I often have been asked the question “what is the difference between NLP and Hypnotherapy”? It is actually quite difficult to answer as they aren’t easily defined and there are multiple ways to look at hypnosis and NLP. But I’m going to intend clarifying that by sharing with you my understanding and my experience of it.

Hypnosis is a technique that generates an altered state of consciousness in which the unconscious mind is more available to respond to change. And Hypnotherapy is a therapeutic approach that uses hypnosis. Let me quickly shed light on the difference between hypnotherapy and stage hypnosis actually as there tends to be an unfortunate confusion here. The reputation of hypnosis comes from the latter, which has got an entertainment purpose. It uses hypnosis in a manipulative way in order to generate some unusual behaviours. On another hand, a hypnotherapist uses hypnosis in an ethical way, within the control, permission and full awareness of its subject. So during an hypnotherapy session a client will never do something he doesn’t agree with or doesn’t want to do.

As for NLP, it is a set of great tools that uses language to generate changes at the neurological level. NLP can be used in transformational coaching, in education and youth coaching but also to improve communication, in business, sales and in many other areas.

It is widely recognized that NLP techniques are also very powerful in a therapeutic context. So why combining them with hypnotherapy? When clients come to see an NLP practitioner, it’s safe to assume they’ve already tried to sort out their issues but haven’t been successful. That suggests the cause of their issue is out of consciousness. In my experience, when using NLP without the help of hypnosis, it engages a lot more the conscious mind. That leads very often to interference of negative thoughts, fears or doubts. Those barriers prevent to access deeply the unconscious mind and work on the root cause of the issue. Most NLP practitioners under rate the importance of combining the two together, and the results they might get most often don’t last. As I’ve found that not only the use of hypnosis allows the client to enter a gentle relaxed state and work at a deeper level but  they’re also actually making lasting changes.

It can be also very helpful to have a deep knowledge of hypnotherapy techniques. I had once a client who came into my practice and told me he only wanted to be treated with hypnotherapy. In order to fit his model of the world and help him reach his desired outcome, I gave his unconscious mind some suggestions with embedded commands and metaphors and I used some other Ericksonian complex patterns. But I found that the types of changes that my client was getting happened much slower than when I use a combination of NLP and hypnotherapy.

All those reflections bring me to describe their difference as follow: during a hypnotherapy session, the client is very passive whilst the therapist does most of the work; as with NLP, the client is actively engaged in doing some exercises to reprogram their brain. Actually, some NLP techniques could very well be taken for hypnotherapy ones, as the creators of NLP modelled hypnotherapists…so there’s a fine line between those two methods and I would conclude by simply saying that their alliance helps the unconscious mind to assist the conscious one.