Hypnosis
for Change
Change
Change
is what we want. Change is what we fear. Hypnosis offers a
resolution for this dilemma. How does it do that? Hypnosis
does it by recognising that your mind is so much more powerful
than you think it is and by demonstrating that to you. But
of course, since you don't believe your mind is so powerful,
that doubting aspect of your mind has to be distracted. This
distraction of conscious interference is given a special name
- trance. But trance sounds a bit mystical and strangely otherworldly
and so myths and irrational fears about trance and hypnosis
have emerged. I'm going to explore these myths and fears and
in doing so reveal that hypnosis is the utilisation of a perfectly
natural state for your benefit.
What is it?
Hypnosis is probably not what you think it is. Hypnosis is
a perfectly natural state that we have all experienced at
some time. That space between being fully awake and being
asleep is probably the best way to describe it. Just imagine,
in the days when Sunday was special, lying in bed all warm
and cosy, quilt tucked up round your chin, not having to get
up, no pressure and huge chunks of time just ceasing to exist
as you drift in and out of wakefulness and dreams - yet you
have an awareness of where you are and who you are and if
someone were to walk in with a steaming cup of tea for you,
you would be fully aware the moment the door opened and you
smelled the delicious aroma of hot buttered toast.
Most
of us who drive and make regular journeys will have experienced
that slightly disturbing realisation that we have just covered
a section of our journey and have absolutely no recollection
of it. Were we asleep? What happened? Abduction by aliens?
Nothing more than drifting into a peacefully aware hypnotic
state induced by boredom. The brain thrives on stimulation
and pays attention to fresh input. Anything that remains constantly
the same is no threat and so is not paid attention to. But
if anything had happened, another motorist cutting in front,
braking suddenly, we would have been fully in the present,
fully aware, dealing with the situation and with no awareness
that we were simply not recording what was happening up to
that moment.
In
therapeutic hypnosis you are guided into this trance state
by the use of words and suggestions that encourage you and
direct you into this peaceful, tranquil state. The hypnotherapist
then maintains that state while the therapeutic intervention
takes place.
Will
it help me?
If you truly want to be free of the problem (and I'll write
about hidden reasons to retain problems another time) and
you are sufficiently motivated, then there is an excellent
chance that hypnosis will help you. But it isn't like surgery
where someone renders you unconscious, cuts you open, takes
out the bad part, sews you up, wakes you up and sends you
off to finish the healing on your own. It's two people working
together.
Imagine,
your dream is to visit and spend some time in the jungle.
The jungle is a potentially dangerous place, but if there
is a guide available who knows the territory, knows what's
safe to eat, and the best places to go to have a really good
time - then it would make sense to hire this guide. The guide's
presence doesn't lessen the enjoyment of the fulfilment of
your dream - in fact he may even enhance it by taking you
to wonderful places that you didn't even know about.
I
see myself as a guide in the territory of the mind... and
the effects of the past... and maladaptive belief systems...
and the best direction to take in order to enjoy your life
to the full. The hypnotic trance is merely a tool to facilitate
rapid, safe, and secure entry into this territory. What is
this territory? This territory is the unconscious mind and
the unconscious mind holds the key to changing behaviour,
for this is where those behaviours live - behaviours like
overeating, smoking, habits, anxiety, phobias, emotional disturbance,
fear of intimacy, inability to maintain a satisfying relationship,
poverty consciousness, and so on.
Does
it Hurt?
Many people could benefit from hypnosis, or perhaps have their
problems resolved or considerably eased, but they don't take
advantage of it. And why don't they take advantage of it?
They don't phone a hypnotherapist for an appointment because
they:
· don't want to be a chicken (i.e. made to look foolish)
· mistakenly believe that orthodox medicine is the
only solution and that doctors have all the answers
· believe they can't be hypnotised and so don't see
hypnotherapy as a solution
· have been encouraged to believe that doctors are
responsible for their health - not themselves
· are afraid of:...
o personal information coming up from the past that they don't
want to reveal
o feeling helpless and in someone else's power
o 'magic' i.e. an easy effortless solution to a problem, when
they have been taught that everything worthwhile takes loads
and loads of effort.
Can
I be hypnotised?
There are some people who have visited a hypnotherapist and
think they haven't been hypnotised because: they always knew
where they were; they could hear sounds other than the hypnotherapist's
voice; and they remember everything that was said. Those individuals
probably have been hypnotised because all those things are
experienced in trance. Myself I blame the use of the word
'trance', it conveys the idea that a hypnotised person is
somehow 'not there', having been sent somewhere else by the
hypnotherapist who then works his magic unseen by the hypnotisee.
What occurs is a shift in attention directed by the hypnotherapist.
'Altered State' is perhaps a better term. Conscious distraction
to facilitate unconscious change might also fit the bill.
Hypnosis
is not an anaesthetic. The patient is not somehow 'magically'
switched off. All that are used are words, but the words are
used in a way that directs attention. The way to decide whether
or not you were hypnotised is by whether or not change takes
place. More than one patient, after visiting a hypnotherapist
to stop smoking, has told friends "I wasn't hypnotised.
I heard every word he said. I just decided to stop smoking
anyway…" If change takes place, then so did hypnosis.
If
I were to say to you 'don't think of chocolate' you may at
the very moment of having read those words have chocolate
on your mind - even though I told you not to think of it.
If I further went on to ask you, to beg you even, not to bring
to mind that sumptuous velvety smooth chocolaty texture of
the finest Swiss chocolate as it slowly melts in your mouth
and coats your palate, and under no circumstances to think
about any supplies of chocolate you have in the house, and
most importantly not to eat any chocolate today…
You
may find that you now have the odd thought of chocolate in
your mind. If you are a chocoholic then these suggestions
may well have a more powerful effect than if chocolate is
something you can take or leave. You were directed to thoughts
of chocolate by being told not to think of chocolate. And
I wonder how long it will be before you absentmindedly find
yourself eating some chocolate, remembering these words, and
then deciding it was you who freely chose to eat the chocolate…
or maybe you will fight the urge just to prove you can't be
influenced that easily… but that's not important.
If
I asked you to imagine holding a ripe juicy lemon in your
hands and to lift it under your nose and smell, and to scrape
the skin and inhale the zest, feel the waxy texture of the
skin and the deep yellow colour of the fruit, and then to
slice it open and squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on to
your tongue… I would be very surprised if some salivary
activity wasn't taking place in your mouth right now. A change
took place in you that you had no power to prevent because
it had already happened when you became aware of it - by which
time it is too late.
Did
I hypnotise you?
I
certainly put thoughts into your mind that generated a physiological
response. But what I was actually doing was demonstrating
what hypnosis is all about - the use of the power of your
imagination to impact how your body, or mind, is behaving
and responding. So if I can do that with salivary glands,
maybe I can do it with Lymphocytes to help you fight disease
processes. Or maybe I can do it to change your reaction to
something you fear.
Words
are powerful, and they have a power of which you may be unaware.
A skilled hypnotherapist will use words to bring about the
changes in your life that you desire. And it doesn't really
matter if you are in a deep trance or a light trance imagining
that nothing really is happening, because the words will be
working their magic, seeds will be sown that may germinate
later, changes may take place immediately; you may even be
given 'permission' in trance to choose for yourself when the
change will take place and so you remain in control.
Out
of Control?
Loss of control is one of those fear areas that prevents people
from benefiting from hypnotic intervention. There is a belief
that the hypnotist will have some power over you that you
will be helpless to prevent, and, therefore, the hypnotist
is apparently in a position to take advantage of your helplessness.
This is a myth. I'm just an ordinary mortal. I can't make
you do anything you don't want to do; at least not any more
than anyone else can by making suggestions to you. It's just
that I make suggestions with the aim of benefiting you and
enhancing your quality of life. Others who seek to influence
you by the power of suggestion usually have their own best
interests at heart.
Another
aspect of this loss of control that causes people to avoid
getting the help they need from a hypnotherapist is the belief
they have that a hypnotherapist will make them reveal all
of their darkest secrets, or make them relive some of the
buried traumas of the past. Or even that they will need to
look at and reveal to another some of these, potentially,
very embarrassing things that have happened to them.
If
you go to a hypnotherapist to stop smoking, or lose weight,
or have a phobia cured, or reduce stress levels, or activate
your immune system to heal a disease process, then it is most
unlikely that the therapist will see much relevance in those
things you want to keep private. If you go to get a specific
problem 'fixed' then that is what is concentrated upon. Only
where the past is relevant to the problem will it be looked
at and it is more likely to be asked about in waking conversation
than in trance. Trance is used to access those hidden and
forgotten causes of problems when it would be valuable to
know; but in most cases healing is about changing the present.
…three
times a day, after meals.
Orthodox medicine, in my experience, comes from the position
that a body is the sum of its parts. There are bits of plumbing
(cardio-vascular and digestive systems), bits of wiring (nervous
system), scaffolding (skeleton), along with all the tissue
like muscle, organs, and skin that's in there as well. Oh!
and its got a computer system (brain) controlling it all -
consciously (holding a magazine) and unconsciously (heart
beating). In my own experience of this View, me, the one who
lives, feels, thinks, and hurts in the body, has either nothing,
or very little, to do with the problems that the body experiences.
According to this View these problems are curable by surgery
or drugs, or rendered tolerable by surgery or drugs, or rendered
less intolerable by surgery or drugs.
Now
this is all well and good and if you've got a broken bone
then what you need is plaster, not hypnosis, (though hypnosis
might help relieve the pain after the plaster is in place)
and if you've got a burst appendix then what you need is a
hospital with skilled surgeons and sharp knives and people
dedicated to helping you recover quickly - again not hypnosis
(though it might just help to accelerate healing by enhancing
immune system response to infection and by reducing pain and
enabling relaxation of the area around the wound thus enhancing
blood flow and oxygenation which might just accelerate healing
- though these are things that are the expertise of doctors,
not hypnotherapists).
There
is no suggestion here that we should all stop visiting doctors
and start seeking out hypnotherapists. But there is a problem
and this is that the established view is that the mind has
no place in medicine and that medicine is just about the body.
This view fortunately is changing. Many doctors use hypnosis
to assist their patients, or advise seeking the assistance
of a hypnotherapist. Unfortunately many more doctors are ignorant
of the benefits of hypnosis and how hypnotherapy can be used
alongside or in place of more conventional treatments to facilitate
accelerated healing.
Your
Health?
So who then is responsible for your health? Many of us, are
brought up with the idea that when we become ill we need to
see a doctor who will give us something to make us better,
or send us to someone who will make us better.
If
you decide that the Medicine Men are responsible for your
health then you simply follow orders and hope that a cure
will be the consequence. If you decide that you are responsible
for your health then you simply use the Medicine Men as one
of several sources of expertise in order to seek the most
efficacious cure for your malady. Or the cure that leaves
you feeling whole and inviolate, maybe. Being responsible
doesn't mean doing your own surgery. It means deciding for
yourself that out of all the options available that surgery
is the one that will leave you feeling best about yourself
and your health. Being responsible means doing some research,
finding out what psychotherapy can do, finding out what hypnotherapy
can do, finding out what healers can do, finding out how your
mind can influence your body, finding out what surgery can
do, finding out what beneficial effects drugs have and what
adverse affects they have - before making a decision.
…and
finally
Hypnosis is a technique that facilitates desirable change.
Sometimes the effect is magical; sometimes it takes longer
to bring about that change. However, magic isn't science and
so there can be resistance from the world of science. I've
seen the magic, so I don't need science to prove it can happen.
In my own experience hypnosis is capable of erasing the impact
of a trauma that is severely reducing life quality. And it
is capable of doing it in less than 60 minutes - where drugs
and more scientific techniques have had little impact over
periods of months or years. I have seen no adequate scientific
explanation for why this is the case, but it still works.
The
ideas presented here reflect my own views and approach to
healing & hypnotherapy.
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