HYPNOTHERAPY

Guiding the Subconscious Mindset

Story by Tara Ryazansky Photos courtesy of Violet Garritano

Violet Garritano has always been fascinated with the potential of the human mind. “You know how they say that we can only access a certain portion of our minds? It’s something like 10 or 20%. Even in high school, when I was a kid, I would think, ‘What would happen if we could access all of our minds?’ What would happen if we could control our subconscious mind?”

Garritano has devoted her career to helping people reach their potential by guiding their subconscious mindsets. She is a clinical hypnotherapist who is certified by the International Board of Coaches and Practitioners. She says that a hypnotherapist is someone who utilizes hypnosis for therapeutic intervention.

“I explored hypnotherapy for my own personal development,” Garritano says that she wanted to use hypnotherapy to manage anxiety. “I wanted to learn how to truly regulate my nervous system. How can I really control my mind and access my mind? How can I gain a deeper understanding of where this anxiety is coming from? Hypnosis is designed to really reprogram the mind.”

Now, she uses hypnosis to help herself and others.

“People will come to me with issues like they want to lose weight or they want to stop smoking or they want to release a fear, but because everything is so dynamic, it’s never just that. Let’s say someone has a problem with overeating. We would look into when did this start? Why do you overeat? What void are you trying to fill,” Garritano explains that her clients end up learning a lot about themselves. “It’s almost like this beautiful self-discovery work that we do. I ask questions to get to the root cause of it so that when we do undergo a hypnosis it’s very thorough work. You get better results this way when you get to the root cause.”

Garritano says she starts off a session by educating new clients about what she does.

“I always do a little demystifying of hypnosis because a lot of people have misconceptions. Some of them include that hypnosis is mind control. The reality is that hypnosis is not mind control. If you wanted to actually brainwash someone, and this is the actual definition, you would have to deprive them of sleep. You would have to implement some sort of pain/pleasure response, and then you would have to change their biochemistry. Hypnosis does none of those things. It’s definitely not brainwash,” she says, adding that another misconception is that the client will be asleep and not remember the experience. Garritano says that it is a trance state rather than a sleep state and that everyone is different regarding whether or not they remember the experience.

Open to The Process

But Garritano says that there is one thing that’s the same about all of us.

“Every single person can be hypnotized. It’s just a matter of their willingness. If you’re going to come into this saying, ‘This is BS. This is a hoax.’ Then those are the results that you’re going to get. I forget who said it, but there’s a quote that goes, ‘If you believe you can, you will. If you believe you can’t, you’re also right.’

Violet Garritano

Courtesy of Violet Garritano

If someone doesn’t believe in themselves enough to accomplish a goal because all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, they’re not going to get those results. Everybody can be hypnotized, but not everyone is open to it.”

If you are open to it, Garritano says that most sessions follow a certain format.

“A typical session would look like this; I would meet a new client, and we would talk a little bit about their history. Everybody is diff erent, so you can’t treat everybody the same. Everybody has diff erent desires, diff erent wounds, diff erent traumas, things like that, so I spend the beginning of a session getting to know people,” Garritano says.

Next, Garritano incorporates Reiki, which is an ancient form of Japanese energy healing. She says this helps clients feel relaxed and safe before the hypnotherapy begins. She also coaches the client through positive affi rmations at this time. Then the hypnosis begins.

The Experience

“They lie down, they close their eyes, they don’t have to do anything, they just have to listen to the sound of my voice, and as they’re listening to the sound of my voice, I bring them into a hypnotic trance with a series of relaxation techniques,” Garritano says. “Then the therapy portion begins. That’s when we do the real subconscious reprogramming. That’s where essentially you’re taking your power back and disregarding all of your past and why you couldn’t do the things that you wanted to do in the past, and just moving forward cause there’s nothing you can really do about the past, but you can do something about the present which creates your future. That’s what we work with.”

To close out the session, Garritano talks to the client about their experience. She says that some clients have a lot to say, while others just want to go home and process the experience. “This is actually a direct quote from one of my clients; ‘I feel like I went through a couple of years of therapy in this one session.’ It’s intense work,” Garritano says. She warns that the work she does with clients isn’t for everyone. It’s for people who really want to make a change in their lives, which is often diffi cult and disruptive. “Not everybody is in a space where they want to start deconstructing the reality that they’ve made for themselves. You really have to be ready to take your power back with this kind of work. It takes a warrior to do that. You have to be ready to meet yourself so deeply.”

Garritano sees clients at Ohm Life, where she is the director. She also does house calls and virtual appointments.

“I want to make sure that I’m accessible, so I do group sessions,” Garritano says that these themed monthly workshops are a great fi rst step to trying hypnotherapy. “The next one is designed to help you get in touch with your inner self. I might do a hypnosis to help someone feel safe enough to be themselves or for forgiveness for neglecting their true selves. We say ‘Be your best self.’ but we have to feel safe enough to do it. At these workshops, everyone is coming together with the same intension, so the energy is so powerful.” — JCM

Learn more on Instagram @hypnoviolet.

Courtesy of Violet Garritano

Courtesy of Violet Garritano