Hypnosis as a Complementary Therapy
In 1957, the American Medical Association adopted a policy statement recognizing hypnosis as a useful and legitimate treatment in both medicine and dentistry. It is useful in managing pain, alleviating stress, and increasing motivation to create healthy habits. As a complementary method to medical interventions, hypnosis can help alleviate anxiety and tension. Using guided imagery with hypnosis can be a very powerful and effective way to bring about healthy responses in the body.
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What Is Hypnosis?
According to the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, "Hypnosis is a normal state of aroused, attentive and highly focused concentration, comparable to being so absorbed in a movie or novel that one loses awareness of his or her surroundings."
In this deeply relaxed, highly focused state, our conscious mind rests, allowing access to the highly suggestible subconscious mind. We naturally go into hypnosis when we daydream or watch television without distraction. There are varying degrees of hypnosis. Some people go into deeper states, but even a light state of hypnosis is sufficient to affect change.
A common misconception is that people who are hypnotized are unconscious or can be made to do things they ordinarily would not do. This is false. During hypnosis, you do not relinquish control, instead you are able to develop more self-control, greater willpower, and heightened self-confidence. Hypnotherapy is a collaborative relationship that is directed by the client, not the hypnotherapist.
"Expectation is a powerful thing. The more you believe you're going to benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that you will experience a benefit."
~Dr. Robert DeLap on Hypnosis, Food & Drug Administration
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How Does Hypnosis Work?
Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are based on the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind (>see chart).
Our conscious mind controls just 10% of our thinking. It is responsible for our present, logical thinking. This is the part of our mind that makes decisions and exercises willpower. As you are reading this, your conscious mind is at work, thinking about and processing the information you are receiving.
Our subconscious mind is the powerhouse—it uses 90% of our thinking and controls all of our bodily functions, from breathing to running marathons. Our imagination also resides in our subconscious mind. Like a computer, our subconsious mind takes in everything we hear, see, feel, and experience--both positive and negative—and stores it all in a database for future retrieval. Our subconscious mind holds our fondest memories, our most productive habits, our highest self-esteem, and our spiritual belief. It also retains our deep-seated fears, past traumas, self-doubts, and limiting beliefs—which contribute to a negative mindset.
There is a part of your conscious mind called the critical factor. If the subconscious mind were a computer, the critical factor would be the password protection. It has the power to accept or reject new programming. Because change, even positive change, is viewed as a threat to the nervous system, most new programming gets rejected. This is why you might wake up in the morning and say, "Today I am going to exercise and eat only healthy foods," and by noon you are searching for chocolate and have created brilliant excuses as to why you can't exercise. The only way to make real change is to get the new programming into your subconscious mind.
Hypnosis is the easiest and quickest method of bypassing the critical factor and accessing your subconsious mind. During hypnosis your critical factor rests for awhile and the new information goes directly into your subconscious mind, allowing you to create positive, lasting changes in your life.
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Using Guided Imagery with Hypnosis
Recent studies using PET scans at Stanford University have shown that our brain has the same response to specific events, whether they are real or imagined. When we imagine a pleasant experience we had in the past, for example, or visualize ourselves performing an activity, our brain sends out signals, releasing chemicals that effect our body as though the events are actually occurring.
A very powerful technique that is used with hypnosis is guided imagery. With skillful, gentle guidance, you can create vivid images or profound sensations that can affect powerful changes in your mind and body. This is helpful, for example in visualizing healthy reproductive organs, feeling the benefits of being fit, or imagining your daily routine without smoking. Practicing this technique enables you to train your subconscious mind, showing it what you want it to do for you.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School have been studying the benefits of the mind-body connection for more than 25 years. Visualization has been found to cause changes in the physiology and biochemistry of our bodies, producing positive health benefits for a number of conditions, including:
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What Happens to the Brain during Hypnosis?
Using electroencephalogram (EEG) and other methods, science is beginning to determine what happens to the brain during hypnosis. The hypnotic brain looks different from the resting or sleeping brain. Hypnotized individuals are usually physically at ease, with lowered blood pressure and heart rates, while feeling fully awake and mentally attentive. There are varying degrees of hypnosis in which the brainwave states of alpha, theta, and delta can be reached.
The Science of Habit
Habits are formed when certain triggers stimulate a specific response. (For example, when stress triggers an impulse to eat sweets.) When our brain detects the trigger (in this case, stress), the nerve cell that detects the trigger sends an electric discharge to another cell (impulse to eat sweets). A neural pathway is formed between these two cells. The more we continue the pattern, the stronger the neural pathway becomes.
Nerve cells that are used a lot hold a slight positive charge. With hypnosis, some of the positive charge is released and new pathways can be established.
In the diagram below, hypnosis is used to end the habit of eating sweets in response to stress, and a new habit of going for a walk is created. The positive charge in nerve cell #2 (the response of eating sweets) is disconnected from the stress trigger #1. A new pathway is created from nerve cell #1 to nerve cell #3, so that the stress trigger now leads to the new response of taking a walk, #3.
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What is Hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy utilizes the power of your subconscious mind to heal and transform physical and emotional issues that may be preventing you from achieving your goals. Accessing your subconscious mind allows you to explore the underlying emotional causes of a problem, and understand them in a new way so you can release their control over your life.
A common and highly effective method that hypnotherapists use is mental imagery during hypnosis. This is very powerful because the mind seems to be capable of using imagery to assist us in bringing about the things we are imagining. For example, in hypnosis you can visualize yourself making a perfect golf swing, speaking eloquently in public, enjoying nutritious foods, or acing your exams. Positive results can also be achieved from using self-hypnosis with guided imagery.
Another method hypnotherapists use is to present ideas or suggestions. In a state of focused attention, ideas and suggestions that are compatible with what you want to achieve can have a powerful impact on your mind. This method can help you to increase positive thoughts, enhance motivation, and improve self-confidence.
Hypnotherapy makes the process of transforming your life quicker, easier, and more natural than other approaches you may have tried in the past.
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