Hypnosis In The Workplace

Mesmerising Success,  by Leah Creighton

Australian employees are increasingly turning to hypnosis to help them cope with their problems at work.  Psychotherapist Glyn Brokensha has turned his 25 years experience in hypnosis into a successful business helping dissatisfied employees.    After conducting about 10,000 consultations with individuals and groups, Brokensha forged a partnership, two months ago with the Banks Management Group.  He is the first workplace hypnotist in Australia.

“Increasingly organisations are recognising that problems are mostly systematic.” Brokensha says.   “When you have one very angry employee for example, it’s often a symptom of something larger.” Brokensha says the trend of clients visiting him with work-related matters has increased eightfold during the past ten years, prompting him to change the focus of his business.

“Hypnosis is not what people traditionally think it is,” Brokensha says.  “It’s a great ‘unsticker’ for people to find the resources within themselves to help them solve their problems. I frequently see people with stalled careers or problems with relationships at work.   They’re fearful or anxious, not as effective as they could be, or they are being bullied.   Everyone has the resources to solve their own problems – they just need some help to connect with them.   Hypnosis has long been regarded as a tool for physical pain relief, but not in a workplace context.  I lift people out of their old thinking.”

Brokensha is a consultant to various state and federal government organisations.   He readily admits that while hypnosis isn’t easy to define, the results are very real.   “I don’t think anyone really knows exactly how it works” Brokensha says. “But there’s no question that during hypnosis, the brain activity shifts into alpha rhythm.

“We also know that if the left hemisphere of the brain is more dominant (like in right-handed people) then the opposite will become more dominant.  “This means there’s a better cross-traffic.     One of the things you do with hypnotic language is to use double negatives. Stringing a few double negatives together is a very interesting linguistic manoeuvre.    It speaks to the creative side of the brain.”

Bullying in the workplace is a common problem for many clients.  The person who is being bullied can actually stop the abuse by being shown how to connect with skills and qualities they already possess, Brokensha says.   People who are being bullied give out unconscious signals – their eyes gaze, their breathing and their body language show they are subjugated.   They are showing themselves as a target.

“But what I’m not saying is that people bring on their own bullying or that they are weak.   It’s the bully who looks for a target.   Bullying is about the fact that they can get away with it and they seek out people.  Hypnosis is a brilliant tool for improving self-esteem.”

Brokensha says many of his clients typically experience results within two to six sessions of hypnotherapy.   But he says it’s not uncommon to achieve “radical” results in just one session.  

Source: Gonsalkorale WM, Houghton LA, Whorwell PJ. Hypnotherapy in irritable bowel syndrome: a large-scale audit of a clinical service with examination of factors influencing responsiveness. Am J Gastroenterol, 2002;97:954-961