hypnotic suggestion

Much in modern hypnotherapy is owed to Milton H. Erickson, who believed that subjects could be put into a state of trance through conversational storytelling, rather than using the old Freudian “You are getting sleepy” method. Ericksonian hypnosis believed that certain words could trigger the mind and have an impact on a person’s behavior, whether they were in a trance or not. This notion is at the heart of NLP hypnosis (Neuro Linguistic Programming), which is used in hypnosis sessions to help people overcome a number of mental and physical ailments.

Patients undergoing hypnotherapy/stage hypnosis move from their normal waking state to a stage of deep relaxation, where they breathe deeper, their body feels heavier and their mind begins to become more attentive. Next in the state of trance, the subject will feel deeply engaged in the words or images the therapist presents and there is dissociation from critical thoughts. The patient is then open to suggestion and will respond and comply with the hypnotherapist’s suggestions. Following the experience, patients often report feeling euphoric and as though they had had the best night of sleep ever, even if the session only lasted a few minutes.

Hypnosis therapy is used to treat a wide host of ailments from mental to physical. Most recently, researchers discovered that the mind plays an important role in pain management, particularly with cancer patients or those undergoing surgery. Studies show that hypnosis meditation can lessen one’s need for medication and shorten recovery time. Thinking negative thoughts can lead to stress, which has powerful ramifications on the body.

It can disrupt a woman’s menstrual cycle, create a cold sore, make a person ill with a cold, disrupt sleep patterns, generate ulcers, facilitate hair loss, exacerbate psoriasis, lead to heart disease and contribute to obesity. Today, hypnosis sessions are used in treating obesity, asthma, anxiety, pain, sleep walking, thumb sucking, nail biting, smoking, inflammatory bowel disease, insomnia, addiction, warts, bedwetting, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, psoriasis, acne, migraines, stress, tinnitus, cancer pain, obesity, anorexia, bulimia, indigestion, phobias, depression and the pain of childbirth.

The problem with hypnotherapy is that not everyone is susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. The subject must be an open-minded, willing participant who pledges to remain attentive, suspend disbelief and go along with what the therapist is saying. A common misconception is that hypnotists can mesmerize someone against his or her will, plant suggestions and cause the subject to act against his or her free will. The process itself is mysterious, although there must be a certain level of agreeableness before healing can occur.

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a state of trance

“The premise that birthing, by nature, had to be a painful ordeal was totally unacceptable to me. I could not believe that a God who had created the body with such perfection could have designed a system of procreation that was flawed,” said Marie F. Mongan, a hypnotherapist and founder of Hypnobirthing. By using hypnosis techniques like deep breathing, positive thinking, visualization and self-conditioning, mothers can ensure a smoother birth for their baby.

Pregnant women may need to find a hypnotherapist to help assist with the painful birthing process. Sure, everyone knows how to breathe, yet in times of great peril or pain, these psycho-somatic techniques can quickly be forgotten, leaving many women gasping for air or hyperventilating. Lamaze Breathing Techniques conjure up images of husband and wife in a yoga classroom setting, with the wife practicing healthy breathing patterns and the husband supportively going along with it. Similarly, one of the most common hypnosis techniques used to induce people into a state of trance is, in fact, relaxation breathing. Therefore, it makes sense that women would adopt some hypnotherapy training methods to help them relax through deep breaths of fresh air.

Often times, when running a race or getting toward the end of a tough workout routine, we fixate on certain phrases to help us through. “Must keep going, must keep going,” “Almost there, almost there” or “No pain, no gain” are common thoughts to help us push ourselves through just a little bit longer. Similarly, the pain of childbirth can be managed with the assistance of a hypnotherapist who plants positive images and phrases in our minds that we can come back to in the difficult hours of labor. “Breathe up, up, up, up and now down, down, down,” the husband may repeat to help induce relaxation breathing techniques. “Trust your birthing instincts,” is the main premise of pre-birth hypnotherapy training. Mothers will learn to create a mental place of peace they can come to when the pain gets severe.

To find a hypnotherapist specializing in hypnobirthing, one can go to www.hypnobirthing.com/findaprac.htm to search for practitioners by state or even by country. Another good site to check out is www.natboard.com, which lists licensed, certified hypnotherapists of all types, including those for childbirth. Women may also choose to buy a hypnosis CD to guide them in the comfort of their own home. At www.gentlebirth.org, there are a number of resources to read up on hypnobirthing. The “Hypnobabies Home Study Course” (www.hypnobabies.com) for $139.99 is also highly recommended for mothers who cannot afford $400 for a course.

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Patients undergoing hypnotherapy, stage hypnosis or those that use self hypnosis techniques move from their normal awake state to a stage of deep relaxation, where they breathe deeper, their body feels heavier and their mind begins to become more engrossed. Next in the state of trance, the subject will feel deeply engaged in the words or pictures the therapist presents and there is dissociation from critical thoughts. The patient is then open to suggestion and will react and comply with the hypnotherapists suggestions. Following the experience, patients frequently report feeling euphoric and as though they had just had the best night of sleep ever, even if the session only lasted several minutes.

Hypnosis therapy is used to treat a wide range of physical and mental complaints. Most recently, researchers learnt that the mind plays a vital function in pain management, particularly with cancer patients or those undergoing surgery. Studies show that hypnosis meditation can lessen an individuals need for medication and reduce recuperation time. Thinking negative thoughts can lead to stress, which has powerful ramifications on the body. It can interrupt a woman’s menstrual cycle, produce a cold sore, make a person ill with a cold, disrupt sleep patterns, generate ulcers, facilitate hair loss, aggravate psoriasis, lead to heart disease and contribute to obesity. Nowadays, hypnosis sessions are used in the treatment of asthma, anxiety, sleepwalking, nail biting, smoking, inflammatory bowel disease, insomnia, addiction, bed wetting, fibromyalgia, IBS, eczema, psoriasis, acne, migraines, stress, tinnitus, cancer pain, eating disorders, phobias, depression and the pain of childbirth.

Despite overwhelming clinical evidence, hypnotherapy is still considered a pseudo science. The scientific community is at odds over techniques such as hypnotic suggestion, acupuncture, magnetism and additional natural alternative cures. However, most doctors will advocate a combination of therapies to treat their patients, oftentimes combining medication with a type of counseling. The mind is doubtless the most esoteric part of the body, with so much left to be discovered about how the mind and body work together. Maybe with the increasing applications of MRI technology, more studies will discover the mind’s miraculous possibilities.

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hypnosis sessions

How can you change someone’s life in just one week? UK Life Coach Tracy Giffen thinks she knows how. “Out goes the sergeant major approach of intimidation and bullying, crawling through mud and dawn marches,” she explains. “In comes inspiring fitness coaching making you feel motivated like never before and neuro-linguistic programming so the mind and body change together to deliver lasting results.” The process she speaks of is known as neuro linguistic programming (NLP) and it is beginning to take hold, not just in England but also in medical clinics, workout centers and workshops across the United States.

NLP was developed in the early seventies at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Scientists Richard Bandler and John Grinder were hoping to answer the question: “What makes people effective and successful?” One aspect of the study focused on language and how happy, successful individuals communicated. By analyzing how communication affected behavior, researchers were able to find some patterns. They found that certain words connected directly with people’s senses, emotions and memories. Often in NLP hypnosis, a patient will be put into a state of trance and told a story. In that story, vivid imagery will be used; for example a beautiful blue lake, white puffy clouds or a clear flowing stream. It is believed that these images will aid in their relaxation, imagination and transformation.

If you don’t think this works, then try thinking of a “rushing waterfall” or “dripping faucet” the next time you want to urinate. It works every time! In that instance, your thoughts are having a direct effect on your bodily functions and behavior. Joe Dispenza, chiropractor, researcher and author of “What the Bleep Do We Know,” studied the idea of mind over matter for years before he was given the ultimate test; a debilitating injury from a serious accident. He opted to pass up medical treatment and focus on the healing power of the mind and NLP hypnosis techniques. Sure enough, he returned to his normal activities within weeks. He is not alone on this. Even though medical science has not proven the underlying cause of these miracles, Dr. Dispenza believes it is only a matter of time before neuro linguistic programming becomes a serious science.

Neuro linguistic programming is big business in the United States. Workshops, seminars, e-books, audio tapes, DVDs and hypnosis sessions are all in a day’s work for the busy NLP therapist. It’s been used to help athletes prepare for the big game, to help patients get over phobias, to encourage weight loss in obese people, to train business professionals to be more successful and to cure physical afflictions. While the power of positive thinking has not been scientifically verified, many patients swear by the positive results they have seen in their lives.

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hypnotic suggestion

Austrian physician Franz Mesmer is sometimes called the father of modern hypnotism, and in the late 1700s, he proposed that it was a mystical force called “animal magnetism” that flowed from the hypnotist to the patient. Hypnotists James Braid and Hippolyte Bernheim argued that “mesmerism” is something far different than hypnosis and that their work centered on the idea of passing a direct suggestion, while simultaneously encouraging deep relaxation, occasionally under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Yet, modern Ericksonian hypnosis, popularized by Milton Erickson in the sixties, purports that indirect suggestions have a greater influence over the mind. While there is much dissension over “who is right,” the hypnosis techniques are practiced in centers, clinics and living rooms around America to help people mentally and physically.

In 2000, Harvard researchers sought an answer to the question: Does being hypnotized change the brain? In their study, they asked a group of men to hold a brick out in front of them as long as they could, which was five minutes for most fully conscious subjects. However, under hypnotic suggestion, they held the brick out for fifteen to twenty minutes. Next, subjects were hypnotized and placed in an MRI scanner. A computer screen showed them patterns of yellow, red, blue and green rectangles and recorded their brain activity.

Then they were shown the same rectangles in shades of gray and were asked to imagine the colors. When they were not hypnotized, both activities showed brain activity on the right side only, but when they were hypnotized both the left and the right hemispheres responded. “What we have shown for the first time,” lead researcher Stephen Kosslyn concluded, “is that hypnosis changes conscious experience in a way not possible when we are not under hypnosis.”

In another study conducted in 2004, researchers at the University of Iowa, the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and Technical University of Aachen, Germany, measured blood flow in the brain under clinical hypnosis. They asked participants to touch a hot surface and report pain on a scale from 0-10. Next, under hypnotic suggestion, all subjects reported reduced pain (3/10) at previously 8/10 temperature levels. Additionally, assistant professor Sebastian Schulz-Stubner M.D. reported, “The major finding from our study, which used MRI for the first time to investigate brain activity under hypnosis for pain suppression, is that we see reduced activity in areas of the pain network and increased activity in other areas of the brain under hypnosis.”

Another use for clinical hypnosis is smoking cessation. In 2007, North Shore Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital ran a study regarding the effectiveness of stop smoking hypnotherapy, versus those who quit cold turkey, those who received nicotine replacement therapy or those who received nicotine replacement therapy and hypnotherapy combined. Just over six months later, researchers found that 50% of those treated with hypnotherapy alone were nonsmokers and 50% of those treated with NRT/hypnotherapy had quit fully, compared to 25% in the “cold turkey” control group and 15.78% in the nicotine replacement therapy only group.

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