The MTP™ Method: What It Is and How It Works
A 30-year clinical synthesis of Meditation, Trance, and Psychotherapy — explained by the practitioner who built it.
Abstract — clinical summary
Problem: Single-modality therapy accesses only one level of the mind. India's 150 million people requiring mental health intervention are largely served by modalities applied in isolation — with predictably partial results for conditioning-based presentations.
Method: The MTP™ Method, developed by Dr. Maruti Sharma PhD (RCI Reg. A100310), integrates Meditation, Trance, and Psychotherapy Protocols in a specific clinical sequence designed to access all levels of the mind simultaneously.
Finding: Adding hypnosis to CBT produces significantly better outcomes than CBT alone across anxiety, pain, and depression.3 Mindfulness meditation produces measurable increases in grey matter density in hippocampal and prefrontal regions.1 Combining cognitive therapy with clinical hypnosis produces superior outcomes to cognitive therapy alone in the treatment of depression.7
Implication: Lasting psychological change requires access to the level where patterns are organised — below conscious narrative. The MTP Method is designed to reach that level, in sequence, within a single clinical framework.
Key points — plain language
- The MTP™ Method integrates Meditation, Trance, and Psychotherapy into one sequenced clinical framework.
- Each component accesses a different level of the mind. All three are needed for complete, lasting change.
- It was developed over 30 years from both Eastern contemplative lineages and Western clinical practice.
- Each component has an independent peer-reviewed evidence base. This is integrative clinical work — not alternative medicine.
- It is taught exclusively through the NGH India certification programme and practised exclusively by Dr. Maruti Sharma.
The MTP™ Method is a clinical framework developed by Dr. Maruti Sharma — RCI-licensed clinical psychologist (Reg. A100310), PhD in Vajrayana Buddhist Psychology — that integrates Meditation, Trance, and Psychotherapy Protocols into one approach to lasting psychological change. It resolves a structural limitation of standard therapy: that each single modality reaches only one level of the mind. The MTP Method is designed to access all three levels, in sequence, within a single clinical framework.
Most people who arrive at this page have already tried something. They have talked, read, and intellectually understood their patterns. The understanding has not been sufficient to change them. The reason for that is structural, not personal — and it is precisely the problem the MTP Method was built to address.
The method is taught exclusively through the NGH India certification programme. It is the clinical foundation from which every NGH India-trained practitioner works.
Why doesn't one type of therapy work for everything?
Every major therapeutic modality was built to solve a real problem. Cognitive-behavioural therapy works well when the difficulty is primarily one of maladaptive thought patterns. Psychodynamic approaches work when the difficulty lies in unresolved historical material. Mindfulness-based approaches work when the difficulty is a reactive relationship with present experience.
None of these, used in isolation, is consistently effective across the full range of clinical presentations. The reason is not poor design. The reason is structural.
Each modality accesses a different level of the mind. Cognitive approaches operate at the level of conscious reasoning. Mindfulness approaches extend this into present-moment somatic awareness. Hypnosis and trance-based approaches access the level below the threshold of conscious resistance — where patterns are actually organised and maintained.
Genuine therapeutic change requires access to all three levels. A method that reaches only one produces partial results. This is not a failure of the practitioner or the client. It is a design limitation of the modality itself.
The MTP™ Method was developed to resolve this limitation. Meditation builds the attentional substrate. Trance accesses the level where the pattern lives. Psychotherapy protocols integrate the change into conscious life. Each step prepares the next. The sequence is the method.
Common myths about integrated clinical hypnotherapy
Does the MTP Method address the kind of difficulty you are experiencing?
This is a pattern-recognition tool, not a diagnostic instrument. It may help you assess whether your current difficulty has the character of a conditioning-based pattern — which is the domain the MTP Method is specifically designed to reach.
This checklist is a pattern-recognition tool. It does not constitute a clinical diagnosis. If you are in acute distress, please contact a licensed professional immediately.
What does conventional therapy do well — and where does it stop?
This is not a critique of conventional approaches. Each was developed to solve real clinical problems, and each does so within its domain. The question is not which modality is best. The question is what a given person's difficulty actually requires.
Medication manages symptoms effectively in many presentations. It does not access conditioning. When medication is withdrawn, the pattern typically returns unchanged.
CBT produces reliable results for symptom reduction in anxiety and depression. Meta-analyses consistently support it.6 Its limitation is the level it operates at — the level of conscious cognition. Conditioning patterns organised below that level are not fully reached.
Mindfulness-based approaches — MBSR, ACT — extend reach into present-moment awareness and emotional regulation. They do not systematically access the hypnotic depth required for subconscious schema restructuring.
Standard hypnotherapy uses the trance state for suggestion. This is more powerful than conscious-level intervention. But suggestion without psychotherapy protocols has limited structural impact. The MTP Method uses trance as a delivery vehicle — not as the intervention itself.
| Approach | Reaches cognitive level | Reaches emotional/body level | Reaches subconscious conditioning | MTP™ Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medication | Indirectly | Partially | No | — |
| CBT | Yes | Partially | No | — |
| Mindfulness / ACT | Yes | Yes | Partially | — |
| Standard hypnotherapy | No | Yes | Yes | — |
| MTP™ Method | Yes | Yes | Yes | ✓ All three |
What does the evidence say about Meditation, Trance, and Psychotherapy?
Each component of the MTP™ Method has an independent peer-reviewed evidence base. The integration is original. The components are empirically established across decades of research.
M — Meditation: building the neurological substrate
Meditation in the MTP framework is not relaxation. It is the development of attentional stability and metacognitive awareness — the capacity to observe the contents of the mind without being captured by them.
Hölzel et al. (2011) demonstrated that eight weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction produced measurable increases in grey matter density in the hippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex, and cerebellum — with concurrent reductions in amygdala grey matter density.1 These are the regions governing memory consolidation, self-referential processing, and threat response.
Lazar et al. (2005) showed that experienced meditators had significantly greater cortical thickness in regions associated with attention and interoception.12 This is an anatomical finding, not a psychological one.
Without attentional stability, trance is shallow. Without attentional stability, psychotherapy produces intellectual insight that does not translate into lived change. The meditation component builds the substrate on which all deeper MTP work rests.
T — Trance: accessing the level where the pattern lives
The hypnotic state is characterised by focused attention, reduced critical faculty, and heightened responsiveness to therapeutic direction. In neurological terms, it involves altered default mode network activity, executive function modulation, and increased subcortical responsiveness.5
Kirsch, Montgomery, and Sapirstein's landmark 1995 meta-analysis — covering 18 studies — found that adding hypnosis to CBT produced significantly better outcomes than CBT alone across anxiety, pain, and depression presentations.3 The effect size was substantial and consistent.
Jensen and Patterson (2014) confirmed clinical hypnosis as an effective intervention for chronic pain management across multiple controlled trials.11
The specific techniques employed within the MTP framework include Ericksonian indirect suggestion, Elman rapid induction, direct suggestion methodology, and ego-state techniques — selected according to the clinical presentation, never applied uniformly.
P — Psychotherapy Protocols: integration into lived experience
The psychotherapy component draws on cognitive-behavioural, schema-focused, psychodynamic, and acceptance-based approaches — applied within the state created by the preceding two components.
Hofmann et al. (2012) confirmed CBT as effective across a broad range of conditions in a meta-analysis of 269 studies.6 Alladin and Alibhai (2007) demonstrated that Cognitive Hypnotherapy — combining CBT with hypnosis — produced superior outcomes to CBT alone in treating depression.7
In the MTP Method, psychotherapy protocols are not applied at the surface level. They are applied in the hypnotic state — where insight is not merely cognitive but somatic, emotional, and deeply integrated. This is the integrative core of the framework.
The Eastern lineage: what contemplative science knew first
The MTP Method did not emerge from a theoretical synthesis alone. It emerged from two complete lineages — Eastern and Western — held simultaneously in one practitioner over three decades.
The Eastern lineage includes Sammohan Vidya rooted in the Atharva Veda — arguably the oldest documented framework for inducing altered states therapeutically. The Tantrik traditions, including Anuttara Yoga Tantra, Trika Shaivism, and the Natha Siddha lineage, mapped states of consciousness with a precision that anticipated the neurological models of the 20th century by centuries.
Vajrayana Buddhist psychology — the subject of Dr. Sharma's doctoral research — holds that the mind is naturally luminous and unobstructed. Suffering is not the ground state. It is the product of conditioning layered over an awareness that is already free. This is structurally identical to what modern neuroscience identifies as the brain's default rest state — and it is precisely what the meditation component of the MTP Method is designed to restore access to.
The Western lineage includes the Nancy School of Bernheim and Liébeault, Braid's neurological model, the Ericksonian approach, Dave Elman's rapid induction framework, ego-state therapy, the Pavlovian cortical inhibition model, Hilgardian neodissociation theory, and direct NLP training under Dr. Richard Bandler.
Most practitioners inherit one tradition. The MTP Method was built by a practitioner who has worked through all of them.
"Insight that stays in the head is not transformation. In trance, insight becomes somatic — it lands in the body, in the nervous system, where the pattern actually lives. That is where change becomes permanent."
— Dr. Maruti SharmaWhat does a course of MTP Method work actually look like?
Every engagement begins with a 90-minute clinical evaluation — a detailed history of the presenting difficulty, its developmental roots, and the specific level at which it appears to be organised. From this, the treatment arc is mapped: which components, in what depth, across what timeline.
The MTP Method is not a protocol applied uniformly. It is a framework applied specifically — adapted to the clinical picture of each person.
The question is not whether change is possible. The question is what is actually maintaining the pattern.
Begin the conversation with Dr. Sharma →Dr. Maruti Sharma on the MTP™ Method
In this conversation, Dr. Sharma explains the clinical rationale of the MTP Method — why Meditation must precede Trance, and why Trance is the vehicle rather than the intervention itself.
What does the MTP Method look like inside an actual clinical case?
The following are anonymised composite descriptions drawn from 30 years of clinical work. No identifying details are real. The patterns are.
Pattern A — The informed sufferer
A 38-year-old executive arrived with what he called performance anxiety. He had read extensively. He could name his cognitive distortions accurately. He understood, intellectually, that his fear of failure was disproportionate to his circumstances. The understanding had made no difference.
In trance, we did not revisit the understanding. We accessed the original conditioning event — a specific classroom humiliation at age nine — not through narrative recall, but through direct somatic experience. The schema restructured from within. The performance pattern shifted in ways that four years of CBT had not produced.
Pattern B — The invisible template
A 44-year-old woman presented with a repeating relational pattern — consistently choosing unavailable partners. She had explored this in therapy before. She could articulate the attachment wound clearly. The articulation did not interrupt the pattern.
The MTP sequence worked differently: meditation stabilised her attention; trance accessed the early relational template directly, at the level of felt experience rather than narrative; psychotherapy protocols then restructured the schema from within that experience. The pattern interrupted after the third session. In her words: "Something lifted. Not a thought. Something underneath the thoughts."
Pattern C — The body's record
A 52-year-old physician presented with chronic tension headaches and a dermatological condition with no clear organic explanation. The standard medical workup was complete and unrevealing. The body was communicating in a language the medical framework was not designed to read.
Three MTP sessions targeting the emotional material beneath the symptom produced significant reduction in both presentations. The body's record, once directly addressed, no longer needed to be expressed through symptom.
"I had worked with three psychologists over six years. I understood myself reasonably well. What I could not do was change. After four sessions of MTP work with Dr. Sharma — two online, two in person — something fundamental shifted. Not in my thinking alone. In how I physically feel in my own skin. I returned to work in a state I had not known for a decade."
What does working with Dr. Sharma on the MTP Method actually involve?
Initial evaluation
The first session is a 90-minute clinical evaluation — covering the presenting difficulty, its developmental history, prior treatment, and the specific level at which the pattern appears to be organised. This is not an intake form. It is the beginning of clinical work.
Session structure
Sessions are 60 to 90 minutes, typically weekly in the initial phase and shifting to fortnightly as consolidation progresses. Sessions are available online via Zoom — globally — and in person in Jammu, with periodic availability in Delhi and Gurugram.
Between-session practices
Between sessions, specific meditation practices are assigned — not generic mindfulness, but practices calibrated to the clinical picture. Structured awareness tasks and journaling support the integration of trance-level shifts into daily life.
Timeline
Initial shifts are typically visible within 4 to 8 sessions. Sustained transformation — structural change in the underlying conditioning pattern — generally requires 3 to 6 months of structured work. Complex or developmental presentations may require longer. The duration depends on the depth of the pattern, not an arbitrary session count.
What success looks like
Not the absence of difficulty — but a fundamentally different relationship with it. The pattern is no longer compulsive. The response is no longer automatic. What is described at the end of effective MTP work is typically not an improvement but a return — to something that was always possible but could not be accessed.
Who is the MTP Method designed for — and who is it not?
Honest exclusions build more trust than any amount of praise. The MTP Method is not for everyone. Knowing the distinction matters.
- Conditioning-based difficulty — anxiety, trauma, habit, relational patterns, identity
- Prior therapy experience with insight but without lasting change
- Psychosomatic presentations without clear organic cause
- Performance or creative blocks resistant to cognitive intervention
- Willingness to engage in structured inner work over a defined period
- Able to work online or attend in person
- Active psychosis or organic brain condition requiring primary psychiatric management
- Acute psychiatric crisis requiring immediate intervention
- Active substance dependency without concurrent medical management
- Passive expectation of being fixed without personal engagement
- Seeking a single-session resolution of a complex or chronic pattern
- Presentations where medication alone is the primary indicated treatment
If you are uncertain whether your difficulty is a fit, the initial evaluation is the right place to find out. That conversation is clinical — not promotional.
How do I train in the MTP Method and become NGH India certified?
The MTP™ Method is an original proprietary clinical framework. It is taught exclusively through the NGH India certification programme, under the direct instruction of Dr. Maruti Sharma. It is not available through any other programme, institution, or instructor.
The NGH India programme leads to four international credentials upon completion:
- MTP™ Method Certification — Dr. Maruti Sharma / NGH India
- Certified Hypnotherapist — National Guild of Hypnotists USA
- Certification in Neuro-Linguistic Programming
- Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist — NGH India
The programme is open to mental health professionals, medical practitioners, and committed lay practitioners who meet entry criteria. It is delivered in person in Jammu, with select sessions available online.
Train directly under Dr. Maruti Sharma — the only place the MTP™ Method is taught.
The NGH India programme is the sole path to MTP™ Method Certification. Every component of the method — its clinical rationale, techniques, sequence, and lineage — is taught in full, under direct supervision.
View the certification programme →Questions people ask about the MTP Method and NGH India certification
Yes. The MTP™ Method was developed and is practised exclusively by Dr. Maruti Sharma — RCI Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Reg. A100310, based in Jammu, India. He conducts sessions in person and online via Zoom, seeing clients across 100+ countries. To begin, visit marutisharma.com.
Standard hypnotherapy uses the trance state primarily for suggestion. The MTP Method uses trance as the delivery vehicle for structured psychotherapy protocols — applied within the hypnotic state. Meditation prepares the attentional substrate first. The result is change at the level where the pattern is organised — not merely at the level of conscious intent.
Yes. Each component has an independent peer-reviewed evidence base. Clinical hypnosis is supported by systematic reviews and RCTs. Mindfulness meditation produces measurable neurological changes in controlled studies. The psychotherapy protocols are each individually evidence-based. The integration is original; the components are empirically established.
The MTP™ Method is taught exclusively through the NGH India certification programme, under the direct instruction of Dr. Maruti Sharma. It is not available through any other institution or instructor. Graduates receive MTP™ Method Certification as one of four international credentials upon completion.
The MTP Method has been applied across anxiety disorders, trauma (acute, chronic, developmental, and complex), psychosomatic conditions, performance difficulties, relationship and attachment patterns, habit and compulsion disorders, and existential or identity-level difficulties. It is most effective where conditioning — rather than organic cause — is the primary maintaining mechanism.
Clinical hypnosis conducted by a trained, licensed practitioner is safe. The hypnotic state does not remove volition — clients remain aware throughout and cannot be made to act against their values. The American Psychological Association and British Psychological Society both recognise clinical hypnosis as a legitimate therapeutic modality.
Initial shifts are typically visible within 4 to 8 sessions. Sustained structural change in underlying conditioning generally requires 3 to 6 months of work. The duration depends on the depth and chronicity of the presenting pattern — not on an arbitrary session count.
Yes. Dr. Sharma conducts sessions via Zoom with clients across India and internationally. The hypnotic component of the MTP Method is fully effective in an online format. In-person sessions are available in Jammu, with periodic availability in Delhi and Gurugram.
Mental health support available in India right now
- MTP™ पद्धति ध्यान (Meditation), ट्रांस (Trance) और मनोचिकित्सा (Psychotherapy) का एक एकीकृत नैदानिक ढांचा है।
- यह पद्धति मन के तीनों स्तरों — संज्ञानात्मक, भावनात्मक, और अवचेतन — तक एक क्रम में पहुँचती है।
- डॉ. मारुति शर्मा ने इसे तीस वर्षों के नैदानिक अभ्यास तथा पूर्वी और पश्चिमी परंपराओं के गहन अध्ययन से विकसित किया है।
- यह पद्धति चिंता, आघात, मनोदैहिक विकार, प्रदर्शन संबंधी कठिनाइयों, और पहचान के स्तर की समस्याओं में प्रभावी है।
- MTP™ पद्धति केवल NGH India प्रमाणन कार्यक्रम के माध्यम से सिखाई जाती है।
Clinical and research references
- Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, et al. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. 2011;191(1):36–43.
- Lutz A, Slagter HA, Dunne JD, Davidson RJ. Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2008;12(4):163–169.
- Kirsch I, Montgomery G, Sapirstein G. Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy: a meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1995;63(2):214–220.
- Elkins GR, Barabasz AF, Council JR, Spiegel D. Advancing research and practice: the revised APA Division 30 definition of hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 2015;63(1):1–9.
- Cojan Y, Waber L, Schwartz S, et al. The brain under self-control: modulation of inhibitory and monitoring cortical networks during hypnotic paralysis. Neuron. 2009;62(6):862–875.
- Hofmann SG, Asnaani A, Vonk IJJ, Sawyer AT, Fang A. The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research. 2012;36(5):427–440.
- Alladin A, Alibhai A. Cognitive hypnotherapy for depression: an empirical investigation. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 2007;55(2):147–166.
- Schoenberger NE. Research on hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. 2000;48(2):154–169.
- Gururaj G, Varghese M, Benegal V, et al. National Mental Health Survey of India 2015–16: Summary. NIMHANS Publication No. 128. Bengaluru: NIMHANS; 2016.
- World Health Organization. Mental Health Atlas 2020. Geneva: WHO; 2021.
- Jensen MP, Patterson DR. Hypnotic approaches for chronic pain management. American Psychologist. 2014;69(2):167–177.
- Lazar SW, Kerr CE, Wasserman RH, et al. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. NeuroReport. 2005;16(17):1893–1897.
Where to go next
NGH India Certification Programme — full curriculum and enrolment The MTP™ Method — full clinical overview at marutisharma.com NGH India articles on clinical hypnotherapy PubMed — research on integrated hypnotherapy and psychotherapy NIMHANS — National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, IndiaTrain in the MTP Method.
Or begin working with
the practitioner who built it.
The NGH India certification programme is the only place the MTP™ Method is taught. Dr. Maruti Sharma sees clients privately at marutisharma.com. Both paths begin with a conversation.