Although there are different techniques, clinical hypnotherapy is typically performed in a calm, therapeutic environment. The therapist will guide you into a relaxed, focused state, typically through the use of mental imagery and soothing verbal repetition. In this state, highly responsive to constructive, transformative messages, the therapist may guide you through recognizing a problem, releasing problematic thoughts or responses, and considering and ideally accepting suggested alternate responses before returning to normal awareness and reflecting on the suggestions together. 

Yes, they are as real as any other change achieved through talk therapy techniques in that they are fundamentally cases of mind over matter. Comparable to someone experiencing the benefits of the placebo effect, the successful hypnotherapy client is self-healing: The physiological and neurological changes achieved may not have come from a medication but they are just as real. 

Hypnosis by a trained therapist is a safe alternative or supplement to medication. It is not a form of mind control—which is impossible to achieve. Clients remain completely awake throughout hypnotherapy sessions and should be able to fully recall their experiences. They also fully retain free will. If a therapist’s “post-hypnotic suggestion” is effective, it’s because they are suggesting something the client wants to achieve and, in their relaxed state, that individual is better able to envision and commit to a suggested positive path to change. 

Yes. Some practitioners argue that children are better candidates for hypnotherapy than are adults because they are more receptive and can accrue lifelong benefits from the tecnique. Hypnotherapy in children has been shown to have positive outcomes include coping with physical illness such as cancer, overcoming cognitive challenges such as stuttering and dyslexia, performance training and coping with depression and anxiety-based disorders. Children are able to master techniques for self-calming and gain a sense of self-efficacy in so doing. 

No, hypnotherapy helps you to relax and open your mind to new ways of thinking, but it doesn't do the thinking for you.  

No, you will just be listening and relaxing and there is no interaction. In fact, you will get a download of the trance and can do it by yourself whenever you feel comfortable to do so.​