Hypnotherapy
What is hypnotherapy?
The term "hypnosis" comes from the Greek word hypnos, meaning "sleep." Hypnotherapists use exercises that bring about deep relaxation and an altered state of consciousness, also known as a trance. This is achieved by creating an overload of message units, disorganizing out inhibitory process, known as the critical mind, triggering our fight/flight mechanism and ultimately creating a hyper-suggestible state, providing access to the subconscious mind.
A person in a deeply focused state is unusually responsive to an idea or image, but this does not mean that a hypnotist can control the person's mind and free will. On the contrary, hypnosis can actually teach people how to master their own states of awareness. By doing so they can affect their own bodily functions and psychological responses. This provides for an ability set goals and achieve them with a state of their own mind and consciousness.
What is the history of hypnosis?
Throughout history, trance states have been used by shamans and ancient peoples in rituals and religious ceremonies. But hypnosis as we know it today was first associated with the work of an Austrian physician named Franz Anton Mesmer. In the 1700s, Mesmer believed that illnesses were caused by magnetic fluids in the body getting out of balance. He used magnets and other hypnotic techniques to treat people. This is where the word “mesmerized” comes from his name.
In the medical community people were not convinced of Franz Mesmer’s work. Instead, Mesmer was accused of fraud, and his techniques were called unscientific.
It was later in time that hypnotherapy regained popularity in the mid 1900s due to Milton H. Erickson (1901 - 1980), a successful psychiatrist who used hypnosis in his practice. In 1958, both the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association recognized hypnotherapy as a valid medical procedure. Since 1995, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recommended hypnotherapy as a treatment for chronic pain.
Other conditions for which hypnotherapy is frequently used include anxiety, addiction, fears and phobias.
How does hypnosis work?
Hypnosis is created by the hypnotist in much the same way as the environment. The state of suggestibility can be defined as the manner in which an individual receives and interprets input, for example, the message units, or how the individual was communicated with from infancy into adulthood.
During hypnosis, your body relaxes and your thoughts become more focused. Like other relaxation techniques, hypnosis lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and changes certain types of brain wave activity. In this relaxed state, you will feel at ease physically, yet fully awake mentally and may be highly responsive to suggestion. Your conscious mind becomes less alert and your subconscious mind becomes more focused.
Hypnosis creates a state where the individual can do each of the following:
What can you expect from a hypnotherapist?
During your first visit, you will be asked about your medical history and what brought you in -- what condition you would like to address. The hypnotherapist may explain to you what hypnosis is and how it works. This called the Theory of the Mind. After this you will find out your suggestibility and then be directed through a relaxation technique. Using a series of mental images and suggestions to change behaviors and relieve symptoms. For example, people who have panic attacks may be given the suggestion that, in the future, when triggered, they will be in a state of relaxation. The hypnotherapist can teach you many self-improvement and healing techniques through self hypnosis. In addition, audiotapes may be provided to use at home so you can reinforce what you learn during the session.
Sessions
Each session lasts about an hour. Results of the treatment are immediate. You and your hypnotherapist will monitor and evaluate your progress over time. Children (aged 9 - 12) can be treated with hypnosis.
Hypnosis Techniques in a Medical or Dental Office
Hypnosis is used in a variety of settings -- from emergency rooms to dental offices to outpatient clinics. Clinical studies suggest that hypnosis may improve immune function, increase relaxation, decrease stress, and ease pain and feelings of anxiety.
Hypnotherapy can eliminate fear and anxiety that some people feel before medical or dental treatment. For example, studies show that dental patients who underwent hypnosis had a significantly higher threshold for pain than those who were not hypnotized. Hypnosis may also improve recovery time and reduce anxiety and pain following surgery. Clinical trials on burn patients suggest that hypnosis decreases pain (enough to replace pain medication) and speeds healing. Generally, clinical studies show that using hypnosis may reduce your need for medication, improve your mental and physical condition before an operation, and reduce the time it takes to recover.
Dentists also use hypnotherapy to control gagging and bleeding. A hypnotherapist can teach you self regulation skills. For instance, someone with arthritis may learn to turn down pain like the volume on a radio. Hypnotherapy can also be used to help manage chronic illness. Self hypnosis can enhance a sense of control, which is often lacking when someone has a chronic illness.
Other problems or conditions that may respond to hypnotherapy include:
Source: University of Maryland Medical Center and Hypnosis motivation institute
Past Life Regression is a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations, though others regard them as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation. Past life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a psycho therapeutic setting. Most advocates loosely adhere to beliefs about reincarnation, though religious traditions that incorporate reincarnation generally do not include the idea of repressed memories of past lives.
The technique used during past life regression involves the subject answering a series of questions while hypnotized to reveal identity and events of alleged past lives, a method similar to that used in recovered memory therapy and one that similarly misrepresents memory as a faithful recording of previous events rather than a constructed set of recollections. The use of hypnosis and suggestive questions makes the subject particularly likely to hold distorted or false memories. The source of the memories is more likely cryptomnesia and confabulations that combine experiences, knowledge, imagination and suggestion or guidance from the hypnotist than recall of a previous existence. Once created, the memories are indistinguishable from memories based on events that occurred during the subject's life. Memories reported during past life regression have been investigated, and revealed historical inaccuracies that are easily explained through a basic knowledge of history, elements of popular culture or books that discuss historical events. Experiments with subjects undergoing past life regression indicate that a belief in reincarnation and suggestions by the hypnotist are the two most important factors regarding the contents of memories reported.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For more info please contact Valerie Wade Hypnotherapist at [email protected] or through the contact page
The term "hypnosis" comes from the Greek word hypnos, meaning "sleep." Hypnotherapists use exercises that bring about deep relaxation and an altered state of consciousness, also known as a trance. This is achieved by creating an overload of message units, disorganizing out inhibitory process, known as the critical mind, triggering our fight/flight mechanism and ultimately creating a hyper-suggestible state, providing access to the subconscious mind.
A person in a deeply focused state is unusually responsive to an idea or image, but this does not mean that a hypnotist can control the person's mind and free will. On the contrary, hypnosis can actually teach people how to master their own states of awareness. By doing so they can affect their own bodily functions and psychological responses. This provides for an ability set goals and achieve them with a state of their own mind and consciousness.
What is the history of hypnosis?
Throughout history, trance states have been used by shamans and ancient peoples in rituals and religious ceremonies. But hypnosis as we know it today was first associated with the work of an Austrian physician named Franz Anton Mesmer. In the 1700s, Mesmer believed that illnesses were caused by magnetic fluids in the body getting out of balance. He used magnets and other hypnotic techniques to treat people. This is where the word “mesmerized” comes from his name.
In the medical community people were not convinced of Franz Mesmer’s work. Instead, Mesmer was accused of fraud, and his techniques were called unscientific.
It was later in time that hypnotherapy regained popularity in the mid 1900s due to Milton H. Erickson (1901 - 1980), a successful psychiatrist who used hypnosis in his practice. In 1958, both the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association recognized hypnotherapy as a valid medical procedure. Since 1995, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recommended hypnotherapy as a treatment for chronic pain.
Other conditions for which hypnotherapy is frequently used include anxiety, addiction, fears and phobias.
How does hypnosis work?
Hypnosis is created by the hypnotist in much the same way as the environment. The state of suggestibility can be defined as the manner in which an individual receives and interprets input, for example, the message units, or how the individual was communicated with from infancy into adulthood.
During hypnosis, your body relaxes and your thoughts become more focused. Like other relaxation techniques, hypnosis lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and changes certain types of brain wave activity. In this relaxed state, you will feel at ease physically, yet fully awake mentally and may be highly responsive to suggestion. Your conscious mind becomes less alert and your subconscious mind becomes more focused.
Hypnosis creates a state where the individual can do each of the following:
- Become relaxed
- Re-frame problem(s)
- Visualize words or images presented by a hypnotherapist
- Dissociating (letting go of critical thoughts)
- Responding (complying with a hypnotherapist's suggestions)
- Returning to usual awareness
- Reflecting on the experience
What can you expect from a hypnotherapist?
During your first visit, you will be asked about your medical history and what brought you in -- what condition you would like to address. The hypnotherapist may explain to you what hypnosis is and how it works. This called the Theory of the Mind. After this you will find out your suggestibility and then be directed through a relaxation technique. Using a series of mental images and suggestions to change behaviors and relieve symptoms. For example, people who have panic attacks may be given the suggestion that, in the future, when triggered, they will be in a state of relaxation. The hypnotherapist can teach you many self-improvement and healing techniques through self hypnosis. In addition, audiotapes may be provided to use at home so you can reinforce what you learn during the session.
Sessions
Each session lasts about an hour. Results of the treatment are immediate. You and your hypnotherapist will monitor and evaluate your progress over time. Children (aged 9 - 12) can be treated with hypnosis.
Hypnosis Techniques in a Medical or Dental Office
Hypnosis is used in a variety of settings -- from emergency rooms to dental offices to outpatient clinics. Clinical studies suggest that hypnosis may improve immune function, increase relaxation, decrease stress, and ease pain and feelings of anxiety.
Hypnotherapy can eliminate fear and anxiety that some people feel before medical or dental treatment. For example, studies show that dental patients who underwent hypnosis had a significantly higher threshold for pain than those who were not hypnotized. Hypnosis may also improve recovery time and reduce anxiety and pain following surgery. Clinical trials on burn patients suggest that hypnosis decreases pain (enough to replace pain medication) and speeds healing. Generally, clinical studies show that using hypnosis may reduce your need for medication, improve your mental and physical condition before an operation, and reduce the time it takes to recover.
Dentists also use hypnotherapy to control gagging and bleeding. A hypnotherapist can teach you self regulation skills. For instance, someone with arthritis may learn to turn down pain like the volume on a radio. Hypnotherapy can also be used to help manage chronic illness. Self hypnosis can enhance a sense of control, which is often lacking when someone has a chronic illness.
Other problems or conditions that may respond to hypnotherapy include:
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Tension headaches
- Alopecia areata
- Asthma
- Phobias
- Insomnia
- Addictions
- Bed wetting
- Fibromyalgia
- Phobias
- Labor and delivery
- Skin disorders [such as acne, psoriasis, and eczema (atopic dermatitis)]
- Stress
- Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
- Cancer related pain
- Weight loss
- Eating disorders
- Warts
- Indigestion (dyspepsia)
- Plus many more emotional, physical or spiritual issues to list here
Source: University of Maryland Medical Center and Hypnosis motivation institute
Past Life Regression is a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations, though others regard them as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation. Past life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a psycho therapeutic setting. Most advocates loosely adhere to beliefs about reincarnation, though religious traditions that incorporate reincarnation generally do not include the idea of repressed memories of past lives.
The technique used during past life regression involves the subject answering a series of questions while hypnotized to reveal identity and events of alleged past lives, a method similar to that used in recovered memory therapy and one that similarly misrepresents memory as a faithful recording of previous events rather than a constructed set of recollections. The use of hypnosis and suggestive questions makes the subject particularly likely to hold distorted or false memories. The source of the memories is more likely cryptomnesia and confabulations that combine experiences, knowledge, imagination and suggestion or guidance from the hypnotist than recall of a previous existence. Once created, the memories are indistinguishable from memories based on events that occurred during the subject's life. Memories reported during past life regression have been investigated, and revealed historical inaccuracies that are easily explained through a basic knowledge of history, elements of popular culture or books that discuss historical events. Experiments with subjects undergoing past life regression indicate that a belief in reincarnation and suggestions by the hypnotist are the two most important factors regarding the contents of memories reported.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For more info please contact Valerie Wade Hypnotherapist at [email protected] or through the contact page