Does it really work?
The trance-like state is trending on TikTok. But can you really be hypnotised via a screen?
The comforting cadence of my best friend’s cackle bounces around the garden walls and into the valley beyond. I reach for the glass on the table in front of me and take a sip. The rosé is cold and as it slides down my throat, I feel my shoulders slacken.
We’re in the garden of my parent’s house in Wales – acopy-and-paste holiday my friends and I take once a year. But my subconscious can spend more time here than annual leave allows. So that’s where my mind has travelled this morning – while my body remains 250 miles away – when the man on my laptop screen asks me to go to my ‘happy place’.
Hyper-vivid visualisations are but one technique in James Mallinson’s arsenal. He’s a hypnotherapist (fixmymind.co.uk) who specialises in anxiety, phobias and confidence – and it’s the latter that’s brought me to his digital front door this morning. Or rather, its absence. I suspect the return to the office might have something to do with my self-belief ghosting me. But when pushed for a trigger, I realise my mojo was last seen in March 2020. And I’m not alone. Some iteration of ‘confidence gone AWOL’ is now the presenting problem for one in every two of Mallinson’s clients.
I first met Mallinson in 2019, when he extinguished my fear of public speaking just in time for me to host a series of panel talks. He’s since moved out of his London office to treat clients exclusively online, a move that makes him something of an influencer – digital hypnosis is trending. Over on TikTok (where else?), #hypnosis has 1.5 billion views, while the spin-off trend of #realityshifting has notched up almost double that. If the idea that a stranger can hypnotise you via a screen triggers a sceptical eyebrow raise, I see you. But the degree to which hypnosis can help you has less to do with the mode of delivery (IRL, Zoom or, in the case of hypnosis apps, via your headphones) and more to do with your hypnotisability – as I learn when Mallinson asks me to look up at the ceiling. I’m part of the 15% of the population that’s ‘extremely hypnotisable’ – astatus I’ve since had independently verified. (Curious? Take the 10-second test at womenshealthmag.com/uk). Happily, this doesn’t mean I’ll flap my arms like a bird at the sw
