Assessing Client’s Goals

The following are questions - and a strategy - you can use to assess a client’s
“change” goals. It’s important to do this so that you know what to work on during
your sessions.

When doing hypnotherapy, a useful strategy is to start off getting a detailed report
of what they’d like to change and then pan summarise. The reason being, is that
“detail” is the language of the conscious mind and “vagueness & ambiguity” is
the language of the unconscious mind.

To get some practice, I’d recommend that you ask a friend these questions or
reflect on them yourself.

1. Paint me a picture.
• What change would you like to experience? Can you paint me a picture?
• If you were to wave a magic wand and get this change what would life be
like?
• If we had a time machine and could go to the point where you had
experienced the range, what would you see, hear & feel?

2. Elicit Present State & Resources.

• Where are you now?
• What resources do you think you need? (Emotions, mind-sets, new
behaviours etc…)

3. Summarise.
• Can you summarise all the information you’ve just given me in 8 words or
less?
• Can you condense that to 6 words or less?
• Can you condense this change to a single word, symbol or shape?

Hypnotherapy Mastery by Steven Burns