A typical hypnotic session consists of four stages. These are induction, deepening, suggestion, and awakening.

People whose thinking faculties are normal, and have the ability to maintain a reasonable level of concentration, can be inducted into hypnosis without any difficulty. Finger interlocking method, palm induction, or eye fixation induction are some of the methods by which a subject is inducted into hypnotism. For example when using the eye fixation method, the subject is asked to keep the eyes fixed at a selected point and not to shift attention. As the eyes remain riveted there, the hypnotist encourages him to go on relaxing and to close his eyes.

Once the patient is inducted into hypnosis, the therapist continues to increase the level of relaxation, exhorting him to relax one body part after another, and also uses certain tests to check the depth of hypnosis. This is the stage of deepening. Once the hypnotist is convinced that the patient has acquired the required depth of hypnosis, he makes the suggestions required to rid the patient of the problem he is suffering from. This is the stage of suggestion or actual therapy.

Awakening, or returning to the conscious stage, is quite simple and is achieved with facility by all hypnotists. The most common method that hypnotists use for making people come back is counting from one to three, one to ten, etc. Sometimes, while being taken back to prior stages of life, a subject may become extremely uncomfortable. In such instances, the therapist may bring him back instantly to the conscious state with a sudden handclap or a shout.