When the session is complete, all we need to do is to allow the client to shift their focus so that, instead of being focused on their likes and their connections, they can have a more usual way of focusing in the present time. 

We don’t have to have some kind of formal way of bringing someone out of hypnosis, like techniques that I learnt when I first learnt hypnosis, counting from 10 down to one, asking someone to walk up some steps and so on. But when we think of hypnosis as an experience that involves focus and absorption as an extension of the common everyday trance, then there's no need for any such formal proceedings. 

When someone’s reading a book and they get to the end of the book, they don’t need to do anything specific; or the end of a chapter, they don’t need to do anything specific to complete that. They just put the book down and then do whatever they need to do. They get up from the chair, move around and do whatever they need to do. I found that when we finished the hypnotic session, all we need to do is to invite someone, when they're ready to do what they need to do, to complete their experience. 

There is still a strange mood around hypnosis. And I really love what Erickson told me about a situation that happened some years ago. It was at a conference and a woman had volunteered to be a hypnotic subject. After the demonstration was finished, the therapist instructed her to come out of hypnosis and she wasn’t budging! They tried all kinds of things, counting, coming up stairs, giving indirect suggestions and so on. Nothing was happening and, after two hours, they started to get worried. 

Erickson was in the conference and we know that Erickson was always the go-to person whenever there was a problem. Erickson went up to this woman sitting in the chair in her own experience, sitting on the stage, and he leant over and made a couple of comments gently into her ear and then left. After about a minute or two, she suddenly opened her eyes, got off that chair and hurriedly left the stage. 

The people organising the conference were curious about what had happened and cornered Erickson and asked him, “What did you do? Did you give her a double bind? Did you give her an indirect suggestion? What was it that you did?”

Erickson said, “I didn’t do anything complicated. I just told her that, although she hadn’t had anything to drink for three hours, her kidneys were working and drip, drip, drip, slowly her bladder was filling up and, if she didn’t get off that chair soon, she might end up wetting her pants.” 

What I love about that story is that it demystifies the kind of weird thing about hypnosis as if it’s a general anaesthetic. 

I had a couple of personal examples myself. There was one woman, who was seeing me for a particular problem. I don’t even remember what it was now. It was a long time ago. And she complained about my fee and said that it was outrageously high. I agreed with her and said that I wouldn’t pay that amount, but in any case, she’d agreed, so that was the situation. The hypnosis happened and, at the end of the hour, she was not budging. There was someone else waiting in the waiting room and, because I knew she had a sensitivity about finances, I said to her, “Take all the time you need coming out of trance, but just be aware that the meter is ticking.” She opened her eyes very promptly. 

A man, who was very shy in the presence of women, at the end of the session, again, was reluctant to come out of hypnosis. I told him there was no need for him to hurry, but that there was a woman in the waiting room, who was my next client, and she would be coming in, in a moment. As long as he didn’t mind a strange woman sitting on his knee, he could stay there as long as he wanted. He opened his eyes very quickly. 

After Erickson, I think of someone coming out of hypnosis as being a very natural process. If someone is having some trouble in their life and we do some hypnotic work so that they're feeling better, it makes perfect sense to me that they might be reluctant to come out of the comfort that they experience in hypnosis into the relative discomfort of the reality. 

I hope these comments are somewhat helpful in demystifying the process of coming out of hypnosis in the same way that, when we think of hypnosis as an experience of focused absorption, as an extension of the common everyday trance, the process of inviting someone into hypnosis is also nothing special.