Rapport is an important factor when engaging in hypnosis. Whether it’s for hypnotherapy or for entertainment/fun purposes, building rapport with your hypnotic subjects and clients is one of the quickest ways to ensure that you get better engagement, and better end results.
Many people who ‘fail’ at hypnosis, even when they know all of the hypnosis-related skills to succeed, often have one thing in common; poor rapport skills!
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your hypnosis/hypnotherapy skills alone will be sufficient, especially if you are less proficient at interacting with people positively. After all, hypnosis is simply a type of communication. To communicate with someone effectively, it helps massively if the person you are communicating with actually wants to hear what you have to say, and feels comfortable following your suggestions and directions.
Here are five powerful rapport tips, that will help you to gain and maintain rapport with your hypnotic subjects and hypnotherapy clients.
Create a connection
Rapport is a type of interpersonal connection in and of itself. However, to build rapport, it can help to find ways to connect with the individual you’re speaking with.
Firstly, it can be really useful to find ‘common ground’. As humans, we like people who are like us. That’s why people form groups surrounding their hobbies and interests, so they can talk to like-minded individuals.
So, when considering the people you are going to hypnotise, what do you have in common? What do you share with them? It could be a shared interest on a specific topic. Perhaps you have similar values relating to certain things? It might even be that you’ve had similar life experiences, that you could draw upon.
This could be as simple as someone who’s never been hypnotised before saying that they are worried about how being in hypnosis is going to feel. You might tell them that when you first got started as a hypnotist, you felt exactly the same way, and that you were nervous for your first hypnosis experience. Then, following up with how well it went and how good it felt, etc.
You don’t have to go into masses of detail about these commonalities, and there don’t need to be too many of them. Just a handful through the course of a conversation can be fine. Just remember, letting someone know that you are similar to them in some ways, can often help grease the gears of rapport and interpersonal connection, by creating or drawing attention to your shared experiences.
Be truly interested in your interaction
As a human communicating with other people, we are pretty good at knowing when someone is interested in speaking with us, or if they are disengaged. Similarly, when someone appears to be ‘putting on a front’, it is often quite apparent that they appear less than genuine. Your job, when building rapport, is to be genuine, and to genuinely be invested in this interaction.
People connect best with those who are authentic. This is why you should always be yourself, and let your personality do most of the heavy lifting here, by letting your own personality shine through. Whether you are energetic, logical, empathetic, social, intuitive, or whatever positive personality traits you possess, don’t try to suppress yourself. By doing that, you’ll end up seeming inauthentic and conversation can become stilted and challenging.
Become genuinely interested in the person that you are engaging with. Sure, in reality, you may only be interested in the ‘end result’ that you’re looking for, such as helping them with hypnotherapy, or having fun with a street hypnosis demo. But without this individual, you wouldn’t be able to do that at all! So, for the duration of your interaction with them, make them your sole focus.
By being fully engaged and genuinely interested in your subject or client, they will feel like you find them interesting, or that you like them, or that you make them feel valued by being so present and engaged with them. This is a fantastic place to start when building rapport for hypnosis or hypnotherapy.
Elevate your communication
Part of being genuinely interested in a person means actually listening to them whilst you chat. As well as actually listening to them, to build rapport you must actively listen to them too.
‘Active listening’ isn’t quite as simple as avoiding distractions during a conversation – but that sure helps too! What it really comes down to, is doubling down on that genuine interest in the person that you’re speaking with, and paying full attention to them as you talk with each other. So, put your distractions aside, whether they are thoughts or actions, and truly dial yourself into this conversation… This moment.
Truly listen, engage and take in the information from this exchange. Express empathy and understanding where appropriate. Follow up with them, by asking questions to get more information. Refer back to information they’ve already given you in order to clarify what they’ve said, or to gain a deeper understanding of their position.
By doing this, not only will they open up and share more, but they will automatically feel that the conversation becomes effortless. Things will flow more naturally by your being engaged, thereby drawing the other person more deeply into the experience of talking with you.
By paying close attention to what someone is saying and responding to them (both verbally and nonverbally), and by demonstrating that you are not distracted, they will feel heard. This means they will likely be more willing to listen to you as a result, which definitely helps when you’re giving them instructions to go into hypnosis, or to follow your hypnotic suggestions.
Another quick tip for keeping the conversation effortless and engaging, is to avoid or limit the use of jargon. Sure, you may know all the technical terms relating to hypnosis, hypnotherapy and even human psychology, but do they? If not, or if you’re unsure, err on the side of caution, and keep hypno-jargon and psychobabble to a minimum. Simple, easy to understand language often works best for most people.
Remember what you’re saying non-verbally
Our body language says a lot about us. More than we often realise. Therefore, it is well worth making sure that your body language is congruent with the message that you’re trying to get across.
If you are looking for engagement and rapport whilst doing the above things (active listening and being genuine). Ensure that your body language follows suit. Because if your body language is closed off, or you are unable to make good eye contact (60-70% of the time), or your face isn’t conveying the emotions that you are speaking about, you create an incongruence.
Most of communication is about what we say. However, a big chunk of the message people receive is also defined by how we say it, and how we appear whilst we’re saying it. Keeping it as simple as possible; ensure you have open and relaxed body language, as this conveys approachability, friendliness and confidence. Maintain appropriate eye contact. Smile at appropriate times. Ensure the tone of your voice is also congruent with what you’re saying. If you’re talking about how fun and exciting experiencing hypnosis can be, and you’re saying it in a dull, droning monotone, you’re not conveying the right message as fully as you would if you had some energy and excitement in your own voice.
If you’ve struggled with these things, take steps and begin to improve them. Look at videos of people communicating effectively and work on emulating what they do, and how they hold themselves (this is known in NLP as ‘modelling’). Record yourself practicing these new behaviours and mannerisms on video, whether it’s whilst talking to an imaginary person, or even with a friend/family member, then watch it back, critique, adapt, improve and repeat.
Another helpful body language tip is to subtly ‘mirror’ the other person. This means copying their body language. The key word here though, is ‘subtly’. You do not want to look like you are outright copying them, so avoid making the same movements immediately when they do. Take time, and naturally alter your position. You might even partially mirror someone. If they have both hands in their pockets, and you have neither, you might choose to put one of your hands in/near your pocket – subtly!
Similarly, you can match the types of words they use, the pacing and tone that they speak at, and many other things. That said, initially just focus on your own body language, and making sure that’s in check, before you start adding in matching and mirroring!
Be considerate and flexible
Finally, be respectful of the person you’re speaking to. Respect given is respect earned. Regardless of someone’s age, sex, race, background, beliefs, actions, etc. treat them with the respect that you would expect to receive yourself.
Be open-minded. As humans, we all have our own little (or sometimes big) idiosyncrasies. Just because you might not do/say/think/believe the things that they do, doesn’t make them wrong/bad. Meet people on a level playing field, and with unconditional positive regard. This will help them to feel comfortable. By creating a safe and welcoming space for the other person in this way, they are often more willing and able to share their thoughts and feelings, which helps to massively increase rapport in your communication.
I hope this blog on the benefits of rapport in hypnosis has been helpful. If you have any questions about building rapport, or becoming more proficient at hypnosis and hypnotherapy, simply get in touch with me personally because I’m always happy to help. Otherwise, feel free to check out the rest of the website for books, training resources and upcoming training courses with me personally.
