Sample Articles from the 5-PATH® International Association of Hypnosis Professionals

This is an “Open to the Public” list of articles. Our members have access to hundreds of articles on hypnosis and hypnotherapy accessible in the members only area. To become and member requires 5-PATH® Certification.

SAMPLE ARTICLES

• Helping a Client with a Fear of the Unknown : A Case Study

  This case study from the 5-PATH® IAHP Journal explains how hypnotherapist Erika Flint helped a retired woman overcome fears of freeway driving and being alone without her car. Although the fear followed a minor car accident, it was ultimately traced to childhood experiences of being left alone. When the client became nervous during the initial hypnosis induction, Flint adapted by using the client’s present fear to initiate Affect Induced Age Regression through the Time Tunneling Technique™. Resolving the root emotional cause eliminated the fear, and future progression exercises showed the client feeling calm, confident, and free to drive and be alone again.

• Help your clients to expect ongoing success through age progression

  In this article, Brenda J. Titus explains how 5-PATH hypnotists can use age progression to help clients expect and maintain long-term success. By regularly guiding clients to future moments where they have already achieved and sustained their goals, hypnotists strengthen confidence, reinforce belief in change, and evaluate a client’s expectation of success. Titus emphasizes progressing to realistic upcoming situations and recurring life events, such as holidays or annual milestones, to verify results between sessions. She also describes using the client’s “future self” to offer encouragement, creating ongoing self-coaching. Consistent age progression, she concludes, deepens results and helps clients experience lasting growth and confidence.

• Helping Clients to Stop Fighting in Relationships

  In this article, Celeste Hackett explains how 5-PATH hypnotists can help clients reduce fighting in relationships by increasing awareness and interrupting destructive arguing patterns early. She describes fighting as a habitual back-and-forth escalation, likening it to throwing a baseball harder and faster until someone gets hurt. Hackett teaches clients to recognize early warning signs and disengage calmly by “leaving” the situation in a kind, non-blaming way, while reassuring their partner of return to avoid abandonment fears. Through clear communication, gentle boundaries, and hypnotic suggestion, clients learn new habits of relating that promote safety, kindness, and long-term relationship harmony.

• The Editor’s Desk: The New 5-PATH® Rapid Induction Is Here!

  Cal Banyan announces the release of the new 5-PATH® Rapid Induction, created to replace the long-used Elman-Banyan Induction. The new induction addresses key limitations of the older method by being shorter, clearer, and easier for clients to follow, while also improving effectiveness and reliability. Tested and refined by 5-PATH practitioners worldwide, it is available in long, short, and group versions. Banyan chose to release the induction under a Creative Commons license so it can be shared globally while promoting 5-PATH®. As of January 2016, it is the official induction used in 5-PATH training.

• Benefits of 7th Path® Self Hypnosis® with 5-PATH® Clients

  Marcella Hilferty explains the benefits of integrating 7th Path® Self Hypnosis® with 5-PATH® clients, drawing from her own transformative experience with the system. After using 7th Path to overcome chronic pain, migraines, and life limitations, she began offering it to all her clients as a complement to 5-PATH sessions. Hilferty describes how regular 7th Path practice helps clients manage triggers, reduce anxiety and panic, and maintain progress between sessions. Clients report greater confidence, smoother hypnosis sessions, and a stronger sense of control, making 7th Path a powerful tool for long-term stability and personal growth.

• How to Increase Clarity to Get Results

  Erika Flint explains how increasing clarity of outcome helps clients achieve consistent, measurable results in hypnosis. She emphasizes the importance of clearly defined goals and the effective use of the 5-PATH Benefits Form as more than a checklist, but as a tool for ongoing clarification and refinement. By helping clients define goals in positive, specific, and measurable terms, hypnotists make success easier to recognize and future progression more effective. Revisiting and refining goals each session builds confidence, reinforces belief in hypnosis, and highlights progress. Clear goals, Flint concludes, empower clients to achieve lasting change and recognize the full value of their hypnosis experience.

• 4 Simple Questions to get you Unstuck in Age Regression

  In this article, Celeste Hackett offers practical guidance for hypnotists who feel stuck during age regression when a client reports no emotion in a childhood scene. She emphasizes staying calm, avoiding assumptions, and continuing to ask questions rather than abandoning the process. Hackett outlines four simple but powerful questions that help uncover hidden emotions, including repeatedly asking what is happening, what the child is doing, exploring others’ feelings in the scene, and her key question: “Are you feeling one hundred percent good?” This final question often reveals subtle emotions such as fear or nervousness, allowing the hypnotist to re-engage age regression and move the session forward effectively.

• The Importance of Your Professional Office Image

  In this article, Maureen Banyan emphasizes the importance of creating a professional office image for hypnotists. She explains that an impressive, clean, and comfortable office not only builds client confidence but also justifies higher session fees. First-time clients are often skeptical, so an office that conveys credibility helps establish trust before the session even begins. Banyan offers practical tips, including displaying credentials and client testimonials, maintaining a neutral theme, minimizing personal items, avoiding strong scents, and providing comfortable seating with soothing music. A professional office supports client confidence, enhances referrals, and sets the stage for successful hypnosis practice.

• The All Important Art of the Segue

  This article explains how generating insights in 5-PATH® hypnosis—through techniques like ICT, FOO, FOS, AR, AP, or PMT—helps clients shift emotionally and develop new, empowering beliefs. By using “put-an-ending-on-it” statements (e.g., “I’ve changed because now I know…”) the insight is crystallized, creating congruent feelings and firmly held subconscious beliefs. This produces a state of hyper-suggestibility, allowing direct suggestions to be accepted more easily. The Segue connects the insight and feeling to the client’s desired change, ensuring understanding, reinforcing transformation, and maximizing the effectiveness of the session.

• Top Ten Reasons Hypnotists Fail In Their Hypnosis Practice

  Maureen Banyan outlines the top reasons hypnotists fail in their practice, emphasizing that even well-trained graduates can struggle when starting out. Key pitfalls include lack of self-confidence, fear of being transparent about session needs, unpreparedness, conducting sessions with friends or offering free sessions, being overly “nice” or trying to befriend clients, failing to maintain professionalism, and neglecting spiritual or personal self-care. She stresses the importance of preparation, clear boundaries, professional presentation, and ongoing self-hypnosis practice, encouraging new hypnotists to avoid these traps to build a successful, respected 5-PATH® practice.

• TOP Stupid Reason You Aren't Doing Age Regression Yet

  Celeste Hackett addresses why many new 5-PATHers avoid Age Regression (AR), suggesting a kind of “AR phobia.” She emphasizes that clients don’t need to be deeply relaxed to enter somnambulism or progress in Phase 2; negative emotions are normal and part of the process. New practitioners often overthink client reactions, fearing emotional responses or believing total relaxation is required. Hackett encourages hypnotists to move confidently into AR once Phase 1 criteria are met, observe client responses without worry, and approach sessions as a relaxed, attentive guide rather than a controller.

• Pain and Breath

  Penny Chiasson emphasizes the power of the Traditional Relaxing Breath (TRB) in pain management and 5-PATH® hypnosis. TRB activates the parasympathetic nervous system via diaphragmatic breathing, reducing stress, heart rate, and sympathetic activity while increasing endorphins and relaxation. Teaching clients to use TRB with an anchor allows them to manage pain, stress, and emotions between sessions, building confidence and conditioning the body for calm. Chiasson’s experience demonstrates TRB’s effectiveness in reducing pain and enhancing hypnosis outcomes, especially when combined with 5-PATH® techniques.

• How To Handle Overly Concerned Parents of Young Clients

  Maureen Banyan advises hypnotists on managing overly concerned parents of minor clients. She emphasizes maintaining professionalism, asserting control, and ensuring sessions are confidential between the hypnotist and child. Parents should understand that being present can inhibit the child’s openness and focus. Hypnotists must clearly communicate boundaries, reinforce the importance of privacy, and prioritize the child’s needs over the parent’s instructions. In extreme cases, refusing the session may be necessary to protect the effectiveness and integrity of the hypnosis process.

• Why Clients Don’t Hallucinate the 5 Senses In A Regression – And Why That Is Just Fine With Us!

  Cal Banyan explains that all clients of normal intelligence in somnambulism can hallucinate during age regression, though the type and intensity vary. Hallucinating the thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors of the regressed child is more important than sensory hallucinations. Apparent inability often stems from incomplete somnambulism, misunderstanding instructions, partial emergence, or unwillingness to participate. Success requires proper pre-talk, induction, readiness testing, and clear guidance, ensuring clients follow instructions to fully experience revivification and gain the benefits of age regression.

• How to Skillfully Answer the Question - Are You Going to Make Me Cluck Like a Chicken?

  Erika Flint explains how hypnotists can skillfully respond to the common question, “Are you going to make me cluck like a chicken?” Such questions stem from stage hypnosis shows and media, creating misconceptions about hypnosis. Hypnotists should respond compassionately, educate clients, and clarify the difference between stage and office hypnosis. Emphasizing the purpose, primary versus secondary suggestions, and focusing on real-life benefits helps clients feel safe, understand hypnosis, and builds trust, all while respecting both the profession and client curiosity.

• Somatoform Pain Disorder

  Penny Chiasson explains that much chronic pain, especially back pain, often has no physical cause and is linked to depression, anxiety, or stress, known as somatoform or psychogenic pain. Emotional or physical stress can trigger muscle tension, myofascial pain, and spasms by activating the fight-or-flight response and reducing blood flow to muscles. Hypnosis, particularly 5-PATH®, helps clients recognize stress’s role in pain, release repressed emotions, and use techniques like relaxing breath or meditation to restore blood flow and relieve discomfort.

• Virtual Office Tour: Banyan Hypnosis Center Dallas Texas

  Cal Banyan’s virtual tour of Banyan Hypnosis Center showcases professional reception, hypnosis and business offices, recording and production areas, emphasizing client comfort, privacy, and inspiring 5-PATH® members to create welcoming, functional spaces.

• Reduce No-Shows and Increase Conversions with this Three-Step Process

  Erika Flint’s three-step process to reduce no-shows emphasizes engagement: schedule consultations soon, personally connect and confirm appointments, and send multiple personalized reminders, fostering client connection and increasing attendance and conversions.

• Case History: 7th Path™ to the Rescue

  A compliant smoking client became confused and stressed during later sessions. Using 7th Path™ self-hypnosis, she engaged with free video guidance, overcame stress reactions, and experienced profound emotional transformation and daily calm.

• Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome and 5-PATH®

  Working with CRPS clients requires careful evaluation, commitment, and systematic 5-PATH® hypnosis. Techniques include subconscious reprogramming, binds, DS, AR, and symptom bridges, addressing catastrophizing, mindfulness, and stress reduction to gradually reduce pain and improve function.

• “Ericksonian” Hypnosis and Forgiveness of Self

  Ericksonian hypnosis, foundational to NLP, shares strategies with 5-PATH®, including resource development, paradoxical techniques, reframing, and self-image change. 5-PATH® enhances these with direct subconscious reprogramming, emotion-focused work, and structured exercises like ICT and 7th Path® for deeper transformation and self-forgiveness.