are not truly in agreement with your own ideas, or those you are trying to convey.

In this you need to take the lead and believe your thoughts and ideas first so as to pave the way for the people you are lending the suggestions and ideas to. Once you are in agreement with the suggestions or stories then your external behaviors will show this agreement.

The third agreement tactic is the ‘Yes Set’. This is a technique that is used simply to get your subjects in the habit of saying yes. Start with true simple statements that are verifiable facts, yet fit into the frame work of your conversation. This is important; after all you are using conversational hypnosis.

These ‘yes sets’ are created by stating the obvious, repeating what they have said and stating truisms. Truisms are ideas that are generally found true and created by the culture you live in.

The fourth and final agreement tactic is the ‘Piggy Back Principal’. Piggy backing is simply attaching a statement to an idea that is already going on or in. If your subject accepts an entire statement because the first part is true then they will on some level accept the rest of the statement that has made it in.

The trick in this tactic is to create contexts that your subject will want to accept. This is done by practicing the concepts we have been reviewing. You can create acceptable contexts by using compliments, yes sets, agreement habits and following the subject’s line of thinking.

At the end of each of these simply attach a suggestion. You are attaching a suggestion to something that is going to take place regardless. “The sun is out today and it will be a great day to start your diet.” The first part of the statement is a verifiable fact and the second part is going in simply because the first is true and correct.

Visit http://inducetrance.com/conversational-hypnosis/ now to learn how you can become a master conversational hypnotist!

The performance art of hypnosis is a constant skill you must practice to perfect.  The skills of what to do and how to do it will need to be perfected if you are to become a great hypnotist.  There are different performance principals of hypnosis you should be practicing to sharpen your skills. 

The first four performance principals we have talked about are worth perfecting.  Principals of going first, meaning you first immerse your self into the idea that you wish your subject to become a part of through your language. 

Squeezing the meaning from your words, in which you make the words you use sound and feel like the true nature of their meanings. 

Emphasis, which is learning when and what words to lean on in order to accentuate your point. 

And finally, the principal of rhythm and tone, in which you add a unique style to your conversation that will help your listener to get lost in your voice and language.  These are all ways to enhance your performance as a hypnotist so you are a part of what you are doing with a subject. 

These principals not only help lead your subject through a trance they will help you become the authority figure within their trance.  By becoming the authority figure you will be able to control your subjects trance and produce the outcome that is favorable for you and the subject.

Now that you are acquainted with the four principals of performance you will need to learn how to use tonality to enhance your hypnosis abilities even further.  One of the tonality concepts that will help here is to develop a trance voice.

Developing a trance voice is not a tool that will immediately switch your subject’s brain off and put them under a sort of instant spell.  What it will do is help you to develop a tonality to your voice that will educate the unconscious mind as to when to go into trance.

Music is a prime example of this.  When you hear certain songs or types of music it brings in a flood of memories, thoughts and ideas.  This happens because the music has set off a certain trigger in the head that recalls related experiences.  As your subjects work with you they will begin to unconsciously recognize your trance voice and eventually learn to enter an altered state of mind on its cue.

You will be learning to develop different types of trance voices that will signal to your subjects when they should or should not be in trance.  This dropping into trance when they hear a certain tonality in your voice will happen because their unconscious mind will suggest that it is time to come in to play.

Your hypnotic voice or trance voice should be of a tone that people will enjoy listening to.  It should be easy to portray your words smoothly and elegantly when you use this voice.  It is also important to remember to only use your trance voice when you want people to go into trance.  You should never use this voice if you are speaking with someone who needs to be concentrating on a specific task such as driving or operating heavy equipment.

As you develop your trance voice you will notice that emotional triggers will assist you in setting the stage for your hypnotic voice to the full extent.

Tonality is a large part of trance voice.  Your tone of voice can range between three types; upward inflection, straight and level and downward intonation.  When you are using any one of these three different types of tone your meanings will change and your message will change.

If you are using upward inflection your statements will take on the sound of a question.  Using a straight and level tone will make a simple statement.  And if you incorporate downward intonation, usually at the end of a sentence, you words will take on that of a command. 

The questioning tonality will help you in developing what we call a nonverbal ‘Yes Set’.  This is pretty straight forward; you are using tonality to ask a question that the person will inherently answer yes to, or nod in agreement. 

The yes set is a great way to check in on your subject to make sure they are following along with you.  You can also use it to list a series of items, ideas or thoughts.  The yes set will more likely than not force you’re subject to keep up with you as you speak.

Another way to use the questioning tonality is to use it as a tool to ‘Create Doubt’ in your subjects mind.  You can cast a shadow of doubt on many things and ideas simply by breaking one simple question down into several well emphasized questions.

You can also create doubt by repeating the statements of the people around you and adding emphasis to different areas of the repeated statement.  When you repeat with emphasis what someone has just said to you, you are accessing a powerful way in which you can cast doubt or suspicion without actually having to say that is what you are doing.

The hypnotic principal of ‘Imply Don’t Assert’ is another way to use the questioning tonality.  This is a powerful way of getting your point across again without actually having to state the exact words.  Implication is always more pointed than actually saying what you would imply. 

‘Keep Em Talking’ is a questioning tonality that uses nonverbal communication along with a question or statement to extract more information from a person.  If you make a statement or question and add raised eyebrows to your facial features you are nonverbally asking for them to add new information to what they have just said.  Because you are adding no new information in this, just repeating what they have said along with a nonverbal cue, they will automatically be inclined to add more information for you.

The next type of tonality that is useful is the command tonality.  The command tonality is used to cement everything into place; it gives you an instruction to make the thought or idea a permanent one.  It activates the side of the brain that wants to respond to you by fulfilling a request.

This tonality will not make everyone you command do everything you command them to.  It will however entice people to do things when you do the right steps.  In command tonality you will be most successful if you use downward intonation and use them with a question.  This will get the most bang for your buck.  Experiment with a question, any question, as you do so change the upward and downward intonations in your voice as you state the command.

You will see that ‘command tone down’ has a powerful implication where action is being asserted.  This is a great tool for conversational hypnosis and one you should practice.  When you start to master how to ‘command tone down’ you will see a reaction in people that many want to do what you are telling them to.

Questioning and command inflections will greatly improve the level of response you get from people.  They will tend to respond more powerfully to what you are asking if you learn how to use tonality and inflection to phrase your statements.

Visit http://inducetrance.com/conversational-hypnosis/ now to learn how you can become a master conversational hypnotist!

Hypnosis is a great and valuable performance art. It is important to not only know what you are doing but how to do it. As we look at tonality you should always remember that only 7% of the meaning derived from your words actually comes from the word itself. The other meanings, and vast majority, come from the tonality you use and the body language that accompanies your speaking.

It is also important to remember as we move on with this subject that you must always begin with the first two principals of performance being ‘go first’ and squeezing the meanings from your words. Both of these principals when paired with the next two principals of emphasis and rhythm and tone will be monumental in perfecting your performance as a hypnotist.

The third performance principal that you will need to know how to perform is the emphasis you put on different words and how that emphasis affects your language. Emphasis is when you lean on a word with your voice. You make that word stand out in your statement. This can be done in writing by underlining or italicizing words. When you do it with your speaking though it has a much more dramatic effect.

For example, take the simple statement “Did you drive the car to the store today?”. Here I have written it with a very even tone, there appears to be no emphasis made on any particular word. However, if I said “Did you drive the car to the store today? The meaning of the entire statement goes from a simple question to an inquiry about who drove the car to the store.

Let’s look at one more example of the same statement to really drive the point home here. “Did you drive the car to the store today?” here the meaning becomes more of a question or surprise that the car was driven to the store today. If you took each word of the same statement and put emphasis on them one at a time while reading it you will see that the meaning of the statement will change consistently to some degree.

In this we learn that your emphasis and how you say things to others will automatically show them what you find to be important information in the sentence. When you emphasize words you begin to open the process called ‘multiple levels of information’. This means simply that you can be saying one thing on one level and have a completely different meaning on another level. This is something that naturally happens when you speak and change your tonality.

While the emphasis you put on words often happens naturally it is also important to do this purposefully. When you are performing the art of hypnosis you can use emphasis to drive the meaning of each word you use into your listener. This use of emphasis will show the listener that there is a great deal of importance behind whatever it is you are saying.

A good example here is the difference between two different statements whose meanings are generally the same when we look at the words alone. But when we look at the way the words are said the statement becomes much more important.

“If you don’t listen to me you could get hurt.”
Or
“I need you to listen to what I am saying, it is important so you don’t get hurt.”
If you say both these statements you will hear the differences in the messages.

As you practice this principal you will begin to notice the effect it has on others depending on how you lean on the words. You will also likely notice an effect it has on yourself as well, both as you say things and as others make statements to you.

The fourth performance principal is about rhythm and tone. When you are putting someone into trance it helps to have a rhythm to your speaking, rhythms as we have learned help to take us away, relax us and let our minds drift. This principal is using tonality and rhythm together to create smoothness to your language, also called a ‘trance rhythm‘.

Trance rhythm has the same effect as when you listen to music, it creates an altered state of consciousness where the rhythm of the language pulls you into it.

Speaking in rhythm is much like emphasis as it changes the way you are perceived by those around you. The ways in which you change the rhythms of your speech will let your subjects know when they should and should not be in trance. There are many examples of this in poetry and music. A very good example of how rhythm can unconsciously pull you in is in the film, Cyrano de Bergerac.

In this film the manner of speech was written on poetic couplets. It is not so much poetry that you would hear it and notice rhyming and beat, however the rhythm of the couplets draws your ear to hear the elegance behind the language. It is very subtle yet very powerful.

It is important to improve your performance as a hypnotist by practicing rhythm and tone. Play with the language you use and building different rhythms into your speech. You can play with rhythms and tones that signify all sorts of feelings; excitement, sorrow, quiet, fast. Remember that your body must be in tune to the rhythms you are using. When your body and mind have the rhythm your language will be expressed with much more ease and clarity.

Visit http://inducetrance.com/conversational-hypnosis/ now to learn how you can become a master conversational hypnotist!

Improving in the art of hypnosis is always going to be a great idea. When you are working in the area of hypnosis it is not only important to know what you are doing but perfecting the ways or the HOW you do it is vital. Know how and what to do will create an unbreakable base for you as a hypnotist.

Hypnosis is a performance art so learning the performance part of hypnosis is a given. Part of performance in learning hypnosis is to understand the elements of hypnotic language. One of those elements is tonality. Tonality is the key to unlocking a great deal of information in hypnosis.

It is vital that you spend time learning what words to say but equally important to know how to say those words in order to get your point across. A helpful study by Mr. Birdwhistell is the study of how the actual meanings of words were broken down between words, tonality and body language. The conclusion of the study was surprising for many.

The study showed that choice of words is very important but the words themselves really only accounted for 7% of the meaning in the word. However the way you say the word, or the tonality you use, was responsible for 38% of the words meaning. And astonishing 55% of the meaning derived from statements and words comes from the body language you use, your nonverbal communications.

This study tells us that if you focus only on the choice of words you use you will more than likely be a poor hypnotist. However if you focus on the words and the performance of those words you will capture more of the elements to becoming a great hypnotist.

In order to study the performance area of hypnotism you must first understand that hypnosis is something you do with a person. You must learn how to convey the presentation of your statements and this is where we start.

The use of differing tonality in the language you use as a hypnotist will change the meanings of the statements you are saying to your subjects. It is important to play with the different ways you can say words as the meanings will change as your delivery of the word changes.

Take the word ‘no’ for instance. There is technically only one meaning for the word itself; however you can change that meaning if you change your tone as you say the word. Play with it say ‘no’ in ways that would imply yes or maybe. There is a way to say ‘no’ that is stern and serious and a way to say it playfully and so on and so forth.

Now that we know the importance behind the way we say different things we can go over the principals of performance. The first principal of performance is to ‘go first’. This is the best and most simple way to deliver your statements and words accurately and with fine precision.

‘Going first’ is a good place to start because it is important to really feel what you are going to say in order to make it true for your subject. In ‘going first’ you will immerse yourself in the emotion, situation or come to agree with the story you will be telling, this will help your story in delivering it in a believable way.

If you are not in the correct state of mind, meaning one of agreement with your statements, you will not be convincing. Every thought you have will always affect you emotionally and behaviorally. For instance if you are trying to imply that there is danger in a situation and you are conveying a feeling of carefree happiness your point will be lost to the true emotion you are feeling.

This is where BMIR’s come into play. BMIR is a shorter way of saying Behavioral Manifestation of an Internal Representation. What this means is when you think of something, every time your thoughts change it will show the new thought through your movements, body language, breathing and tonality. Because of this reaction to thought the best way to perform anything is to enter that particular state of mind. Imagine yourself in the situation, use the same tone of voice you would if you were actually going through the motions of that particular situation. This will help you to accurately deliver the thoughts and ideas you want to.

So this was a vast amount of information for a simple task, to review ‘going first’ you must first take the hypnotic theme you are working with and put it into motion within your mind. Use your imagination to put yourself into situations where what you want to convey is true. When you do this the delivery will be accurate representation of the feelings, ideas and thoughts you are pursuing.

The second performance principal we are going to cover here is the principal of squeezing the meaning. In this factor of performance you are going to do just as it sounds, squeeze all of the meaning out of key words you use in your language.

In order to accomplish this you will want to match the tone and feel of your voice with the feelings or ideas you are attempting to convey. When you learn how to accurately do this and practice it into perfection you will be able to bring your words to life for your listener.

The language you use will begin to be filled with the actual meaning and feelings that come from your choice of words and the way you say them. For instance if you want your subject to relax, you don’t scream relax at them while jumping up and down you would draw the word out using a mellow and calming tone of voice.

In doing this you are letting the tone of your voice do the hard work and you convey a state of mind or feeling. Rhythm in what you are saying is also accomplished here with very little effort, it just happens naturally as you say the words with the meanings they possess.

Visit http://inducetrance.com/conversational-hypnosis/ now to learn how you can become a master conversational hypnotist!