• Dan Ross is a hypnotherapist who specializes in working with day traders.

• The number of traders who entered his practice doubled in 2025.

• His work involves uncovering traders' unconscious beliefs. He says there are misconceptions about hypnosis.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dan Ross, a hypnotherapist who works with day traders at Silicon Valley Hypnotherapy Center. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I originally discovered Tony Robbins back in the 1990s, and one of the tools he uses is hypnosis. I got fascinated by watching how rapidly he could work to help people make changes. I got curious — how does he do it? I studied with him, and then studied some of his teachers. It wasn't so much that I was fascinated with hypnosis itself. I just wanted to be a healer just to help people lead better lives.

Around the same time, I got into day trading. I was working in tech at the time, and I learned a bunch about technical analysis and was trying to trade.

I always have at least a few traders in my practice at any given time. I offer it as one of my specialties because I think traders want to work with somebody who speaks their language.

In the past year, the number of traders I work with has probably doubled. I think word is getting out that hypnotherapy can take care of issues that coaching or psychotherapy might not, because we're working directly with the unconscious mind, which is where automatic behaviors reside.

Why I think hypnotherapy works

The conscious mind works on logic. Logically, I could say, "Hey, just follow your strategy." But that's just advice. People who have tried to change some kind of habit consciously, they know willpower just doesn't last very long. It's kind of like holding your breath underwater.

Well, hypnotherapy is working with the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind works with the level of symbol and emotion. That's why our dreams, which come from our unconscious mind, don't make conscious sense.

A hypnotherapist has specialized training to talk to your unconscious mind, so your automatic behaviors change. You more naturally follow your strategy, for example. When you otherwise would've felt a sense of greed and stayed in a trade, you just get out. It has a reputation for operating more rapidly than other types of modalities.

There are a lot of problems traders struggle with. I can list a few of them.

• Trading anxiety, which is fear about making trades

• Analysis paralysis, or when someone is overthinking a trade

• Overconfidence, or trading in excess of what their plan says they should be trading

• Revenge trading

• Limiting beliefs. There are limiting beliefs that people have — whether they feel, consciously or unconsciously, do they deserve the money or not?

That's one of the reasons people seek out a hypnotherapist like me. They haven't done that deeper work to clear out the things that limit them.

I tend to work in two different ways. One is, let's clear out the things that stop you from behaving the way you want. Then, let's install and enhance the types of thoughts that you want to experience instead.

Let's say somebody wants to feel a greater sense of calm and peace when the market is moving quickly. I might say something like: "Imagine you're sitting there at your trading station and the market is starting to move quickly, but you know that you trust your strategy, so you find yourself automatically feeling a sense of calm and confidence."

There are also many misconceptions about hypnosis. Here are a few common ones.

You've never been hypnotized before

A common misconception about hypnosis is that it's something you've never experienced before. But the reality is, we all go in and out of trance states all the time. Have you ever watched a really good movie, and you got so drawn into it that everything else kind of faded away? That's a naturally occurring trance state.

Trance states are just states where you've kind of gone inside of yourself and are focusing on one thing. If you're driving along and you missed your exit, well, who is driving the car and who's paying attention? Your unconscious mind was.

One of the things I like to explain to people before I hypnotize them is, you've already been hypnotized. We're just going to be very deliberate about it, and we're going to use it for a specific purpose.

It's like sleep

I like to remind people it's not sleep. There's this idea that someone will put you under and you won't remember anything.

You might have some amnesia for some things that happened during the session, but that's not the centerpiece. It is a state of focus and relaxed attention where your unconscious mind is more open to suggestions.

It can force you to change

I also think there's a misconception that someone can force them to change. I can't force anybody to change, so they have to come up on their own accord.

The beauty of working with traders is that there's not a lot of resistance to change. If I'm working with somebody for something like weight loss, there's often resistance, because food is comfort for some people. Part of them wants to lose the weight, part of them doesn't. But most people are not particularly resistant to not losing money.

It takes just one session

Somehow, sometimes people believe in one session, that's it.

I'm personally looking for some kind of change within a few sessions, so it can be pretty quick. Sometimes people are done in a few sessions, and sometimes it takes a few more.

It just depends — how deep do the challenges go? Is it a couple of limitations, or are there some really significant limiting beliefs? Like, if somebody at their core feels like they're worthless and they don't deserve to have good things in their life. That might take a little bit longer.

Only a few people can be hypnotized

There's a range of hypnotizability. Most people are hypnotizable. The general criteria for hypnotizability are: one, the person wants to be hypnotized, and two, their IQ is over 70.

I think the more somebody wants to be hypnotized, the easier it's going to be, but that's not the only criteria. If they're a little more embodied and a little less intellectualizing, then it's a little easier just to let go of thinking about things.

It might take a little more work to hypnotize somebody who's highly analytical, but a highly analytical person can still go into the hypnotic state themselves.

When somebody comes to me for a consultation, I just invite them to put their fears and their biases out on the table because I don't take it personally. Sometimes hypnosis is not portrayed well in the media, and so we just have to overcome that.

What people don't realize is that there are thousands of studies that have done around hypnosis for all sorts of things, from medical issues, pain control, headaches, weight loss, smoking. There's scientific evidence that shows that hypnosis works, and I just need to remind people of that. I'm here to help you. Let me make sure that this is the right tool for you.

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