Mininda: One thing I’ve always wanted to know is why people need to be hypnotized. Do they want to confess something or what?

Mr Lien: Much more than that, Mininda. Hypnotherapy deals with the psychological and emotional sides of our minds. People come to me mostly because of pressure, sleeplessness, relationship problems, phobias, bad habits and various kinds of incidents in the past that stop them from moving on. Hypnotherapy brings people to their subconscious state of mind and helps them overcome psychological problems.

Mininda: So do you really swing a pendulum to put someone to sleep?

Mr. Lien: Haha…that only happened 50 years ago. The pendulum is meant to get a patient’s attention, getting them to focus on something which makes it easier to put them into a more relaxing state of mind. But we don’t use pendulums any more; you know, our hands get tired sometimes! Nowadays, hypnotherapists prefer talking to patients to get them relax and to picture a certain situation before placing them into a trance.

Mininda: How does it work? I mean how do you put someone into a trance?

Mr Lien: First of all, do you know is the difference between consciousness and sub-consciousness, Mininda? Our consciousness and sub-consciousness work for us every day. Like we’re talking now and we realize what we’re doing at this moment, which is talking. This is our consciousness…(silence)…

Mininda:…(silence)…What?

Mr Lien: Just now when we were silent, did you hear the “zzh…zzh…” noise?

Mininda: Yeah, but if we didn’t become silent, I wouldn’t have noticed.

Mr. Lien: The “zzh…zzh…” noise has always been here, even when we’re talking. It’s just that our consciousness focused on our conversation and didn’t notice the existence of this noise. But our sub-consciousness picked up these peripheral noises without us even noticing. All these messages will be put into our brain to form the whole picture of a particular situation.

Mininda: Whoa, that’s pretty cool…and makes a lot of sense!

Mr. Lien: Hypnotherapy helps bring out subconscious message that is the “zzh…zzh…” noise from our brain. When a person is in a hypnotic state, his consciousness will be put to sleep while his sub-conciousness will be working intensively.

Mininda: OK, say if someone wants to kick a nasty smoking habit, what will you do to him?

Mr. Lien: Generally speaking, people smoke because of pressure. We have to find out what motivates him to quit smoking. Maybe his girlfriend doesn’t like it; maybe his family cannot stand it. I will then ask his subconscious mind to imagine a future without cigarettes. Will the relationship with his girlfriend be happier? Will his family be more supportive in any way? Often, the greater the motivation, the higher the chance of success.

Mininda: So, does that mean the person will be willing to do whatever is asked, even illegal things?

Mr. Lien: Ha, I get people asking me this question all the time. One may be in a trance, but his personal values are still intact and there’s no way a hypnotherapist can make someone do anything against his morality, values or beliefs. And he always knows what he’s doing and saying during hypnosis. So, don’t worry about waking up and finding yourself locked up in jail.

I was very tempted to give hypnotherapy a go, but I have no relationship problems (well, I had, a long time ago), no bad habits (except yes, you are right, addiction to chocolate), no emotional problem (except being hysterically happy and satisfied after throwing everything from the fridge into my stomach). Well…I’d better leave you with this idea.

EarthXia: “Too often, human beings are scared of letting go of their consciousness. But once you step back and look at the bigger picture, that is to release your sub-conscious feelings, you will get a clear vision of where the problem lies.”

(Special thanks to Mr. Lien Zun)