What happens during a session of hypnotherapy?

Because hypnosis is not a therapy in itself, therapists that use hypnosis will use it in different ways depending on their beliefs of how they think therapy should be conducted. For example, psychodynamic therapists may use hypnosis to uncover the event that caused the problem as they believe that this "insight" will cure the problem.

Since this site promotes the use of brief solution focused therapy, here is an explanation of what you can expect from such a session.

There are two distinct parts to a session of solution focused hypnotherapy:

The first part is information gathering. Here, the therapist will interview the client about the particular difficulty, and to find resources that the client has that can be used to alleviate the problem. This part may also be used to teach the client skills such as assertiveness, how to relax, how to tolerate uncertainty or another other skill that may help a client to resolve their issue.

The second part of the session uses hypnosis. This can be used in various different ways such as breaking up a negative pattern of behavior, rehearsing being confident in a specific situation to removing a phobia.