About Clinical Hypnosis Training for Stage and Street Hypnotists

Many stage hypnotists are only that - stage hypnotists - and they have never taken a clinical course in hypnosis. And many clinical hypnotists only practice clinical hypnosis, and may even shudder at the mere mention of hypnosis for entertainment purposes. And then there are the hypnotists who regularly practice both stage and street hypnosis.

Which one is a better hypnotist? That is not a question I can answer arbitrarily, because it’s simply not something to hold a contest over - they each have different goals, and, as with anything, so much is up to the individual person, their training, skills and personality.

However, I will say that in my opinion, in general:

The stage hypnotist who also receives clinical training will have a far greater understanding and control of hypnotic power and safety issues on stage than ones who do not,

and the clinical hypnotist who studies a bit of stage hypnosis will have a far greater understanding of how to utilize hypnotic phenomena and various induction techniques to increase the efficacy of their clinical hypnosis sessions.

Clinical hypnosis training typically provides a far more detailed foundation of hypnotic processes, leading to a greater understanding of how the mind works and why a hypnotized person will - or will not - respond to certain stimuli and suggestions. Understanding hypnotic language patterns - how both the conscious and subconscious minds process certain words and phrases differently than others - can really improve stage show performance results.

Clinical hypnosis programs also cover safety issues related to various hypnotic techniques, and provides education on psycho-hypnotic phenomena such as abreaction. If you have never experienced abreaction in a stage hypnosis show, you are quite lucky - and if you’ve never had any education about how to handle it, you’ll want to get some quickly, before it does, so that you will know what to do when one of your subjects suddenly starts ‘emotionally freaking out’ on stage.

Clinical hypnosis education can also lend insight into how to wake a subject up who seems far too happy to stay in trance after everyone else has been dismissed, which can be another challenging issue for less experienced stage and street hypnotists.

And courses in clinical hypnosis can also provide a greater repertoire of hypnotic induction and deepening techniques - from Elman to Erickson, to Speed Trance and rapid induction styles, to eye-fixation, fractionation and PRM, to the Zarren marble technique and more. Learning a variety of ways to induce trance by studying books, videos and hypnosis scripts on the subject, and understanding how to modify and combine these methods, can help insure that more of your stage volunteers go into a functional (for your purposes) state of trance.

It is for these reasons that we encourage stage and street hypnotists to complete clinical hypnosis training and certification programs , because we believe that the more well-rounded your education, the safer and more successful your professional stage hypnosis career will be.

We wish you the best of luck in beginning and continuing your personal stage hypnosis show success! And if we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our office.

~ Richard K. Nongard, LMFT/CCH
Executive Director

PS: For quality stage hypnosis training resources, we recommend HypnosisGurus.com