How Does Hypnosis Work?

[Unregistered]

Hi everyone.

PLease could someone explain to me the basics of how hypnosis works. I have had hypnotherapy and found it very useful but would love to have a better understanding.
The therapist i saw was (in my limited experience) an extremely good one because he concentrated on keeping me in control and taught me how to do self hypnosis and encouraged me to plan my own scripts.
But i have no idea how hypnosis works so i am able to use self hypnosis even more effectively.
I really dont understand how thinking about something in a different way whilst relaxed, or picturing images whilst relaxed is really able to change the way people approach situations and their outlook on life in general.

Please can some of you more experienced hypnotherapist teach me a little more about how it works.

Thanks

[Merlin]

Hypnosis is a learning tool.
You learned something once upon a time which causes you problems. So you go to a hypnotist. s/he teaches you a different response than the one you had.

There is a natural resistance to learning something different, something that is contradictory. Hypnosis uses the tools used when you were a child, when you learned really well. You used to pretend or imagine. The hypnotist was returning you to the learning state, imagine... picturing or imagining images.

It's just that learning this way is driven from most people. Play and imagination is for children, not adults.

There's a little more to it than this, but that's the simplified version :)