Does self-hypnosis really work? It's a good, honest question. Before you throw yourself into self-hypnosis full force, make sure you know all the benefits and possible drawbacks of the technique. You will quickly find that there's self-hypnosis and there's Internet self-hypnosis... which needs some critical consideration.

One of the problems hypnotists and hypnotherapists have faced in recent years is a deterioration of their public image. This is thanks mainly to sham mentalists and inflated New Age claims about metaphysical stuff the average person has never even heard of, much less believed. It's made doubly difficult thanks to how easy the Internet has made publication of often spurious claims. Fortunately, those add-ons have little to do with hypnosis as done by responsible practitioners.

Another obstacle average people have to believing hypnosis can help them profoundly are in its results. Simply put, many people have experienced fast and lasting change thanks to hypnotic suggestion. This has led many leading medical centers to include hypnotherapy among their treatments, including the University of Maryland Medical Center and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of Harvard's teaching hospitals. Still, because the subconscious mind takes hypnotic suggestions to heart and quickly creates changes, it can seem like wizardry. When many talking therapies take years to yield results, it's no wonder hypnosis seems too good to be true. Add to it the idea that you can create these results yourself, with simple self-hypnosis, and it's beyond the pale.

So, setting aside the extreme and the unusual, does self-hypnosis really work? Yes, it absolutely works-- when you allow it to work. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy texts agree that all hypnosis, at its root, is self-hypnosis. The hypnotherapist has no mystical "powers" over the patient. She just knows how to lead the patient into a relaxing trance. In fact, it is the patient who creates the hypnotic state under the hypnotherapist's guidance. And the success or failure of a hypnotic session depends, ultimately, on the subject.

So what's a subject to do? When you create a self-hypnotic suggestion, you will put yourself into a relaxed state. Usually this is done in a quiet place free from distractions. Then, often by counting down from 10 to 1, you will relax first your body and then your mind. At this point, you mind has become highly suggestible. Now you can deliver your hypnotic suggestions. They may be direct suggestions, such as positive commands you give yourself to become free of stress, or more productive at work. Or they may be designed as suggestive imagery that's personally meaningful. Because I grew up in a rural area, I often couch my hypnotic suggestions in imagery of the forest.

A few pointers: self-hypnosis works best when it focuses on one particular area you want to improve. So work on, say, your relationship with your boss or your devotion to physical exercise. Trying to tackle too much will cause your subconscious mind to reject the suggestions. The best advice I've heard for talking to the subconscious likens it to a bright 8-year-old who's eager to please. So don't confuse it! Give it clear, positive suggestions and it will get right underway making them come true. Then you will be well underway to using hypnosis to increase your own happiness and success.