Frequently Asked Questions

What is trance?

In Cognitive Hypnotherapy we work with trance which we believe is a natural state we go in and out of throughout the day. Trance is when you are not fully engaged consciously in whatever you are doing, a bit like being in autopilot. We experience different trances throughout the day and each trance has a different level of dissociation from the present moment. An example of a trance can be when someone is cleaning the dishes. They aren’t fully engaged in cleaning the dishes but their mind may be wondering else were, perhaps thinking about someone they love, what happened at work that day or thinking about things they have to do later on. Another example is when driving, you may have gotten to your destination realising you hadn’t really been paying attention but had been thinking about other things. We can say, you were in your “driving trance”, you may not even realise how much time had passed while you were in your trance. Sometimes we enter an unwanted trance and perhaps don’t even realise we’re in it, perhaps a “smoking trance”, “anxiety trance” or an “over eating trance”. Sometimes we may also be aware we are in the trance but can’t pull ourselves out from it. In Cognitive Hypnotherapy we work with these “problem trances” and reframe them by using different techniques so that the trance is no longer a problem trance but just a trance with no negative influence over us.