To gain rapport with a subject is very easy. All you need to do is subtly copy a few of their actions. This sounds rather simple, and it is! But it is also very effective. The key point, as with the subliminal message, is to be as subtle as possible.

Do not mimic your subject, as they will quickly become offended. For example if your subject takes a sip of a drink, don’t mimic their every movement by suddenly taking a sip of your own drink, but rather lift your hand as if to scratch your chin. As they lower their drink keep the rapport by lowering your hand. If you are trying to gain rapport with somebody without them becoming aware make sure there is no possibility of them noticing that you are watching them. Gaining rapport with people is a very effective way of meeting people and making friends. When you have successfully gained rapport with somebody they subconsciously notice that you are a very similar person. Their mind seems to come up with the suggestion that, “That person is so like me. I must know them.” They don’t come up with this suggestion by themselves and not all of the suggestion actually gets through into their conscious awareness. In fact the only part that does is, “I know that person.” Eventually they come over and try to recall why they think they know you.

How many times has somebody come up to you in a nightclub and said, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I’ll bet you thought it was a cheap chat up line, but perhaps they did actually believe that they knew you. I can hear you saying now that this may have happened but, at the time, you were not out to gain rapport with this person. You´d probably not even heard of rapport. This may be the case. Rapport is a natural part of the mating game, we use it all the time to gain someone´s respect or admiration. In fact we are naturally so good at gaining rapport already that we are often unaware that we are doing it. Next time you go to a club watch the people who are dancing. You will easily be able to pick out who is trying to wins who´s heart. It can be quite entertaining to stand and watch as people follow each other around the dance floor copying one another.

So, now you know what rapport is, you need to be able to use it to your advantage whenever you induce hypnosis. Of course, you can always stay at the clubs and have a lot of fun practicing gaining rapport on a more social level. But, unfortunately this is not so financially rewarding as performing a hypnotic show.

The kind of rapport that is priceless to the hypnotist is to copy someone´s breathing. This is very simple and very effective. You do not need to match your own breathing to theirs to achieve this, as you could simply match your voice pattern. Everybody´s voice tone naturally goes up and down as they speak. All you need to do is match your voice tonality to the subject´s breathing. If you find this difficult you could simply raise and lower the fingers of one hand slightly to much the same effect. You may have noticed that you would have a great deal of trouble trying to match the breathing of several subjects all breathing at their own pace. This is another reason why I start my trance induction with the request that the subjects all take three deep breaths. This is usually enough to match everybody´s breathing pattern. If you are wondering, at this point, why you need to make the subjects feel as though they must know you. The simple answer to that is that you don’t. So, why is rapport so important? Well on it’s own it is not really all that important at all. Its only function is to create a kind of bond between the subjects and yourself. This makes the subjects trust you more and more likely to be able to relax and of course more likely to do what you request. This, although not essential, is however quite useful, and it’s best to take advantage of any means possible of ensuring a quick and successful induction.

The real beauty of rapport is that once you have created that bond with the subjects they suddenly become your followers. You can create rapport and then, using a process called pacing and leading, you can take your subjects to any state you desire. This is priceless to the hypnotist and I am sure you have already realized that you are able to first gain rapport with your subjects then, once you have matched your breathing you can deepen your own breath and they will shortly follow. This obviously is a great aid to inducing trance.