The All Important Art of the Segue

by Cal Banyan, MA, BCH, DNGH, A+CPHI, MCPHI, OB

The essence of 5-PATH® is insight. It is through this insight that we create hyper-suggestibility. When we pair the insight obtained in a hypnosis session, with suggestions that your client came in to receive, we have suggestions that can last a life time. We accomplish this through the artful use of the Segue.

Producing Insight First, let me cover the concept of insight. For our purposes, the “insight” generated in a session is a “knowing” that the client was not aware of at some level of consciousness. The most obvious example occurs when we do AR to the ISE, and then do the ICT. In this case, the Adult aspect of the client goes back in time hypnotically and tells the child what she needs to hear in order to remove a fear that is based on erroneous understanding of a situation (ICT). This knowledge provides the child with insight, and this insight changes the child emotionally. In the case of working to remove fear, the fearful child is now feeling safe and secure.

This also occurs when doing FOO or FOS. As part of the forgiveness process, specifically the process of taking your client through the 10 Keys to Forgiveness, powerful insights are obtained. For example, in FOO, insights produced may include, my mother did love me, or she did not mean to take away my self-confidence, she was just trying to help me.

In FOS sessions, your client discovers that the Mistake-Making Part is really the Protective Part, and that all of the intent was good, and that the negative behaviors were a result of faults in her upbringing.

Finally, powerful insights also occurs in PMT when clients go through the mediation process and learn that the bad habit or whatever was not important to them, but rather the way it fulfilled a need, want or desire. The example from class is the marijuana smoker who has the insight that it was not the smoking of the marijuana that was important to her, but rather how it made her feel, such as, feeling relaxed or better able to have fun and socialize. Once that insight has been revealed, then she can focus on other ways to fulfill that need without the negatives associated with marijuana smoking.

Crystalizing Insight Some clients are more “insightful” than others. Some are more able to recognize and utilize the insights gained during a hypnosis session. This is why we must make this insight obvious to them and how they shift, how they feel and what they can successfully do from this point on.

This is why I developed and teach these “put-an-ending-on-it statements”.

When our hypnosis clients put an ending on those statements they are turning what may be a rather unclear insight into one that is crystal clear. Notice that it starts off with “…now I know…” not “…now I believe…” Phrased as these statements are, they become very powerful hypnotic suggestions to your client from your client. This create beliefs in the subconscious mind. Once that belief has been seated in the subconscious mind, it will be protected by the protective function of the subconscious mind, just like all of the other beliefs.

Hyper-Suggestibility Now that we have this new “knowing”, the subconscious mind of the client instantly accepts it as true. It becomes a new firmly held belief because it is empowered by the new feeling that was produced by the insight. These two things, the knowing and the feeling are perfectly congruent and reinforces each other.

As this new belief is accepted, the mind / brain must reorganize around it. For a short period of time, probably, the entire length of the hypnosis session, your client is in a state of what I named, Hyper-Suggestibility. The mind easily accepts suggestions that are consistent with this new knowing, feeling an ability to succeed.

The Segue Just as all the above has been accomplished, you want to immediately move on to the Segue. The segue is how the benefits of the new knowing, feeling and ability to succeed are directly connected to direct suggestion (DS) for the change that the client came in to experience.

If you leave out the segue, it is quite possible that you can go through all the work of generating the insight through AR, AP, FOO, FOS or PMT and your client not understand why you had her go through that very personal, revealing and often, emotionally painful work in order to help her lose weight, stop smoking, stop biting her nails, or whatever.

Without the Segue, some clients will not put it all together and they may even be angry with you for doing that high-level personal work with them.

And by the way, those who are insightful and maybe, would not need the Segue into DS, but, still always benefit from having the process delivered to them in a skillful and artful way.

The Segue goes like this, “Now that you know (whatever the new knowing is) and you feel (whatever the new feeling is) you are now able to accept these suggestions more powerfully than ever and so now you (DS for whatever she came in to do along with the benefits that she expect to receive from making the change).

Here are a couple of examples of the Segue:

1. Now that you know that your mother always loved you and there is nothing wrong with you, you now feel confident, and now you move forward in your life in a confident way, reaching your goals of… (add DS and benefits).
2. Now that you know your father had no idea how to parent because his parents did not do their job, you understand that he was just doing the best he could and that he always wanted the best for you. So now your old useless feelings of anger are gone, they have been replaced by the ability to love your father. Your feelings of self-worth are growing and filling you completely. So now you are ready, willing and able to make this next step in your life, to become the leader you have been called to be (add DS and benefits).

Putting It All Together 5-PATHers who truly understand and utilize the Segue as I explained it here, are truly 1%ers in our profession. They are the best of the best, the “Special Forces” in our profession. Yes, there are an army of hypnotists out there, we 5-PATHers are among the best of the best, able to get results when everyone else would fail.

As 5-PATHers, we use the insight generating techniques in 5-PATH®, and then crystalize those insights into powerful beliefs that cause the reorganization of the subconscious mind around that new knowing. This creates a state of hyper-suggestibility, which is immediately and powerfully utilized, but attaching suggestions to that change by using the Segue to DS and the expected benefits of making the change that your client came in to achieve.

Yes, the Segue is an art. It is highly creative and unique to each and every client. Refine this art and you and your clients will experience unsurpassed success!