When someone comes out of trance, we want to check with them to see what benefit they have had from the session and so it can be very helpful to ask a client, “What’s different now, compared with how you felt before we started?” This is a different question from, “Was that helpful?” because, if we say, “Was that helpful?” then the client in a position of having to decide if it was helpful or not, whereas when we say, “What’s different now?” there is an assumption that something’s different and then the client goes looking for those differences. 

Anything that the client says is different is something that we can explore with them to validate, congratulate them, to consolidate that and perhaps even invite them, after they leave the session, to be open to noticing how they can have more of that. If someone says, “I feel more confident than I did before,” or “I feel more comfortable than I did before,” or “I'm clearer than I was before we started the session,” then we can invite this client to be aware and notice anytime they're feeling confident, comfortable or clear. This helps to connect the hypnotic experience that happened in our presence to connect it with their life, which is of course, where they live. 

If we ask someone, “What’s different?” some people will, of course, say, “Nothing’s different.” And it’s so important to know that nothing is different. We can explore with them what was missing for them that would have made a difference and helps to clarify the direction, the focus for the next session. Rather than us assuming we’ve done a good job, everything’s fine, if we ask the client, this gives us a way of refining, clarifying and consolidating any benefits and anything that will then need to be done differently in subsequent sessions. 

One of the useful invitations I found for people is to remove the pressure by saying something like, “Don’t go too far with this. Don’t go too fast with this. Take your time with this. You’ve had that problem for all that time so it’s only sensible, it’s only to be expected that you're allowed to take some time to let that learning settle. So please be gentle with yourself and allow the changes to happen in their own time, in their own way, at their own pace.” I found it to be very useful to Invite someone to have that attitude to their change and it also takes the pressure off us. 

Finally, at the very end of the session, say, “Thank you.” There's something about the phrase ‘thank you’ that has a wonderful way of creating a completion. ‘Thank you’ can even be thought of as a declaration of completion. I've noticed that sometimes a client will say, “Thank you,” before I'm necessarily ready to stop, letting me know that they're ready to stop. 

‘Thank you’ then is a wonderful phrase that adds value to everything. If we say to a client, “Thank you for trusting me to be part of your resolution, thank you for trusting me for being part of your solving this problem that has been so troublesome to you,” it is a beautiful way to finish a session. And I invite you to try that and see what your experience is.