The Mind Model
The Primitive Mind
The primitive mind is part of the subconscious mind. It is the part that regulates your normal body functions and ensures that they continue to work at all times, even when you are asleep. It can function as the beating of your heart, a continuation of your breath, blood flow, and so forth. The primitive mind also ensures that your immune system continues to function so that your body can fight disease. It also has instinctive functions including your autonomic and fight or flight responses and is responsible for your evolved learning and genetic heritage. All of these functions operate independently and automatically, ensuring your continued existence and safety without having to think about anything of these things.
The Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind determines who you are, what you are, what you believe in, and what your morals and values are. It is a level of awareness that you don’t have easy access to. It comprises 95% of your mind. It is the area where all your emotions, beliefs, values, habits, memories, traumas, and fears, from both this life and lives before it, are kept. Imagine your subconscious mind as if it is an organic computer. It is programmed in a similar way and must work according to the input it has been given from the moment you were born in this life and sometimes even from lives previous to it. You are the sum total of everything that has happened to you and everything you have ever done in your life. You are who you are because of all the unique life experiences you have been through. The subconscious mind does not make any judgment. It simply stores your beliefs. Once an idea or a thought gets into your subconscious mind, it becomes your reality and is reflected in your behaviour. If you believe you are inadequate, you will operate from that belief, making it difficult for you to live your life fully. If you believe that you are adequate and able, you will be able to accomplish whatever you set your mind to. The subconscious mind is the storehouse for your feelings and emotions. They are automatic responses; reactions to any ideas and concepts that you believe are true.
The subconscious mind is where all of your habits are stored. Habits are actions that have been ingrained and reinforced by way of your experiences and beliefs. Your subconscious mind is also responsible for your permanent memory. Anything that has happened to you in your life is never forgotten even though your conscious mind might not always have access to it. In hypnosis, the hypnotherapist can take you back and have you recall and even re-experience events very early in childhood. It is all stored in the permanent memory within your subconscious mind. When you allow yourself to relax, the conscious mind goes into neutral, allowing the hypnotist to bypass the critical mind. Therefore, the conscious mind does not analyze anything it receives through the five senses and all the suggestions, words, and imagery provided by the hypnotherapist enter directly into your subconscious mind, allowing resolution. Once we find the cause, the hypnotherapist and the client work together as a team to correct the problem and change the core belief within the subconscious mind.
The Conscious Mind
The conscious mind comprises 5% of the total area of the mind. It is objective, logical, and analytical. It retains information about feelings and events for up to 1.5 hours before releasing it to the critical mind for analysis. The conscious mind analyses problems you might have and figures out how to handle them. It takes in information from the senses, determines whether a situation is good or bad, and then decides on the best way to approach it. Sometimes your previous experience does not relate at all to the new situation and you may come up with a solution based on incomplete or inaccurate information. The conscious mind is also the rational part of your mind that tries to find reasons for the things you do. Finally, it is the part of you that is responsible for your short-term memory that is required for daily life.
The Critical Mind
The critical mind is part of the conscious and subconscious mind, encompassing 5% of the total area of the psyche. Information is held up to 24 hours before it is released to the subconscious mind during sleep or hypnosis. The critical mind acts as your gatekeeper; it determines what will get stored in the subconscious mind and what will be tossed out.