Introduction

This week, I talk with Terence Schmidt. Terence is an erotic hypnotist and a hypnotherapist who specializes in sexual dysfunction and with a kink friendly approach. Terence Schmidt, welcome to Super states. We met back at Hypno thoughts way back in August of 2023 and I was excited to get you on the show. Tell us what you do, how it makes a difference for people?

All right, so I started out in erotic hypnosis and was working with a lot of people, just to, you know, show them a good time, take them into trance, have some fun, and made a bunch of recordings with that. And then the next thing you know, I’m getting emails from people that tell me that my recordings have not only just showed them a good time, but also helped them to accept their own sexuality and grow in many ways. And that was a surprise to me. Another fellow mentioned that he overcame erectile dysfunction with my erotic hypnosis recordings. So that was a surprise. And then of then I started getting into more and more training, and got certified as a hypnotist, and started coming out to things like Hypno thoughts and learning everything I could. And now I’m moving into the realm of actually helping, deliberately helping, people with hypnosis, not just accidentally. And yeah, now I’m working on a course with a sex therapist for helping people with erectile dysfunction using a combination of her teaching the way you would normally teach people, you know, spoken word, and with me taking them into trance to help them change on a deeper level.

Erotic Hypnosis Explained

Okay, so we just got kind of a big, a big picture there of what you do. I want to bring it back to maybe kind of where you started. So you you started as an erotic hypnotist. Can you please describe what that is for somebody who’s listening, who doesn’t know what that is,

okay. That’s, as you know, hypnosis can be used in a lot of ways. The way that most people are familiar with it is either a show, we take people up on stage and just have some fun with them, and it’s it’s funny, and people have a great time, or the, you know, the classic, taking people into trance to help them solve a problem, weight loss, confidence, stop smoking, that sort of thing. Erotic hypnosis is more like the a little bit more like the stage show hypnosis, where the point of it is to just show people a great time, and that can be hypnotizing them to imagine and imagine themselves in a hot scene, or to just feel something very, very strongly. You can do things. The first thing I ever did was put a clit on a woman’s forehead, and she could feel the, exactly what you would feel from a clit on your forehead. That was, that was actually the point at which I said, Okay, I gotta, I gotta do this more often. It’s just too much fun not to, huh?

Where did you learn about erotic hypnosis? Is that something that you just start playing with?

Well, I read some books on just doing ordinary hypnosis. I didn’t start out reading about erotic hypnosis. I just read regular hypnosis books and said, Okay, you know if you can, if you can make somebody feel this or feel that? That. And you can do things like putting a glit on a woman’s forehead, or, you know, any, any sort of thing with it. Hypnosis is hypnosis. You can do 1000 different things with it. And then I started doing 1000

Then you started getting people to have results, unexpected results, just from listening to your erotic hypnosis technique. So what do you think was up with that?

Well, just the going into the altered state of trance, it gives people a real opportunity to examine things on a deeper level gives people an opportunity to get more comfortable with parts of themselves that maybe they weren’t too comfortable with. Changes happen sometimes just trance itself can be very therapeutic and give people an opportunity to make changes.

Journey to Hypnotherapy

And then you started getting your certification, then as a hypnotherapist, did you have, did you have your own hypnotic experience as you went through this process.

Oh yeah, yeah, I go into trance more often than I go into trance, very often. A lot of self hypnosis, a lot of hypnosis in the mike Mandel hypnosis Academy practice rooms where we’re practicing with each other. And I’ll go into trance half the time and take people into trance half the time. So I get a lot of practice that way. And then when I went to Hypno thoughts live, I had some of the best people in the world taking me into trance and and helping me with things. So that was I spent that whole I spent that whole week in trance. Basically,

I think as as hypnotist, most of us are pretty good at going into trance. So when you go into a situation like that one, I know, one year at Hypno thoughts, I was working with a woman who was brand new and was really worried that she wasn’t going to be able to take me into hypnosis, which, as you know, when, as we’re doing this kind of work, all you really have to do is take a breath and we’re there.

Yeah, that’s it. Well, you know, that’s it. Was. Mike Mandel was, yeah, it’s a terrible you got to know the territory. Yeah, for sure. Sorry, Mike Mandel,

Was Mike Mandel, was that your  initial foray into hypnotherapy?

Into actually a structured program of learning how to do things like before that I had read books, so a little of this, a little of that, but never a we’re going to work you through from from beginner level to all the way up to knowing how to run a practice and help people with a bunch of different Types now. So that was my thorough grounding, and hypnosis

Got it. And what would you say has changed the most about how you’ve worked from when you started until now?

Oh, there’s just so much more understanding of exactly what’s going on. Not to mention, I’ve been learning many more techniques and modalities and ways of doing hypnosis. But the thing that’s happening most is as I learn all these things and as things stack up, one on top of the other, is that now it’s it’s getting more clear. So I’m getting a much more clear idea of how to take somebody from, you know, this point where they’re not getting the results they want change the trance that they’re already in. Because everybody, you know, people are in trance all the time. They just don’t realize that it’s not a very good trance, and then taking that and changing it into a trance that works for them, and making the making the change happen, and getting them where they need to be. So that’s that’s a lot easier now, whereas before, it was more shooting in the dark.

And what are your favorite types of techniques that you might use with someone.

Depends what month you catch me on, because I’m always learning. I’m always getting super excited about the new thing I’m learning right now, as of today, and this past month, it’s been Timothy, September. Enter the loop training, which I got in as soon as he said he was training, because I’ve talked to him before and just been blown away by his ability and say he works with the mike Mandel hypnosis Academy as a coach, and his enter the loop training is all about this idea of we create our experiences in a loop that starts with you’ve got, if you, if you’re doing, if you’re looking at the loop on a piece of paper, it looks like you got belief feeling. A belief leads to a feeling. A feeling leads to No, I’m sorry. A belief leads to an imagining. And imagining leads to a feeling. Feeling leads to a whole life experience, not a life experience, that, in turn, reinforces the belief. And as that loop continues spinning, whatever it is that a person is trapped in is getting stronger and stronger. The trap gets stronger, you see, but, yeah, enter the loop teaches you how to go into that, identify that loop that’s happening, make subtle changes in it, and bit by bit, turn it into a loop that now brings a person into a place where it’s the place they want to be, not the place they were trapped in. Amazing stuff, and you don’t, you don’t take into you don’t take people into traditional trance with that you’re having a conversation. But from time to time, you’ll see them kind of stare off into space for a bit, and there’s processing going on, just as it would be if you had them into in a super deep trance.

I like that. The more that I do this work too, the more that I realize how easy that is to help people make changes without having to go into, you know, what you think of as a hypnotic trance, because, to your point, we’re essentially in and out of trance states all the time.

Yeah, exactly

BDSM, Growth and Trance States

One of the things that I was really interested in talking with you, is your experience in helping people access the the lifestyle that they’re looking for within the BDSM community, and and using your your hypnotic tick recordings, essentially to help them find something within them. And and it makes me think of the amount of growth that a lot of people go through as they’re exploring the BDSM world, which also has its own type of trance, right? Whether it’s sex or or subservience or domination or pain or whatever it is like, there’s lots of different types of trans states that you can access? Yeah, I’m trying to find out what my question is around that, because that’s really fascinating. So I guess to me, what, what are, what have you found with people? What are some of the changes that people have gone through as you’ve been working with them in these different types of trance states?

Well, yeah, first to get into the trance state that is, that is a thing that’s, you know, when you’re doing, when you’re experienced with taking people into subspace, which is where the sub goes into when on the top is is doing their thing, and they’re having the sub is having this wonderful experience at the bottom. Or whoever it is that’s on the, you know, getting whipped, getting tied up, and getting down on their knees and all that stuff. That person is getting into a very altered state of mind, so much so that one of the rules in BDSM is you can’t negotiate with somebody when they’re in subspace. It’s just like, you know, getting consent from somebody to have sex with them when they’re super drunk, high on drugs, you don’t do that. It’s not meaningful consent. That’s how that’s how much of an altered state it is. They’re in an altered state. It’s a little bit different than hypnotic trance, but not terribly different. And being in that altered state, like I said before, just being in an altered state, can have a tremendous therapeutic result, and it’s a lot of letting go of ego stuff. Of all the masks we wear, you’re being exactly who you really are on that in that point in time, and at the same time the top is also having an altered state. We talk about going into top space, just as there is a. Space. There’s a DOM space, a headspace where you’re you’re active, you’re running the show, you know, but at the same time, you’re getting in touch with another part of you. And as this part comes out, you get to experience this more and more, and it’s just like the way that they you know, you’ll you’ll find sometimes an experienced Dom has become somebody who’s a lot more a lot more confident, a lot more sure themselves, a lot less needing to prove anything. That’s it. They’re doing it right? Some of them not so much. But it can be tremendous vehicle for growth. So either side of the whip you’re on, it can be quite a vehicle for increased confidence, greater relaxation, just a sense of having it, having a calm to your life now, how is my work doing that? Well, I’m taking people into subspace. I’m taking them into levels that they’ve not accessed before, and as I do that, things change for them. The deeper they go into the stuff, the more the changes happen. And can be a wonderful thing for people.

So this kind of goes back to what you initially started with, how you the erotic hypnosis was starting to bring changes for people just because they were entering an altered state, and by being in that state, it starts to allow changes to happen.

Yeah, it’s kind of like you’re going deep inside. Well, cool, we’ll say it’s a basement for purposes of a metaphor. You know, everybody’s got this kind of basement in their mental house. What a lot of doors that they haven’t opened, and those things that are behind those doors, they may be having effects on a person’s life, but until they open those doors, they’re not seeing what effects those things are having. They’re not able to interact with those things. They’re not able to change those things. You start opening those doors. Things start to change. A person has a more full understanding of who they are, drives that used to be pushed down, ignored, suppressed. You know, suppression is a terrible thing for a person. Suppress a desire, and it bubbles up in ways that are quite uncomfortable or can be. You know, you look at the the priests in the Catholic Church who aren’t allowed to have a sexual expression. And you know, the more, more and more information is coming out on how that’s worked out. And it hasn’t worked out terribly well for them early, some of them. So, yeah, suppression, it’s not a good thing. You start accepting things more and more, you go into these altered states where you open up those doors and find a healthy outlet for them, which is, you know, that’s what BDSM is all about. It’s about finding healthy outlets for drives that could very easily lead to unhealthy habits. So for unhealthy means of expression. So we’re finding healthy means of expression for those things in the BDSM community. So yeah, you’re opening those doors, finding ways of embracing and expressing these things in a healthy fashion. Of course, it’s having an improve, an effect on you.

New Programs and Collaborations

I know that you are now moving into using you’re working with a sex therapist, and together, you guys are creating some different programs. Why don’t? Can you tell us a little bit about these programs that you’re you’re working up?

Yeah, yeah. The first one, the one we’ve got in in progress right now, is for erectile dysfunction, helping people with erectile dysfunction, because the majority of people with erectile dysfunction, it’s a psychological thing. It’s not a not a physical thing. The standard rule of thumb is, if a person can get a hard on, and, you know, masturbate, for instance, to orgasm, then it’s, it’s probably going to be a psychological thing. Something that we can help. You know, a person might wake up in the morning with a heart on, or they might, you know, watch porn and get a heart on and be able to be able to stroke and get off, but they’re having trouble getting it up with with a lover. That’s something that we can work with. So and that’s like 80% of the people, and more, with erectile dysfunction. So what we’re doing is she’s doing the spoken, you know, regular training that’s working on the the conscious mind, helping a person to understand things. So things like, you know, the fact that it’s incredibly common, and helping get rid of the shame and the the trauma from it, figuring out things that a person can do, figuring out ways of looking at one’s life and one’s experiences, to reframe them in a way that works. And then I’m going in with the hypnosis and working on a deeper level, on the level of the unconscious, where a lot of these things it’s a lot more easy to clear these things up on the unconscious level. You know, it’s like solving a plumbing problem. To use the basement metaphor again, sometimes you got to go down the basement, turn off the water if you’re going to solve a plumbing problem, sometimes you got to route new pipes. There’s a lot of things that can be done in a basement, very hard to do any upstairs. You know, that’s one of the reasons that psychotherapy takes so damn long, is because they’re working in the place where the problem isn’t. They’re not going where the problem is. They’re talking to the conscious mind, and the problem is deep in the unconscious. And that’s where, you know, that’s one of those things that’s that’s why a therapist can take 10 years to work on something that a hypnotist might work on for four or five sessions and be done with. We go with the problem is. So that’s what I’m doing with the with the course, and of course, you know, making hypnosis starting bread and butter for 12 years. So, yeah, I’m kind of good at that.

Go with your strengths, as they say, right? Yeah. Then what are the other I know that there’s some other, something, some upcoming ideas. Can you share what? Yeah, might be next.