will chatgpt replace humans in the field of clinical hypnosis?

Artificial intelligence has been making its presence felt in every corner of the digital world, from composing music to writing term papers. But when it comes to crafting the perfect hypnosis script for a client, human hypnotists still hold the ultimate prize. While ChatGPT may be able to churn out a script or two, there are plenty of reasons why it just won't match up to the human touch. Buckle up, as we dive into the fascinating and informative world of AI-generated hypnosis scripts.

To give you my background, I’ve been a full-time Certified Personal Development Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist for over twenty-seven years. Frequently, people seek out my help when counseling, sports psychology or life coaching falls short of assisting in helping them to get unstuck. As a former software developer and engineer, I love the idea of anything new and “techie.” I wanted to see for myself what AI could do for me, my clinical hypnosis students, or my clients in my practice.

 

Overall here are my conclusions from the experience:

 

The Personal Touch:

The power of a personal hypnosis session when working in a one-to-one session lies in its ability to resonate and connect with the individual. ChatGPT, while highly advanced, is still just a machine, lacking that ever-elusive human element of personalized care that I believe makes all the difference in success with clients.

Every individual is unique, and so should their hypnosis suggestions. While ChatGPT is pretty good at producing generic scripts, it might struggle to capture the nuances that hold you back from creating new beliefs and behaviors. It might whip up a script about overcoming the fear of spiders, but it doesn’t have the tools to identify the root cause of your fear which can influence a hypnotherapist’s approach and be the lynchpin to whether or not your hypnosis is successful. In other words, it doesn’t know whether your fear is related to a real experience with a spider or the Brady Bunch episode where the tarantula crawls on Bobby’s chest and terrifies him and you! The two scenarios would call for two very different approaches to overcome the same fear.

 

Effective Verbiage:

A human can take specific verbiage and integrate it into the hypnosis session. The subconscious mind responds best to its own vocabulary and the meanings that one attribute’s to particular words and phrases that can make the hypnosis more acceptable to the subconscious mind. But ChatGPT's sentences are robotic. It might create a script that makes sense, but there's a good chance the lingo isn’t yours and some of the suggestions may even be disagreeable to you.

 

One of my students who is training with me to become certified in hypnosis is a former college basketball coach. We asked ChatGPT to write out a script to help a basketball player improve their shooting percentages. Several of the sentences used “incorrect and outdated basketball lingo” as she put it and many of them were phrased in the negative which is a huge “no-no” in the world of effective hypnosis.

 

The Power of Experience:

A good hypnotherapist and coach draw from their expertise, personal experience, and intuition. ChatGPT may have a wealth of data at its disposal, but it can't replicate the deep understanding that comes from years of professional experience where human behavior reveals patterns. Plus, AI hypnotists might struggle with everyday human experiences like waiting in line at the DMV, untangling headphones, or trying to find the end of a roll of tape. It's those little things that make us relate to each other as human, after all. And from my experience, people choose to get services, in part, because the person they hire appears to truly care.

 

The Art of Improvisation:

This one is huge!! During a hypnosis session, the ability to improvise is crucial. A human hypnotherapist can gauge reactions and adjust what’s happening in the session accordingly, and even throw in an impromptu joke to lighten the mood. ChatGPT, on the other hand, might just keep repeating the same script, stubbornly trying to tell you things that don’t resonate with you.

Conclusion:

While ChatGPT and other AI systems are powerful tools, they still have a long way to go when it comes to crafting truly impactful and personalized hypnosis scripts and looking at your situation as a whole. For now, human hypnotists continue to reign supreme, providing the empathy, personal touch, insight, experience, and improvisation that make hypnosis a transformative experience. So, until ChatGPT can truly understand the frustration of stepping on a jellyfish barefoot, we'll stick with our trusty human hypnotists.