As Clinicians who use hypnosis, we are always very clear that we consider ourselves to be excellent communicators. We pay a lot of attention to our verbal, and non verbal skills, especially during hypnosis sessions. 

But what about when we are teaching or delivering other information? 

There are many strategies for delivering information, and one classification that I really like is “p3 presentations”, devised by a paediatric surgeon. http://ffolliet.com/ I think this applicable to us all – whether we’re teaching self hypnosis after a formal session, talking about hypnosis to a group of 1000, or feeding back on presentations. Lets have a look at each section first. 

p1 – the message
The message or learning aim is the first consideration. Do you want to teach people everything about hypnosis? Unlikely – so why waste time diluting your primary message? If you’re talking about an introduction to hypnosis, and aiming to get people to book on a foundation course, why give them all the skills already? 
During a hypnosis therapy session, the same principle applies – you could do ego boosting, and relaxation, and visualisation etc. during every session – but does that dilute the original message? 

p2 – the supportive media
This is a great heading, as you note it doesn’t specify powerpoint at any point! As excellent communicators, I suspect this is the area we all need to work most on. We know that when communicating people respond to all senses – especially visual and auditory. If the visual and auditory systems are in conflict, confusion can occur, and the supportive media no-longer becomes supportive, but instead- distracting. There’s evidence to suggest that when we are presenting, and “read our slides out” students retain much less than if we just put the slides up (aka we’re not needed) or if we just talked (aka slides not needed). If we use slides to support our message, they must be supportive -and not distracting. But we don’t have to use slides. We can use a flip chart, or games, or even, just the power of speech, and ourselves. 
But where does this come into hypnosis? I think our supportive media for a hypnosis session is the environment, and room. Some of us can’t do a lot about our rooms – but if they are noisy, we can use that to our advantage and make the noise supportive. “Every noise you hear will make you go deeper and deeper.” What supportive media do you use? 

p3 – the delivery
Delivering a presentation is a performance. Whether you believe your p1 or not, you need to make the audience believe you do. And the same with hypnosis. If you don’t believe in hypnosis, how are your patients or clients ever going to believe in what you say? When your passion and belief is apparent, your results will be magnified. 

And that’s p3. Not just three individual components in insolation, but three components that when increased, magnify and improve every aspect of a presentation. And I believe, they are applicable to hypnosis. 

For further details on p3 and presentation skills, have a look at http://ffolliet.com/. For ideas about games in education, look at http://www.the-emec.com/.