Publications by Holly Holmes Meredith

Hypnosis is a term used to describe a process that creates a non-ordinary state of consciousness. This state of consciousness allows clients to respond to suggestion with higher than normal receptivity. Hypnotic consciousness is a state that can spontaneously come about for a person, or it is a state that can be self-induced or induced with the help of a facilitator or hypnotherapist. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis because the hypnotic state of consciousness is generated within the hypnotee. The hypnotee allows herself to actively engage in the process. In some situations, the hypnotee may even choose to not respond. Experiencing the hypnotic state is a skill that can be learned and cultivated.

Hypnotherapy is the practice of therapy that takes place in the non-ordinary state of hypnotic consciousness. Hypnotherapy directly engages the client's conscious and subconscious mind in the process of doing therapy. The hypnotherapy process is usually interactive and involves verbal and non-verbal communications between the client and hypnotherapist while the client is in the non-ordinary state of consciousness. Most therapeutic work is greatly enhanced while clients are in a hypnotic state because they are able to access information, healing, creativity, memories and insight that is not normally available when in the waking conscious state. Change is facilitated from within the clients in hypnotherapy; it is inwardly generated and intrinsic to the clients, themselves. The hypnotherapist is responsible for having the tools and skills to assist the clients in helping themselves, which minimizes the often incorrectly perceived "power" the therapist has over the client.

By engaging a transpersonal or spiritual focus in hypnotherapy, the client's personal transformation can be supported even further. By invoking and accessing the client's higher Self or the wisest transcendent aspect of consciousness, clients are also able to access expanded states of consciousness similar to those experienced in meditation or in profound states of presence: states when the egoic or self- involved consciousness is transcended or simply out of the way. Through these transpersonal states of consciousness, healing and profound change can take place, often fairly effortlessly. Clients report that these expanded states of consciousness change them in lasting positive ways. Clients realize that, for instance, they have pain, but are not the pain. They can potentially experience themselves as spiritual in essence: as a spiritual being having a human experience of pain. From these hypnotically accessed transcendent states, clients begin to have a new sense of self and a new way of relating to the challenges of their lives. They become dis-identified from their stories and the previously perceived roles they have played in their lives. Their consciousness is expanded along with an expanded sense of Self.

You can download for free this book HERE