Hypnosis is an incredibly useful tool to help condition the mind. It’s been used to alleviate the effects of PTSD, drop habits and addictions, maintain focus, build confidence, and control pain. Many people are concerned to try it for fear of it being misused. In this article, get informed about the uses of hypnosis and hypnotherapy and how to proceed in making it work for you.
Contents
What is Hypnosis?
Defining Hypnosis and What it Does
There are some semantics to understand in regard to the word “hypnosis.” Some people refer to hypnosis as a method as in, “You should try hypnosis”, when it would be more appropriate to use the word “hypnotherapy.” Hypnosis is a brain state in which the subject is open to receiving suggestions. This state is called the hypnotic trance. The recipient or subject doesn’t need to be relaxed. In fact, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) uses hypnotic techniques while the subject is completely awake and aware, standing or otherwise.
The American Psychological Association says this about hypnosis:
“Hypnosis involves learning how to use your mind and thoughts in order to manage emotional distress (e.g., anxiety, stress), unpleasant physical symptoms (e.g., pain, nausea), or to help you change certain habits or behaviors (e.g., smoking, overeating). “
American Psychological Association
How Does Hypnosis Work?
To understand how hypnosis works, it’s important to understand how the brain works in relation to hypnotic trance.
The brain has two hemispheres that oscillate back and forth. This process of neural oscillation engages the neurons or electrical fibers of the brain in a rhythmic flow. The faster the flow, the more awake and alert you are. The more awake you are, the less suggestible or willing to accept commands you are. The slower the flow, the more suggestible you are. The slowest is what is happening during deep sleep.
The state of hypnotic trance state will produce better results if you’re brain’s rhythmic flow is slower. When working with a hypnotherapist, they’ll guide you into a deep, relaxed state. The reason this works better is because the conscious mind is a little less in control, similar to what it’s like going to sleep. One of the first things someone does when going to sleep is to become quiet and allow the mind to rest. In fact, a hypnotist will use the word “sleep” to engage that part of the mind to act as if it’s going to sleep. This allows the subconscious mind to assume influence in the same way that its does when we dream.
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
As described earlier, NLP uses other techniques to access the subconscious mind that don’t require a deep relaxation. These linguistic techniques cause a temporary distortion in thinking to the reasoning and language centers of the brain. This allows for the implanting of suggestions to the subject’s mind. Sales and advertising teams commonly use techniques like this. They can be so subtle that you don’t even know they’re happening. As an aside, if you’re concerned about this happening unbeknownst to you, just apply your tools of critical thinking. Question everything, including your own thoughts.
Hypnosis Vs Mind Control
A very important point about hypnosis is that you can’t make someone do something that they don’t want to do. There’s no need to worry about mind control when working with a reputable hypnotherapist. A good hypnotherapist’s goal is to teach you how to control your own mind.
Brainwashed
There was a very interesting experiment called “Curiosity: Brainwashed.” A group of researchers sought out highly suggestible people to determine whether they could use hypnosis to manipulate them into performing an assassination. They determined this by using freezing water and hypnotic techniques to convince the subjects their submerged hands weren’t cold. They decreased the temperature of the water to as low as they could go while the subject kept their hand in the water without knowing that the water was approaching freezing.
After testing a significant number of subjects, they took four to see if they could use hypnosis techniques to convince the person to take a gun and shoot someone. Of all the subjects, they found one man who was capable of pulling the trigger. The man was willing to kill based on the suggestions he was given while in a hypnotic trance. The subconscious mind would allow him to do it because he had already given his suggestibility and trust to the hypnotist.
Hypnotic Suggestibility and The Will
A hypnotist cannot convince someone to do what they don’t want to do. Stage hypnotists choose their subjects for their suggestibility and willingness. In general, you cannot hypnotize someone who is not willing to be hypnotized. In the case of hypnotherapy, generally, the client is willing to trust the hypnotherapist to achieve a result. During the session, they’re always like a fly on the wall of their own session, watching themselves. If the hypnotherapist suggested something the conscious mind didn’t agree with, the rapport between the client and the hypnotherapist would be broken.
Hypnosis Used Irresponsibly
When you realize the amount of psychological manipulation that happens in advertising and sales techniques, you’ll seriously begin questioning them. Consider the ads surrounding medications. They show you images of exuberantly healthy, usually elderly people. These people are doing things as part of a lifestyle that is carefree. The people are always smiling and in a perfect house with a perfectly manicured lawn. The people are then shown walking on the beach, in an amazing spring meadow, or some other bucolic environment. They’re then surrounded by kids, pets, or a husband or wife that is smiling as if they just won the lottery. You’re attracted to this because it’s all of the things that the average person wants in their life: health, wealth and happiness.
Medication Side Effects and Advertising
Really, these things have nothing to do with the dis-ease or pathology that the medication treats. You want all of those things in your life. Most people are highly visual. These images manipulate us to ignore the list of harmful side effects. The advertisement announces the side effects verbally instead of visually. This is by law. If they showed you pictures of people with those side effects, it would cause the opposite reaction. The drug companies call these “side” effects as if they’re on the side, when in actuality, they’re right there in front. This is a manipulation of language and perception. You’ll most likely have to take another medication to deal with those “side” effects. This leads to a long chain of dependency on pills that you’ll ingest instead of healthy food.
We choose to believe, or at least entertain that the source of news, media, or sales we’re observing is safe. The truth is we’re generally in a somewhat hypnotic trance when we’re watching TV. People tend to suspend critical thinking when they’re in a relaxed state. They give over their attention to what’s on the news and believe the news source they’re watching is telling the truth when we really have no concrete proof of it. We claim that what we heard is the truth because we blindly trust the new source. We may even be willing to fight or even kill to support that truth, even though it’s simply hearsay, or just someone else’ opinion that sounds like fact.
The Difference Between Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
An Energy Healing practitioner can utilize those techniques without having the dialectical or conversational skills to support a client mentally and emotionally. Similarly, an hypnotist can have hypnosis related techniques without the techniques used in psychotherapy.
Laws for Hypnotists and Hypnotherapists
Hypnotherapists are often, but not always, trained psychotherapists with licensure in the state they’re operating. Different states have different laws about whether a hypnotist can conduct hypnotherapy. Some states allow certification in hypnosis and hypnotherapy as a substitute for psychotherapeutic licensure to use this method. You can look at those laws at the Hypnotherapists Union. In a nutshell, hypnosis and hypnotherapy is mostly unregulated in the U.S. This is because you will not go deeply into your personal history with a hypnotherapist. The reason for this?
Author’s Opinion Around Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy
Hypnosis and related techniques are so powerful, you don’t need to. Psychotherapy is best at supporting severe cases of mental illness and deep trauma. Shamanism would be a great compliment to psychotherapy if the right practitioner were found. Everything a person is experiencing is spiritual in nature, and Shamanism can treat these matters at both a spiritual and Energetic Healing level. Other matters would be best handled in Spiritual Counseling, Coaching, and Hypnotherapy. This is because these methods engage looking forward and creating direction for the person to travel rather than looking backward and trying to untie the client’s historical knots.
What Can Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Help With?
This is a great list from the American Psychological Association on what hypnosis can help with:
- Pain
- Dental and Medical Procedures
- Post-Surgical Recovery
- Nausea and Vomiting
- Anxiety and Phobias
- Depression
- Stress
- Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
- Dissociative Disorders
- Smoking Cessation
- Weight Management
- Habit Disorders
- Asthma
- Gastrointestinal Disorders (e.g., IBS)
- Hemophilia
- Skin Conditions
- Childbirth
Hypnotic Regression
Hypnosis can do regression where you access the memory of an event from the past or clear the mind to recall memories in general. Note that these types of memories cannot be used as evidence in a court of law because there’s nothing to corroborate the memory. Hypnosis can also be used for Past Life Regression. This is where the subject is taken into past lives to correct current life karma (need for balance) and pathologies (mental, physical, and emotional).
Hypnosis Vs Meditation
Meditation is a process whose goal is to help quiet the incessant thinking processes of the brain. Hypnosis is a brain state in which the brain is suggestible to the introduction of thoughts. As you can see, the two have different agendas when it comes to thoughts and thinking. However, the relaxation process that’s used to quiet the mind in meditation can also be used to lead the brain into the most appropriate state for suggestion.
The focus meditation is designed to help your ability to gather your focus and learn to maintain it.
Mind Vs Brain
I must explain the usage of the word “mind” as opposed to “brain.” Brain is simply a reference to the grey matter inside the skull. Mind, as I use it, is a reference to the entire nervous system. It includes the spirit or creative force that animates it, the instinctual and intuitive processes that accompany it, and the consciousness from which all derives it’s vast intelligence.
In Meditation, the goal is to experience mind at a deeper level than the simple processes of dating, picnicking, video games, dining, etc. It helps us find the essence of what we are and to liberate our gross conscious fixations and subconscious motivations. Hypnosis is all-in-all doing the same thing but with a much more focused agenda. With hypnosis, we deliberately go after the obvious obstacles (see list above). We trade the thinking that leads us to one outcome for thinking that leads us to a different outcome.
5 Steps to Do Self Hypnosis
Hypnosis doesn’t necessarily need to be done by a hypnotherapist. One can utilize the brain’s suggestibility to alter perceptions, break habits, and change behaviors all on their own. This can be done using the same methods of relaxation used in Meditation and using hypnosis techniques to alter behavior.
How would you like to be able to remain calm no matter the situation at hand? Here’s a process to help with that ability:
- Sit down in a quiet place, in a comfortable chair, and allow the body to just relax, letting go of any and all tension from head to toe, systematically, muscle by muscle.
- When you feel you’ve sufficiently relaxed, see a blank screen like a TV screen in your mind’s eye. You can even use your memory of your own TV. Pick any color you like and fill the screen in your mind.
- Pick a number that you particularly like. In your mind’s eye, place it upon the screen. Notice the style in which the number is written. See the color that it is. Notice how big it is. If you can’t see it in your mind’s eye, listen in your mind for the sound of the number being spoken. This may be your own voice or someone else saying the number. Notice if the number has a smell or a taste.
- Feel the relaxation moving through the body as you repeat the number in your mind.
- When you feel our complete, simply open your eyes.
Practice this every day, once a day at the same time and in the same way for 30 days. You will program the ability to relax immediately in any circumstance or situation by saying and seeing the number in your mind in the same way as when you programmed it. Try it and see how effective it is.
In Conclusion
The intention of this article is to clarify and explain hypnosis and hypnotherapy. If you think that this can be of help for you, please reach out and create a consultation to speak with me further.
If you’re interested in a session, please use my calendar to create a consultation. We can discuss your situation and what you’d like to get out of a session.
