Monday 16 September 2013

Does Hypnosis Work? Personal Experience

By Arthur M. Taylor


As a hypnotist and hypnotherapist I am regularly asked the question does hypnosis work? I have a series of simple hypnotic demonstrations I always use when people ask: making someone fall backwards just with the sound of my voice, preventing them from being able to lift up a light object, preventing someone from being able to move and making someone's face go numb. They are neat tricks that can be done in almost any environment and are a far cry from large scale demonstration of making people comply to more outrageous instructions.
[How To Hypnotize Someone]


There are two viewpoints based on the works of Dave Elman and Milton Erickson. Followers of Milton Erickson believe that hypnosis is a process of communication with the "unconscious" mind. The suggestions which the client hears or sees get internalized within the unconscious mind which finds meanings from the past or present experiences and are acted upon unconsciously. Dave Elman taught about the "subconscious" mind as a part of the mind where suggestions work along with beliefs based on past experiences. Both describe what you could call models of learning that bypasses the conscious mind. Both models are useful for creating the change you want.

My analysis of the people who it did not work for is that they were either stubborn or unimaginative. Some people refused to comply simply because they did not like me, others because they hated the idea of someone having 'power' over them and others who are very pragmatic and don't like "having their heads in the clouds" couldn't imagine the things I was telling them. Part of the power of being a good hypnotist is getting people to like you, getting people to want to play along and finally getting them to imagine something voluntarily. That is 'hypnosis'.

We have all seen enough hypnotists performing stage shows that we can at the very least say it appears to work. Generally when people ask me the question, "does hypnosis work?" what they really want to know is does hypnotherapy work. It's all well and good to get someone into a trance and tell them about making some great change in their lives, but does it actually do anything? And finally are the effects of hypnosis permanent?

How Can Hypnosis Benefit Cancer Patients? Hypnotherapy helps with pain management and with reducing chemotherapy side effects.There have been many studies designed to address the use of hypnosis with cancer patients. Most of these studies have addressed pain management and reducing the adverse side effects of chemotherapy. The evidence is overwhelmingly positive.Does Hypnosis Work for Pain Management? Yes, hypnotherapy can significantly reduce pain.A review of 18 studies that investigated hypnotherapy for pain management found that it is effective in reducing pain. The review was published in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis in 2000 and concluded by recommending broader application of hypnosis for pain management.

If 10 minutes later they think to themselves "well that did nothing, I'm going to go have a smoke" then they are as stubborn as the person who refuses to let a hypnotist have 'power' over them. If they go to the bus stop and have to wait 15 minutes for a bus where they start thinking "oh I use to smoke here... what am I supposed to do now?" then they really want to use smoking as a crutch in their lives - they smoke when they're bored, stressed, upset, etc., and that's not likely to stop now.

Someone has to go into the hypnosis session actually wanting to quit and they have to carry that positive energy with them beyond the hypnosis session. One of the phrases I use when hypnotizing someone to stop smoking is "feel how you have now become a non-smoker". It's a phrase I repeat throughout the session and I want them to leave the session realising that it has become true. So if they are at the bus stop and bored they can say "no I won't smoke, I am a non-smoker now". It's this willingness to change in combination with regular reinforcement from the hypnotherapist that can lead to powerful effects.

It only makes sense that our mind affects our body when we remember about the placebo effect, that is the fact people with a disease get better when taking sugar pills or injections of saline solutions. Pharmaceutical companies confirm this placebo effect with every study of a new drug. Their goal is to prove a drug is better than a placebo while their results show the placebo helps a surprising number and sometimes a substantial portion of the group who take it.Take note, we're not saying that placebos are better than pharmaceuticals, just that they work because the mind influences the body as part of the same system. The mind has much more to do with your physical health than you were probably taught. The reason for this lies in the power of the subconscious or unconscious mind. This inner conscious mind is in control of your heart rate, breathing, smooth muscles like those around our organs. You can think of it as the part of your mind that's below the surface.

What's Inner Mind? If you want to get more specific, the inner mind uses the parts of your brain beneath the cerebral cortex where neuroscientists have identified structures that are responsible for feeling emotion, normal body movement you know so well they become automatic like walking and processes necessary for survival such as breathing. Because the subconscious mind both influences what you perceive and changes as a result of your perceptions, it involves the rest of the nervous system beyond the brain. This subconscious or inner mind is the seat of your emotions, habits and beliefs, and it involves your memories and experiences in creating your wellness.That principle of the body and mind affecting each other in one system is one of the presuppositions of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a method of reproducing excellence based on observing others. It includes strategies of changing oneself, helping others, selling and communicating.The earliest work on NLP was based on studying the work of the hypnotherapist Dr. Milton Erickson and other excellent therapists in order to teach their colleagues how to achieve remarkable results more quickly and easily. Because NLP and hypnotism are intimately related and have various applications, many people study and use both in their clinics.




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