What is Hypnotherapy?
Healing from the inside out.
Hypnotherapy is a heightened state of concentration and focused attention. Guided by a trained, certified hypnotist or hypnotherapist, hypnosis allows you to be more open to suggestions to making healthful changes in your perceptions, sensations, emotions, memories, thoughts or behaviors.
Today, hypnosis is recognised by the scientific community as an effective healing tool, although how it works is still something of a mystery. It is not a treatment in its own right, but is used as a part of medical, psychological and dental treatments.
Disorders treated by hypnotherapy:
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Hypnosis is scientifically proven to help change attitudes, perceptions and behaviors that are causing disorder and illness in everyday life. Hypnotherapy is effective in treating a range of medical and psychological issues, including:
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Anxiety
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Asthma
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Chronic pain
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Fears and phobias
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Smoking
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Alcoholism
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High blood pressure
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Insomnia
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Panic attacks
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Stress
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Migraine
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Obesity
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Addiction
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Thumb sucking
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Sleep problems
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Sexual problems
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Stuttering
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The hypnotic state
The brain has different levels of consciousness, or awareness, ranging from fully alert to drowsy to fully asleep, with variations in between. Hypnotic states occur naturally and spontaneously.
Everyday examples include:
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Daydreaming
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Being absorbed in a pleasant task and losing track of time
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Doing a mundane task (such as washing the dishes) while thinking about something else, to the degree that you can’t actually remember performing the task
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Getting lulled into a dreamy state by boredom, for example, when listening to a dull speech.
Clinical hypnosis deliberately induces this kind of relaxed state of awareness. Once the mind is in a relaxed state, any therapeutic suggestions can have great effect on attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. The way that this occurs isn’t fully understood. Some researchers believe that hypnosis promotes particular brain wave activity that allows the mind to take in and adopt new ideas, while others suggest that hypnosis accesses the ‘unconscious mind’, which is more open to new ideas than the rational ‘conscious mind’.
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Source
Department of Health & Human Services. (2000, April 4). Hypnosis. Better Health Channel. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/hypnosis
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Hypnosis- you are in control
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Suggestions may be taken to heart, but only if those suggestions are acceptable to the hypnotised person. Contrary to popular belief, you can’t be hypnotised into doing things against your will. You can’t be forced into a hypnotic state either. Instead, you allow yourself to be hypnotised. It is a voluntary altering of your own consciousness, and you are always in control. In other words, you are hypnotising yourself.