Robin Ijsseldijk
Ingrid, to set a baseline for my audience, could you share with someone who is completely new to your work how you got to this point in your career, and what hypnotherapy actually is?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
First I wanted to become a surgeon. It was my life, to do operations. But in the end they did not let me finish, because I am a woman and I could get pregnant. So I said, okay, I have to do something very different, and that is when I began to study psychotherapy at university. It is a large psychotherapeutic method, and hypnosis is another method I learned. Hypnosis is a therapy where the patient is in a special state, relaxed, but only a little relaxed. It feels like the moment before you fall asleep. You are still awake, you hear the telephone ring, but you are not interested, because you are that relaxed. You could move, you could get up, you could say no, but you are simply not interested. And what happens in the brain is that the frontal areas receive more blood, so the words of the therapist can reach the emotional centers of the brain and make changes there.
Robin Ijsseldijk
And what does it actually do to your brain? How does it reach the parts where you feel?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
It travels over my voice. My voice is translated into nerve transmission, as a kind of transport, and then it goes to the brain.
Robin Ijsseldijk
There is also a lot of stigma in your work. People think hypnosis might be a fairy tale. Through your lens, what is actually true about hypnosis, and what is an opinion people hold that is untrue?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Hypnosis is a scientific method that has been proven to be true. You can even demonstrate it medically, you can show on a map of the brain that the frontal areas hold more blood. And from our experience we know that it works. If I have a six-year-old boy who stutters, I do three treatments and he does not stutter anymore. Then you know it works. Or bed-wetting, children who still get wet at night. When they are five years old it is a big problem for them, you do hypnosis, and it stops.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Can you break down what happens in the moment you go into someone's subconscious, to the point where you pull them out of the dark and into healing? What happens in between?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
That question is difficult. We make a change in the frontal area. Even in the brain there are hormones and chemical substances that carry these transfers, dopamine and so on. So with words you reach the chemical circulation and make it different. Hypnosis makes you feel better afterwards because of these hormones.
Robin Ijsseldijk
And you activate them by speaking to their subconscious. Is there a specific framework, a sequence they need to hear, to reach that place between sleep and waking? Or does it simply happen unconsciously?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Of course it happens unconsciously. The important question is whether it works for everybody. What I know is that some people want to be treated but cannot, because they have fear. There are so many stories about hypnosis. If they carry that fear, it may not work in the beginning. So sometimes I do three sessions first, and only after about three therapies do I begin to really work, to change something in their behavior. You have to let the patient get to know the method first.
The Three-Session Rule
Fear blocks the subconscious. If you arrive tense or skeptical, the first attempt may not land, and that is normal, not failure.
Use the first sessions to get to know the process. Familiarity lowers the fear that keeps the door shut.
Real behavioral change usually begins around the third session, once the mind trusts the method enough to open.
Robin Ijsseldijk
So someone needs to actually be exposed to hypnotherapy to feel its effect. Is that correct?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Yes. But what they feel at the very beginning is that they feel better. You feel as if you have been on a long holiday, and everything is lighter.
Robin Ijsseldijk
One of the things you are known for is helping people who feel emotionally numb. What do you see as a leading cause that makes people feel numb in their emotions?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Many patients come with this problem, that they do not feel anything, and most of them feel it in their relationship, their marriage. They say, I do not feel anything, I do not feel music, if my husband touches me I do not feel it. And then they are very lonely in that situation. It is a very deep symptom. In hypnosis you can show them, at least in the beginning, that they can feel again. Then they know it is possible, because they had felt completely down, and when you do not feel, you do not want to live.
Robin Ijsseldijk
How does it come that people start feeling this way? Does something lead up to that point?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
There are two theories. Often these people never had a good feeling to begin with, because they did not learn it at home. Many times their parents were not emotional, they did not show their feelings. And the biggest problem is when what the parents show has nothing to do with their inside, then the child becomes completely confused. Then the child decides it is safer not to feel anything at all. As psychotherapists we say everything comes from childhood. A child needs love in the air, and loving behavior. If you tell a child I love you and then leave him alone, or put him in the cellar, that does not help, it only confuses him. What confuses people most is being punished when they did nothing wrong.
Come Back To The Body
We are trained to study, analyze and stay in our thoughts. Numbness often grows because we never return to the body.
Move your attention from the head down to the stomach, the belly, the skin. Feeling lives in the deeper, quieter part of you, not in analysis.
See, hear, smell, and feel your skin. Switching off the high functions of the brain is what lets the emotions come back online.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Do you think we should practice love, happiness, and the feeling of joy more? Because we often feel it should just be there, but I believe love should be practiced. If you did not practice what you do, at some point you would forget how it feels to run a hypnosis session. Does it work the same way with practicing love or happiness?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Yes, of course. It is the beginning. In the hypnosis you will see that it is very difficult to speak about feelings. My teacher always said we have no feelings because we learned so much to study and to go into our heads, and now we have to come back to our body, to our stomach, to our belly. That is what I want to do through hypnosis, to go back. In hypnosis there is no intelligence, none of the high functions of the brain, just the deeper part, the feelings.
Robin Ijsseldijk
A lot of people feel it is scary to simply be bored, or to be alone. But I think that is exactly the place you should operate in, to experience it in your body. Do you see people numbing themselves with external things, reaching for their phones, instead of practicing being alone?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Yes, that for sure is a problem. My own patients are more my age, over forty, so it is not so present in their lives. But for a younger generation it will be very important.
Practice The Feeling You Want
Love and joy do not simply appear. Like a session you stop rehearsing, an unused feeling fades. It has to be practiced.
Put yourself in the situations, quiet, boredom, being alone, where feeling actually has room to surface.
Each rep rebuilds the connection to your emotions, the same way three sessions rebuild trust in the method.
Robin Ijsseldijk
And when should someone actually reach out for hypnosis? What is a signal people often miss when they need subconscious healing?
Dr. Ingrid Rapatz
Almost anything can be the signal. Hypnosis is a very quick and easy instrument. If you do not feel well, if you have pain, if you carry fear, if you cannot feel your loved ones, anything like that, the moment you notice it, you can come and make a change with hypnosis. Children especially can be treated very well and very quickly.
Robin Ijsseldijk
That makes complete sense. Then let us go into preparation, because I think the best way to understand this is to actually witness it. We are going to meet you again in a moment, inside the hypnosis itself.
Three Guided Hypnosis Sessions
Follow along, or simply read. Each session is Dr. Ingrid's own voice, guiding you through a single theme. Select a demonstration below.
Demonstration 1, Numbness
Feeling Yourself Again
Hello. We have come together to practice hypnosis. Our first subject is numbness: not being able to feel yourself, not feeling love, not finding the flowers beautiful, having no feeling for your life. Now you will see how we do it in practice.
Find a comfortable position. You can always change it if something is uncomfortable, and beyond that, you cannot do anything right or wrong. Perhaps you listen to my words, perhaps your mind wanders elsewhere, because I am working with the unconscious. Just feel free, just be here. Look into my light with open eyes, and you at home, look at one point on your wall. Now close your eyes, and leave them closed. Be there, and breathe slowly. I will go with you through this hypnosis and let you feel calm and relaxed. One, two, three, four, five, six.
You are going to a very nice place in your mind. Perhaps you come with me to the seaside. Feel the ground, maybe sand, maybe stone, maybe a comfortable chair. Take your time and look at the sea, blue or mint or green, any color at all. Feel the wind and the sun on your skin. Your skin is here to protect you, it is your border. Perhaps you hear silence, the rhythmic sound of the sea, or some music. Let your muscles loosen, from your head to your neck, your shoulders, your back, your pelvis, your legs and your feet. Now the parasympathetic and the sympathetic become equal, and that is good for the feelings.
Breathe in the clean air of the sea, and let your lungs become wide. The oxygen reaches your lungs, and the blood flows to your heart. Have a feeling for your own heart, like loving yourself. Take a breath for your self-love, because it is very important. The blood flows on, through the stomach, the pelvis, the legs, the feet, the shoulders, the arms and the hands, up to the head where the unconscious lives. Feel your senses, that see, hear, feel and smell. Every cell in your body can heal, and become able to feel again.
Find a place on the beach where you always have security, comfort and freedom, and carry it with you everywhere you go. There is the possibility to let go of everything you no longer need, all the harm that was done to you. Give it to the sea and let it go, let it grow smaller and smaller and escape to the horizon forever. It is a good feeling, letting go of the heavy things.
Now go to the mirror of your life, at a moment where you can feel all your senses again. Tell your reflection: I am proud of what I am. I am proud of what I did, and I can feel with all my senses, because I want to. My conscious mind gave the order, and my unconscious will help me. Become one with that reflection, and go back to the beach. Feel that you only have to be there, and that you are okay, just being there, with all your senses.
Now take your time. We are at the end of the hypnosis. Breathe a little more, and look forward to what may have changed when you wake up. In your own rhythm, come back. Move your fingers and your legs. Open your eyes when you are here, take your time, and when you want, sit up. Come back completely before you do anything, and please do not drive a car. Take a nice moment, and notice whatever has changed.
The Mirror Of Your Life
Bring to mind a version of you that feels good, calm and alive, and stand in front of it as if it were a mirror.
Tell the reflection: I am proud of what I am, I am proud of what I did, and I choose to feel with all my senses because I want to.
State what should change when you return. The conscious mind gives the instruction, and the unconscious carries it out.
Set The Weight Down
On a long journey we keep packing hurts and old weight, and forget we are allowed to stop and unload.
Place what you no longer need into the ship, close it, and let it sail to the horizon. Letting go is a decision you can make.
Do not only avoid what you fear. Point yourself at the feeling you actually want, because that focus is what moves you forward.
Robin Ijsseldijk
Thank you, Dr. Ingrid, for opening this door and letting us witness it live. For everyone watching: feelings are meant to give a signal, not to stay. If any of these sessions moved something in you, take your time, make the product of your own conclusion, and I will see you next time on the channel.
© 2026 Robin Ijsseldijk. All rights reserved.