What Is Humanist Hypnosis?
- Jean-Dominique POUPEL
- Nov 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 6
Introduction
Humanist Hypnosis represents an evolution in the field of hypnosis.
It is not a practice based on sleep-inducing techniques but, on the contrary, on techniques of awakening.
It invites an expanded presence, a state where consciousness does not fall asleep but opens up.
There is no loss of awareness — rather, there is a heightened awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings.
Its goal is to reunify, to create a state of full consciousness that allows the ideal conditions for change, evolution, and active, conscious healing.
An Approach Born from a Reversal
Unlike traditional forms of hypnosis (Ericksonian, Classical, or New Hypnosis), which dissociate the conscious and the unconscious and induce a “hypnotic sleep state,” Humanist Hypnosis works the other way around: it unites the conscious and the unconscious, creating an augmented consciousness.
It could be described as an “elevation in trance.”
The Humanist Hypnotic State is a state of Awake Hypnosis, where the person is both “here and elsewhere” — simultaneously connected to the external world and their inner world.
It’s like sitting astride a window frame, one half of the body inside, the other outside, present in both spaces at once.
Being connected to one's unconscious is not a common state, since we naturally tend to dissociate — for example, when absorbed in a book or a movie, daydreaming, driving, or falling asleep.
That’s why the first experiences in Humanist Hypnosis often feel surprising — both simple and unusual.
It’s as if you were discovering a new ability, or awakening a latent one.It takes personal time, learning, and exploration.
“You don’t heal someone — you help them remember they are whole.”
The Central Role of Consciousness
In traditional hypnosis, the client enters a dissociated altered state of consciousness and responds to the therapist’s suggestions and interventions directed toward the unconscious.
In contrast, during Humanist Hypnosis sessions, clients are in an Awakened Altered State of Consciousness.
They are connected to themselves, aware of their unconscious, and therefore the decision-makers.
The Humanist practitioner acts as a pedagogue — offering guidance, helping individuals “reunite within themselves by awakening to greater awareness, and becoming the conscious agents of their own change.” (Olivier Lockert, co-founder of Humanist Hypnosis)
Clients are no longer subject to external suggestions - only to their own choices.
Guided, they find their own solutions, adapt to what arises, and heal themselves.
They become the actors of their transformation, responsible and active in their evolution and healing — all in full consciousness.
In this sense, Humanist Hypnosis is a philosophical reversal:
Instead of suggesting, we help people see.
The hypnotic state becomes a mirror of lucidity.
The person is not fragmented — they are whole, complete, self-aware, and connected.
It is pedagogy of being; one that integrates the person at all levels:
Physical and instinctive (body)
Emotional and relational (heart)
Intellectual and mental (mind)
And, when relevant, spiritual (soul and consciousness).
A Method for a Conscious Era
At a time when psychology and spirituality are meeting again, Humanist Hypnosis unites the two — without dogma.
It speaks as much to the scientist as to the artist: to some, it offers keys; to others, wings.
Whatever the field, Humanist Hypnosis works both with concrete reality and with the subtle world — psyche, symbolism, archetypes, dreams, information, morphogenetic fields, the matrix, and more...
Thanks to the work of Patricia d’Angeli (co-founder of Humanist Hypnosis), this approach draws on the knowledge and symbols of Jungian psychoanalysis, renewed and made practical.
It is through this symbolic framework that Humanist Hypnosis distinguishes itself, allowing each person to perceive — in usable form — the mechanics that shape their personal reality.
Everything — thoughts, emotions, impulses, habits — become visible in symbolic language.
Because one is conscious of their unconscious, they enter a symbolic representation of their inner world.
They communicate with the unconscious using its own language: the symbol.
Symbols and archetypes thus become faithful perceptions of real, subtle information.
Humanist Therapy, through this symbolic and archetypal process, is a form of psychic alchemy.
It allows a person to consolidate their thoughts and ideas, making them almost tangible, which enables change to take place.
It is, in a sense, a conscious re-modeling of the person’s inner matrix — their “human form,” the essence we call the soul.
In Humanist Hypnosis, symbolic therapy always aims to treat a person, not a disease.
Conclusion
Humanist Hypnosis is the rediscovery of a simple truth:
Full consciousness — the union of the conscious and the unconscious — is not a therapeutic tool.
It is a direct connection to the source of each person’s innate power of healing and transformation.
→ Discover our sessions and workshops at OdysseeHumaniste.com
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