Stage Hypnosis Versus Clinical Hypnosis: How Different Are They?

The Key Points Of Difference Between The Two Are....

An interesting subcategory of hypnosis is stage hypnosis.  Usually looked down on by their more “legitimate” hypno-therapist contemporaries, the stage hypnotist offers many unique insights into the mechanisms of hypnosis and how people follow instructions even if those instructions are to bark like a dog or dance like a ballerina.

Just like more conventional clinical hypnosis, stage hypnosis relies on the power of suggestion and the participant’s ability to follow instructions. And believe it or not, the stage hypnosis procedure has a lot in common with a one on one hypnotherapy session.

At the beginning of a clinical hypnosis session the hypnotist engages the client in what is called the “pre-talk”. This is where rapport is established. Questions are answered. Responsiveness is checked. And many other factors are set in place that will allow a smooth transition into hypnosis for the client.

In a stage hypnosis show, the pre-talk is replaced with a preamble by the stage hypnotist where all the mysteries of hypnosis are discussed with the audience, all with the intention of increasing anticipation and responsiveness in the members of the audience. There is very little difference between this preamble and a clinical pre-talk. The aim in both is to get the client or audience member, in a responsive, relaxed and anticipatory state.

The stage hypnotist then engages the audience in a number of suggestibility tests. This is where audience members are asked to perform certain tasks that indicate if they are suggestible and can follow instructions. Not everyone in the audience is a perfect stage hypnosis candidate however.

At every stage of the stage hypnosis act, the stage hypnotist is checking for the participant’s ability to follow instructions. If they can’t follow suggestions they are not picked to go on stage.

One of the classic suggestibility tests both for stage hypnosis as well as clinical hypnosis is the hand clasp test. For this test everyone in the audience who chooses to participate interlaces their fingers together and imagines, with the help of the stage hypnotist’s instructions (that are getting gradually louder and more dynamic), that their fingers are stuck together and that they cannot pull them apart.

Those members of the audience who’s hands remain stuck together when the stage hypnotist asks them to try and pull them apart, have shown themselves to be highly suggestible and a candidate to go on to the next part of the “audition”. The next stage is to invite those who would like to be performers, and whose hands are still stuck together, to come up to the stage.

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