The Principle of Successive Approximations
When we are formulating hypnotic and posthypnotic suggestions, it is useful to remember that most clients do not step into profound hypnotic phenomena in a single elegant move. Just as clients often hope for instant, almost magical change, therapists can fall into the same trap, expecting hypnosis to produce rapid, dramatic shifts with minimal effort.
Most people do not “leap tall buildings in a single bound.” They take steps. Our task is to guide those steps.
If we treat hypnotic responses as skills that can be developed rather than switches that are simply turned on or off, we become more patient, more precise, and ultimately more effective. Instead of demanding a fully formed hypnotic response, we allow the client time and space to develop the response.
In practice, when a client is slow to respond, it can be helpful to mentally break the desired hypnotic task into smaller, intermediate steps. Each step is then facilitated in turn. When you expect useful results, convey calm confidence, and remain persistent in nurturing one hypnotic phenomenon at a time, the extra few moments you invest are usually very well rewarded.
Matching the Pace of the Client
A central aspect of working with successive approximations is adjusting your pace to the client’s natural rate of response.
Some clients respond quickly to suggestion, others more gradually. Some will display hypnotic phenomena early in the process, others will need repeated, gentle invitations before any clear change becomes evident. When you recognise this variability, it becomes obvious why rigid or authoritarian time-based suggestions are often unhelpful.
Authoritarian suggestions tend to sound like this:
- “You will immediately…”
- “In five minutes you will…”
- “By the time you awaken your pain will be completely gone.”
These phrases assume a uniform response rate and a predictable internal timetable, neither of which actually exists across individuals. They also carry an implied demand, which may create resistance rather than cooperation.
Instead, respecting the individuality of your client means recognising that different people will require different amounts of time to respond to any given suggestion. When working with a new client, before you know how quickly they respond, how they process suggestions, or what their hypnotic potentials are, it’s far more effective to phrase your suggestions in a way that is both fail-safe and permissive.
That is, you construct your language so that:
- The suggestion does not fail just because the response is not instantaneous, and
- The client is given room to respond in their own way, at their own speed.
This approach allows the client to succeed gradually rather than “fail” immediately.
Being Permissive with Time While Confident in Outcome
Being permissive about when a client will respond doesn’t mean you are vague or uncertain about whether they will respond. We can relax our demands on timing while still conveying a quiet, steady confidence that change is on its way.
Certain words and phrases are extremely useful here. They allow you to be open-ended about time and process, and yet they still imply that a response will emerge. Examples include:
- “soon”
- “before long”
- “yet”
- “beginning to notice”
- “shortly”
- “in its own way”
These words carry an embedded presupposition: something is going to happen. The client is not being ordered to respond now; they are being invited to allow a response to unfold.
For example, notice the difference in tone and expectation in the following phrases:
- “And do you begin to notice the tingling and numbness beginning yet?”
- “Soon you’ll sense a lightness starting to develop in that hand.”
- “And you can begin to wonder just when you’ll first sense a twitch and sensation of movement in one of the fingers.”
- “And that hand’s becoming lighter.”
In each case:
- Time is left flexible. There is no rigid deadline: the experience can emerge gradually.
- The response is presupposed. The language assumes that tingling, numbness, lightness, or movement *will* occur.
- The client is guided through successive approximations. They move from subtle noticing (a tingle, a hint of lightness) toward more pronounced hypnotic phenomena (numbness, movement, levitation).
Using Successive Approximations in Practice
When you integrate the principle of successive approximations into your hypnotherapy practice, your work begins to take on a different flavour:
- You expect progress in stages rather than all at once.
- You shift from commanding outcomes to inviting processes.
- You let the client’s own internal timing determine how quickly phenomena appear.
In doing so, you create a therapeutic space where the client can naturally grow into hypnotic experiences, step by step, in a way that respects their individuality and honours the unique way their unconscious mind learns, responds, and changes.