How to do group hypnosis online

Working with groups is a great way to promote your business and to deliver hypnotherapy. This blog explores some of the key considerations of working with groups online and gives you an extract from our Group Hypnosis Online course manual.

You may already be considering using groups as a way of delivering ‘introduction to hypnotherapy’ sessions. These are a fabulous low-cost way for people to find out more about how hypnotherapy can help and, specifically, how you can help them. Or, you might be exploring the use of group sessions to work with a particular application, such as group weight management hypnotherapy sessions. By holding these groups online, you are making your sessions open to a wider audience, reducing your overheads (no premises needed), and saving time (no room to set up, and no travelling).

When you have decided to run a group hypnosis session online, there are three key aspects to consider. The preparation phase, including how to prepare yourself, your platform, your content and your intended audience. You might even wish to consider how, why and what to upsell at this point.

Then you have the delivery phase, with factors such as how to manage introductions, engaging participants and working with group dynamics. There are also some very practical considerations, such as how to organise activities, use breakout rooms and what you will do to cope with the unexpected.

Finally, you may wish to plan how to optimise the benefits of running group sessions, both for your participants and for your business.

This extract from our brand new Group Hypnosis Online course manual is a great starting point, and explains how to prepare yourself and how to rehearse, so that you’re ready to deliver a fantastic online group hypnosis session!

Preparing yourself: Your Experience

Have you been a participant?

You will design and deliver your group hypnosis sessions in a way that best suits your knowledge and skills. It can be helpful though to participate in other people’s sessions (it doesn’t have to be ‘on topic’) and get the insight from your own experience as a participant. Some things another presenter does may work for you, such as picking up some helpful tips on what would work well for you. You might also get an idea of what didn’t work for you, or what to avoid. For example, I (Kate) was on a 3-hour workshop and 45 minutes was lost to introductions (with a group of 10 people) and another 15 minutes lost to the agenda and how to work Zoom. The remaining two hours content felt rather rushed as a result. A clear reminder that the time allocated to the starting part of the session needs to be in proportion to the overall session.

Preparing yourself: Your Mindset

If you have doubts, worries or concerns about being able to present well, then now, at the prep stage, it is time to address them, so that you can give the best session you are capable of. As a hypnotherapist you will have access to some awesome resources to address any fears or anxieties. If you would like more skills in addressing these, then our Performance Palace Protocol is a self-contained model which is ideal for helping with anything performance related.

In addition to working through any problems or challenges, it is helpful to build up your ego strength and enhance you coping strategies. For example, you could make use of your anchoring skills. Indeed, rather than having individual anchors for confidence whilst presenting and confidence delivering hypnosis, you could create a stacked anchor, with both positive states on the same anchor.

Your mindset can be further aided by making full use of self-hypnosis. Not only is this a great tool in supporting the resolution of past issues, it is fantastic for helping you to mentally rehearse how you will present, and deal confidently with any foreseeable challenges. If you would like more help developing these skills, have a look at our ‘Learn Self-Hypnosis’ course.

Preparing yourself: Your Skills

Everyone starts somewhere. Whatever your skill level is, always present and deliver hypnosis within your competence. If you need more tools that are directly suitable for a group setting, then you might like to look at our Hypnotherapy 101 and Live Online certification courses.

Your session isn’t the best place to try something out the first time. Wherever possible, as well as running through a new technique in mental and actual rehearsal, use it with some friends or colleagues and then a 121 with a client before using it in a group. You truly will appear more confident when you present within your comfort range.

In addition to your hypnosis skills, you will benefit from having a good understanding of your chosen online platform (more about that later), including how it works and how to deal with problems, such as someone not being able to get their audio working.

Preparing yourself: Rehearsal

When you first start to work with online groups, the more preparation and rehearsal, the more you are building your skills, not only for delivery but also for being able to cope with the unexpected. As you develop, you will start to create systems that you can employ for most or all of your group work, saving prep time and effort.

There are two types of rehearsal that you can make use of; mental rehearsal and physical rehearsal.

Mental rehearsal, whether in hypnosis, or in the alert state, is using your imagination to run a fully sensory-engaged movie of how you would like your session to go. This is great for practicing different options and exploring what works best for you. The more you engage all of your senses the better. See what you would be seeing, hear what you would hear, and imagine the feelings and sensations that would occur in that situation. It will be even better if you can add in any smells, scents or odours and any tastes.

For example, imagine right now that you are sitting on your favourite office chair, at your desk looking at the monitor. Notice everything that is on your desk, including that mug of coffee that you can smell, as well as connect to the taste of a well-made drink. Hear the sounds of your keyboard as you experience typing, and notice the feel of the keys moving under your fingers.

An added benefit with mental rehearsal is that you can also prepare for how you could deal with the unexpected. Whilst you may not want to kill the power on your PC, you can effectively imagine a power cut and rehearse how you move over to using your phone or tablet.

When you have mentally prepared thoroughly, you then set up for an actual rehearsal (or even more than one). Finally, when it all seems to be as good as it can be doing it all the way through in real time, have a dress rehearsal. Here you get to do the whole session, all the way through, with ‘all bells and whistles’. To get the most learning from it, record the session. Wait a day or two and then look through. Notice what you did well, and any areas that would benefit from change.

With knowledge and understanding of what and how to prepare for working with groups online, you can start to develop efficient systems that enable you to take your sessions from ‘adequate’ or ‘ok’ to truly ‘outstanding’, giving participants a memorable experience that reflects well on your business.