Psychotherapy is the art of enabling people to master their psychological problems through helping them to understand the root causes, and to establish new patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This is carried out through discussion, analysis and teaching. Hypnosis is a therapeutic tool that can in many cases be utilised to speed up the process of psychotherapy.
The hypnotic state is natural to us all; it occurs spontaneously in all of us to some degree every day. Think about when you have been daydreaming, or when you've been driving a car only to find that you have reached the destination without having thought about the journey: both are examples of natural hypnotic states.
Throughout trance people are generally aware of what is going on around them, they are always able to respond to the therapist, and they always have the power to reject any suggestions that may be unacceptable to them.
Hypnosis can be used therapeutically because it gives the individual greater access to the unconscious mind which stores our deepest beliefs, memories, fears and emotions. This sometimes neglected part of the mind exercises a large influence over our personality and our behaviour. Unlike the conscious mind which thinks in a rational and logical manner, the unconcious mind operates in sensory ways, using visual images, sounds and feelings, which, may have a more powerful influence on our behaviour than words alone.