Free Practitioner Resource
The Deepener Toolbox
A working set of deepeners, with the exact wording for each. Take any subject from the edge of trance into the deep end.
Most change work that fails to stick is not a technique problem or a personal failing. It is a depth problem. The induction gets your subject to the edge of the pool, hanging over the water but not quite in. A deepener is the small nudge that puts them in the deep end, where a suggestion can actually land. Always deepen with adults. Never settle for a shallow trance when a much better one is sitting right below it.
How to use this toolbox
- Keep them short. A deepener is twenty seconds to a couple of minutes, not a thirty minute drone. Long, droning inductions bore people into a shallow state, the opposite of what you want.
- Stack two or three. Each deepener your subject fulfils makes the next one land harder. Cascade a few, then go to work.
- Kids are the exception. Between about seven and twelve they drop straight in and never need deepening. Adults always do.
1 The deepeners Title · how it works · what to say
1
The Shoulder Press Physical
Pre-frame it first. Have the subject take a slow deep breath in, and only then rest your hands on their shoulders and press down gently as they breathe out. The breath comes before your hands, not after. Fast and tactile, the whole thing is twenty to thirty seconds.
In a moment, take a slow deep breath in for me. And as you breathe all the way out, I will press down on your shoulders, and you will go twice as deep.
2
The Arm Drop Physical
You do all the lifting, never the subject. Take the hand a few inches by the thumb, then let it go so it drops loose and limp into their lap. If it does not splat straight down, they are not relaxed enough yet, so deepen more and repeat. Taught in full in the Elman induction lessons.
In a moment I will lift your hand by the thumb, just a few inches, and when I let it go it drops all the way down, and you go deeper still.
3
Fractionation Repetition
The workhorse deepener built into the Elman induction. Take the subject up and back down, eyes open and eyes closed, several times, and each time the eyes close they double their relaxation. Every fulfilment deepens the last. Deliver it with intention and expect it to work. Works in person and online.
In a moment, open your eyes. And now close them down, and go twice as deep. That is it, deeper every time your eyes close.
4
The Staircase Visual
Count them down a short flight of stairs, ten steps, not five hundred, each step one level lower and more relaxed. This is your counting-down deepener too: pair the numbers with an exhale to strengthen it.
Ten steps down, and with each step you drift deeper. Ten, nine, deeper still, eight, all the way down.
5
The Breathing Shift Breathing
The most powerful deepener there is. Guide slower, deeper breathing, and breathe along with them to run the rapport loop. Change the breathing, change the physiology, change the state. The quick version is a single cued breath: in, hold, slow exhale, deeper on the out-breath, and it stacks onto any other deepener here.
Take a deep breath in, hold it a moment, and as you exhale slowly your breathing settles, deeper and slower, sinking you further with every breath.
6
The Ring, Make It Theirs Involvement
Borrow an object, hand it back once their eyes are closed, and as they return it to their finger they go twice as deep. Mike invented this on the spot with a client named Andrea. It works because the subject is the one doing it, which is why involvement deepeners land so hard.
As you slide the ring back onto your finger, that small movement takes you twice as deep.
2 The rules that make any deepener work
ABC, Always Be Calibrating. Watch your subject, not a sheet of paper. The deepener is working when you see the trance indicators deepen, a head tilt, a sigh, slower breathing.
Involve them. The more the subject does the work, the deeper they go. Anything they carry out themselves lands harder than anything you do to them.
Add a breathing shift to anything. Slower, deeper breathing intensifies every deepener on this page. Layer it in and watch the state drop.
Believe it first. Your subject will not actualise what you do not believe to be true. Expect the deepener to work, and it shows up in your tone of voice.
Do not overshoot. For change work you want a strong, responsive somnambulism, not a subject taken so deep they stop responding to you.
Ready to build this skill for real?
Knowing the deepeners is step one. Running them live, stacking them, and calibrating a real subject is what makes them automatic. MMHA is the only hypnosis training built around 11+ live, facilitated practice rooms every single week, the piece almost every certification leaves out.
$1 Try the entire Academy for $1Practice rooms and all. Start your trial at mikemandelhypnosis.com/join-mmha
The Deepener Toolbox
Mike Mandel Hypnosis