Ask most people to picture hypnosis and they will describe something like this: a dim room, a soft voice counting backwards, the client sinking deeper and deeper into relaxation. It is such a familiar image that many people assume relaxation is hypnosis, and that the more relaxed you get, the better it works.
It is an understandable assumption, but the research tells a different story. Relaxation can be part of hypnosis, yet it is not what makes hypnosis work. People can be hypnotised while alert, eyes open and physically active, and respond just as well.
This matters because it changes how hypnotherapy can be used. This article looks at where the relaxation idea came from, what the evidence actually shows, and what active hypnosis looks like in practice.
Where the relaxation idea comes from
The link between hypnosis and sleep goes back to the name itself. The word comes from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, and was popularised in the 1840s by the Scottish surgeon James Braid. Braid himself later recognised that hypnosis was not a form of sleep, but by then the name had stuck.
Over the following century, relaxation became the standard way to begin a hypnosis session. Practitioners would guide clients through slow breathing, muscle relaxation and imagery of drifting deeper. It is an approach that many people find pleasant, and it remains widely used today. Films, television and popular culture have reinforced the picture of hypnosis as a sleepy, passive state.
Relaxation-based hypnosis has helped a great many people. The question is not whether relaxation has value, but whether it is the essential ingredient. The research suggests it is not.
What the research says
Relaxation is not part of the definition
The American Psychological Association’s hypnosis division defines hypnosis as a state of focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness, with an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion. The key ingredients are focus, absorption and responsiveness. Relaxation is not mentioned.
Hypnosis on an exercise bike
In the 1970s, Hungarian psychologist Éva Bányai and Stanford’s Ernest Hilgard put the relaxation assumption to the test. They hypnotised university students while the students pedalled an exercise bike against resistance, eyes open, receiving suggestions of alertness and activity rather than sleep and calm.
The result: people responded to suggestions just as well as those hypnotised with a traditional relaxation approach. The main difference was in how they felt. Rather than sleepy, people in the active condition tended to feel alert and refreshed. Later research has repeatedly found that active-alert and traditional relaxation methods produce the same behavioural responses, and researchers have since developed simpler alert methods that do not need a bike at all.
Modern approaches have outperformed classical ones
Researchers have also compared different styles of hypnosis. A review of 49 meta-analyses notes an earlier meta-analysis in which ‘modern’ hypnosis was significantly more effective than ‘classical’ hypnosis. In that research, classical hypnosis meant direct suggestions, such as being told to relax or that a symptom will ease. Modern hypnosis meant indirect techniques, such as metaphor, symbolism and imagery that invite the person’s own mind to find the change.
The evidence in this area is still developing, and studies vary in quality. But the overall direction is clear: hypnosis does not depend on relaxation, and more flexible, modern approaches have performed well.
What active hypnosis looks like in a session
In an active approach, hypnosis is less like lying back and listening, and more like a focused working session. The client is engaged throughout. Depending on the person and their goals, a session can include:
- Talking and responding. Answering questions, describing what you notice as it happens, and helping shape the direction of the session.
- Vivid imagination. Stepping into situations in your mind, including ones that normally trigger you, and experiencing them differently.
- Mental rehearsal. Practising new responses until they feel familiar, so the real situation feels like something you have already handled.
- Future pacing. Experiencing the future you want, such as the confident presentation, the smoke-free weekend or the calm flight, in enough detail that it starts to feel real.
- Working with emotions as they arise. Rather than keeping everything calm and quiet, the session can work directly with the feelings that sit underneath a problem.
- Shifting beliefs and identity. Changing how you see yourself, for example from ‘an anxious person’ or ‘a smoker’ to someone for whom those patterns no longer fit.
You may feel calm at times. You may also feel energised, emotional, focused or simply very absorbed. All of these are normal. What matters is not how relaxed you feel, but how engaged you are in the change.
Throughout, you remain aware and in control. You can speak, move and stop at any time, and nothing happens without your participation.
Active doesn’t mean light: the place of deeper hypnosis
None of this means there is no real ‘hypnotic state’. There is. Many people experience deep hypnosis, a profoundly absorbed state in which the outside world fades away, imagination becomes vivid and real, and change can happen at a deeper level. Active and deep hypnosis are not opposites. A session may move between focused, engaged work and much deeper states, depending on what the person and the goal need.
What matters is how people get there. Not everyone can drop into a deep state straight away, and that is completely normal. Doubts, worry about losing control, past experiences, or simply a busy mind can all get in the way. For some people, reaching deeper levels takes preparation: building trust, clearing up misconceptions, and working through whatever is holding them back.
Research supports this. Responsiveness to hypnosis is not entirely fixed. Studies of a well-known training approach, the Carleton Skills Training Program, found that working on people’s expectations, motivation, attitudes and use of imagination often produced substantial gains in how they responded to hypnosis. Other research found that building rapport and reducing resistance helped too. Researchers still debate exactly what these gains mean, but the broad message is that many people can learn to respond more fully with the right preparation.
This preparation is often skipped when sessions are short or follow a set script. At Hobart Modern Hypnosis, it is treated as part of the work. Steve spends whatever time is needed with each person to get their head in the right place, so that they can go as deep as their goals require. For many clients, this is the difference between feeling that ‘nothing happened’ and experiencing hypnosis fully.
Depth isn’t a test you pass or fail, and you don’t need to reach a particular level to benefit. But for people who need it, deeper hypnosis is something that can be learned and developed with the right guidance.
Why it matters for results
Change happens in real life, not in a relaxed chair
Most of the problems people bring to hypnotherapy show up when they are alert and under pressure: a panic attack in a meeting, a craving after a stressful phone call, nerves before a race. Rehearsing a new response while engaged and active is closer to the conditions where that response will actually be needed. It is a little like the difference between reading about how to swim and practising in the water.
Engagement predicts outcomes
The research on hypnotherapy repeatedly points to the same thing: people who take an active part tend to do better. In a large 2024 trial of hypnotherapy for smoking, people who attended every session were roughly three times as likely to be smoke-free a year later as those who attended four of the six. The researchers also suggested that some participants may have expected hypnosis to do the work for them, and that this passive expectation may have held them back.
An active approach builds the opposite expectation from the start. You are not waiting for hypnosis to happen to you. You are using it.
It suits a wider range of goals
Because active hypnosis is not limited to calming people down, it lends itself to goals where energy, focus and confidence matter as much as calm. These include sporting performance, public speaking, study and exams, and business performance, as well as habits, fears and anxiety.
So is relaxation ever useful?
Yes. Relaxation is a valuable tool in its own right, and some people and goals benefit from it, such as sleep problems or learning to switch off from stress. The point is not that relaxation is wrong, but that it is one tool among many rather than the defining feature of hypnosis. A skilled hypnotherapist chooses the approach that fits the person and the goal.
Frequently asked questions
Will I still feel relaxed in active hypnosis?
Possibly, at times. Many people feel a mix of calm, focus and energy during a session, and some parts of a session may involve much deeper, more absorbed states. But feeling relaxed is not the goal, and not feeling relaxed does not mean nothing is happening.
Can you be hypnotised with your eyes open?
Yes. Research on active-alert hypnosis used open eyes throughout, and people responded just as well as with traditional closed-eye methods.
Is active hypnosis harder?
Not usually. It asks you to take part, but it does not require any special skill. Most people find it engaging, and many find it easier than trying to ‘switch off’ on command.
What if I’m not good at visualising?
That is common and not a problem. Imagination does not have to be visual. Some people imagine through sounds, feelings or a simple sense of knowing. A good hypnotherapist adapts the approach to how your mind works.
Is active hypnosis the same as stage hypnosis?
No. Both draw on the same natural ability to focus and respond to suggestion, but the purpose is different. Stage hypnosis is entertainment. Active hypnotherapy is private, one-on-one and built around your goals.
Does active hypnosis work online?
Yes. Because it relies on focus, conversation and imagination rather than a particular room or setting, it adapts well to online sessions.
Hypnosis you take part in
Relaxation has a long history in hypnosis, and it still has its place. But it is not what makes hypnosis work. Focus, absorption and engagement are. An active approach builds on that, treating each session as a working partnership in which you rehearse, experience and practise the change you want.
This is the approach used at Hobart Modern Hypnosis. Steve, who holds a PhD and has decades of clinical experience, works with clients at the clinic at 176 Macquarie Street, Hobart, and online across Tasmania and Australia. Sessions are one-on-one, tailored to each person and longer than a typical appointment, giving time for real, active work on habits, fears, stress, pain and performance.
If you are curious about what active hypnosis could do for you, a free 30-minute phone consultation is a good place to start. You can get in touch here or call 03 6108 9053.
This article is general information only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individual results vary.
Sources
- Rosendahl, J., Alldredge, C. T., & Haddenhorst, A. (2024). Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: A 20-year perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1330238.
- Bányai, É. I., & Hilgard, E. R. (1976). A comparison of active-alert hypnotic induction with traditional relaxation induction. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 85(2), 218–224.
- Bányai, É. I. (2018). Active-alert hypnosis: History, research, and applications. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis.
- Batra, A., et al. (2024). Hypnotherapy compared to cognitive-behavioral therapy for smoking cessation in a randomized controlled trial. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1330362.
- Gorassini, D. R., & Spanos, N. P. (1986). A social-cognitive skills approach to the successful modification of hypnotic susceptibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Discussed in Is hypnotic suggestibility a stable trait?
- Enhancing hypnotic susceptibility: Interpersonal and rapport factors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
