The Singer Who Lost Her Voice And Found It Again

The surprising way hypnosis helped a performer overcome a mental block

In February 2023, a 25-year-old singer came into our office with a problem that sounds simple until it steals your identity: her voice kept going hoarse, sometimes disappearing, right when she needed it most. Not at home. Not chatting with friends. On stage.

For four years, it came and went. She also had sinusitis symptoms: blocked nose, heavy throat, and that “I am stuffed up and stuck” feeling. She did the responsible thing: saw ENT specialists, had exams, got diagnosed with dysphonia and sinusitis, took medications, and tried healthy-living changes like better sleep and avoiding irritants. She would improve… and then the symptoms would return after the meds ended. Three hospital stays. Same loop.

Then she tried something most performers do not think of until they are desperate: hypnotherapy.

The rarely noticed part: the trigger was not in her throat

During a long hypnotherapy session (about three hours), we explored psychological triggers. And this is where it gets human: she had been bullied in a vocal group years earlier, teased that her voice was “awful”, and she was not fit to sing. Consciously, she did not label it as a big trauma. Subconsciously, her body remembered.

We noted that those experiences had quietly eroded her confidence and that her voice would unconsciously shut down when she needed to perform. The session focused on positive suggestions, forgiveness, acceptance, and reducing fear/trauma associated with singing. After the session, no additional oral medication and her voice gradually returned, sinus/throat symptoms improved, and follow-up reported the symptoms were gone within a month.

This is not magic. It is a nervous system doing what it thinks is protection.

What is going on medically

Voice problems can be structural (nodules, inflammation, infection, reflux, injury) or functional/psychogenic, in which the hardware is fine, but the system is “locked” by stress, fear, or learned threat responses. The literature has long described cases of functional/psychogenic voice loss (aphonia/dysphonia) where hypnosis or self-hypnosis was used as part of treatment.

Think of it like this:

• Your voice is not just your vocal cords. It is breath, muscle coordination, attention, and permission.

• Performance fear can turn into throat/neck tension, shallow breathing, and hyper-monitoring (“Don’t crack. Don’t crack.”).

• Once your brain tags singing as danger, it may solve the danger by tightening, freezing, or muting.

Hypnosis can help because it targets the pattern where it actually lives: automatic responses, the part of you that reacts faster than logic.

What hypnosis is doing here (the practical mechanism)

In cases like this, hypnosis is often used to:

• Reduce physiologic arousal (so the larynx is not trying to sing through a clenched neck).

• Recode the performance cue from threat → safe/neutral.

• Rehearse the stage moment in a calm state (mental imagery + suggestion).

• Separate “old voices” (critics, bullies, humiliation) from the singer’s actual voice.

A simple “Voice Reset” exercise you can use today (3–5 minutes)

If you are a performer (or public speaker) who sometimes feels your throat tighten when the spotlight hits, try this:

1. Breathe low and slow (60 seconds)
   Inhale 4 seconds, exhale 6 seconds.
   On every exhale, silently say: “Loose.”

2. Drop your shoulders + soften your jaw (20 seconds)
   Let your tongue rest on the floor of your mouth.
   This sounds small. It matters.

3. Warm-scarf imagery (60 seconds)
   Imagine a warm scarf wrapped around your throat, not tight, only supportive warmth.
   Picture the warmth spreading down into your chest.

4. One best performance memory (60 seconds)
   Replay a moment you sounded like you.
   Not perfect—you.
   See it, hear it, feel it.

5. Cue word for stage (10 seconds)
   Pick one word: “Open” or “Easy.”
   Say it quietly once and take one slow breath.

Do this right before rehearsal or going on stage. Over time, you are training your nervous system: stage ≠ danger.

Important reality check (the responsible part)

If someone has persistent hoarseness or voice loss, especially beyond ~4 weeks, or with red flags like pain, coughing blood, unexplained weight loss, a neck mass, or smoking history, they need a medical evaluation (ENT). Hypnosis is a tool, not a substitute for diagnosing structural causes.

Why this story matters

Because a mental block is rarely just mental. It is often a learned protective response that can be unlearned, especially when you combine:

• medical evaluation,

• voice/speech work when indicated, and

• targeted hypnosis to remove the fear-coded trigger.

Reflect:
If your voice could speak without fear for five minutes, what would it finally say?