When you think of hypnotherapy, you might picture something mysterious or dramatic, but the reality is far more practical—and powerful. Hypnotherapy works by accessing the subconscious mind, the part of your brain responsible for habits, emotions, and deep-seated beliefs. But what is really the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind?
1. The Conscious Mind
The conscious mind is the part responsible for real-time thoughts, decisions, and logical thinking. It manages short-term memory and influences your daily actions. For example, when learning to drive, you’re highly conscious of every move you make. Over time, those actions become automatic, handled by your subconscious.
2. The Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind is where memories, habits, and beliefs are stored. It controls automatic processes like breathing and holds emotional responses and behaviours formed over time. This part of the mind can be reprogrammed through hypnotherapy, which allows access to deeply rooted patterns that affect your life (Psychology Today, 2022).
3. The Relationship between the Conscious and Subconscious Mind
Think of the conscious mind as the driver of your life, making daily choices, while the subconscious is the engine driving those choices based on deeply ingrained beliefs and past experiences. “You make your beliefs, and then your beliefs make you,” says Marisa Peer, renowned hypnotherapist and creator of Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT). While the conscious mind decides your actions logically, the subconscious drives automatic behaviours and emotional reactions. Hypnotherapy uses this relationship to make changes that are difficult to achieve with conscious effort alone.
4. Hypnotherapy: Access the Subconscious and Take your Power Back
Through hypnotherapy, a trained professional can guide you into a deeply relaxed state, where your subconscious becomes more receptive to positive suggestions and change. Paul McKenna explains, “Hypnosis is not about losing control; it’s about gaining control over the parts of your mind that may be sabotaging your best efforts.” This technique allows you to rewrite old, limiting patterns—whether they relate to stress, confidence, or habits like overeating—so you can create lasting transformations.
Think of it like updating the software of your mind. Instead of being controlled by old programming that no longer serves you, hypnotherapy allows you to install new, empowering beliefs that align with the confident, thriving person you want to be.
5. Hypnotherapy uses several techniques to access and reprogram the subconscious mind.
Regression: This technique involves guiding you back to past experiences, often from childhood, to uncover the root causes of limiting beliefs or emotional blocks
Metaphors and Stories: These are used to communicate with the subconscious mind, which processes information in a non-logical, symbolic way.
Reframing: This involves shifting your perspective on past events, helping you reinterpret them in a way that empowers you rather than keeping you stuck in limiting beliefs
Future Pacing: In this technique, you’re guided to visualise a positive future outcome, which helps train the subconscious to align with your new goals and beliefs.
6. Practical Applications of Hypnotherapy & Rapid Transformational Therapy
Treating Anxiety and Stress: By reprogramming the subconscious, hypnotherapy alleviates stress and anxiety. It rewires automatic emotional responses, promoting relaxation and calmness.
Overcoming Addictions and Habits: Negative patterns stored in the subconscious can be broken and replaced with healthier ones. Hypnotherapy is highly effective for quitting smoking, losing weight, or breaking other harmful habits
Improving Sleep:By addressing the root causes of sleep issues, such as anxiety or racing thoughts, hypnotherapy helps individuals achieve deeper, more restorative sleep (Chamine, I., et al., Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2018)
Improving Self-Confidence: Hypnotherapy empowers the subconscious with positive beliefs. It helps build self-esteem, motivation, and confidence, allowing you to pursue personal and professional goals with a stronger mindset.
In conclusion, hypnotherapy is a powerful tool for tapping into the deeper layers of the mind—particularly the subconscious—to create lasting change. By directly influencing subconscious patterns, hypnotherapy can reshape behaviours, beliefs, and emotional responses that may otherwise be difficult to change with conscious effort alone.
Whether it’s reducing anxiety, overcoming addictions, or improving self-confidence, hypnotherapy offers a transformative approach to healing and personal growth, empowering individuals to lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.
Dr. Joe Dispenza sums it up perfectly, when he says: “If you want to change your life, you have to change your mind.”
