Hypnotherapy is a form of therapy that is rapidly growing in popularity. Used for everything from obesity and terminal illness to quitting smoking and curing phobias it’s not hard to see why this seemingly mystical method of treatment is attracting so much attention. This article will examine the practice of Hypnotherapy and its effectiveness in making changes to both conscious and unconscious behavioral processes.
Unconscious and Conscious Minds
Hypnotherapy is based on the principle that we have two ‘minds’. As science confirms, we have a left hemisphere that deals with logic and thought processes and a right hemisphere that is not logical but emotional and governs such processes as creativity. Hypnotherapists recognize that the cause of a lot of problems such as phobias and the associations that cause us to smoke or overeat are a result of miscommunication and misrepresentation of certain aspects of reality within our minds.
Inducing a State That Is Conducive To Healing
Hypnotherapy then recognizes that if a certain mental state is produced, commands or directions can be interpreted in a way as to powerfully effect the mind of the client. If you were to try to convince someone to stop smoking you would find it difficult because you would have to penetrate their thinking and logic (that causes them to smoke) and influence the emotional part of the brain enough that it would create a command to itself to stop smoking. While this can be done it is rarely successful and relies on many factors being present in the client. Hypnotherapists achieve this goal by inducing a ‘trance’ or a mental state in a client that is conducive to this positive change. Through various means of communication the therapist will distract the logical thinking mind and without the patient’s recognition, implant a command into the unconscious mind that will cause behavioral change. Because it seems to passive and lacking in force, the patient generally receives the treatment well and assuming the therapist does everything correctly, the treatment is successful.
Milton Erickson
Milton Erickson is considered to be one of the foremost pioneers in the field of hypnotherapy. There are many accounts of his ability to cure patients of varying types of inflictions with his creative use of language and ability to induce powerful trances in even clients who were non believers in the power of hypnosis. One story is recounted of how Erickson cured a man who had needed to urinate every 30 minutes for the past 20 years. The man came to Erickson after reportedly having seen 100 physicians and even 4 supposed hypnotherapists, none of whom could achieve the appropriate causative outcome. Through an intense one and a half hour talk where he utilized many of the key aspects of hypnosis, the man left Erickson’s office and walked back to his home and began going about his day. It wasn’t long before he noticed it had been 6 hours since he had needed to urinate.
Language patterns
One of the most powerful techniques used to instigate deep trance like states are patterns of language used by the therapist. These patterns of language lead the patient to act in certain ways by influencing their unconscious minds. As such these techniques seem very gentle and non threatening, a factor which greatly increases their rate of subsequent compliance. An example is the use of a what is known as a “presupposition” where the hypnotist might say something like “Your trance is now deepening” implying without actually saying anything that you are in a trance in the first place. He might say “Keep listening to my voice as you sit down in that chair”. By using the word “keep” it implies that you are already listening to his voice and this influences the way you are thinking and feeling. This is just one such example of influential language patterns. Do you see how language patterns like this can subtly create commands like “go into a trance” and “listen to my voice” and “sit in that chair”? While it seems to gentle, commands like this that speak to the unconscious mind are incredibly powerful in inducing changes in behaviour. Not only that but language patterns like presuppositions are useful in distracting the conscious mind in order to plant a command in the unconscious. While the conscious mind is focused on a task or command that has been implied or subtly given, the hypnotist can continue the sentence to give a command. For example the hypnotist wishing to instill calm and release tension in a patient might say “As you keep listening to the sound of my voice, you are feeling gradually more relaxed”. This is an over simplified example but while the logical mind has been distracted by ‘listening to my voice’ the unconscious mind can be given the command “feel more relaxed”. Interesting huh?
Effectiveness
How effective is Hypnotherapy? Fortunately and unfortunately we are emerging from an age where there were almost as many crock pot hypnotists and ones who were genuinely skilled at treating people. Nowadays however as hypnosis is continually proven to be an effective stimulant of physical and mental change, mindsets are slowly swaying in its favour. Scientifically and certainly based on anecdotal evidence, Hypnotherapy is without a doubt profoundly effective. As with any system of healing I believe to be of high importance, the belief of the patient that the treatment will be successful and as Hypnotherapy moves in this direction, this increased confidence in its ability should produce a snowball effect that will compound its future popularity and growth.
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