Hypnosis
- What is it?
Hypnosis
is probably not what you think it is. Hypnosis is a technique
that allows you to utilise your own inner strengths and hidden
abilities. It can bring out those talents and skills you perhaps
don't even believe you possess. Hypnosis could be the key
that unlocks the door to an experience of life that is, at
the very least, a little easier; and at the very best free
from phobias or anxieties that have been with you so long
you believe that that is how you were made.
Hypnosis
is not about someone taking control of your mind; it's about
someone giving you permission to take control back. For when
you are trapped by an unwanted habit, such as smoking, or
you have a fear of social encounters, or food is your enemy,
then the problem controls you and dictates to you how you
are and what you do. The habit may mean you can't be anywhere
without a cigarette or visit places you would like to because
of No Smoking rules. The fear may mean you avoid parties,
or that a family wedding or celebration is an occasion of
intense anxiety rather than something joyful. Your enemy makes
you put on weight and become unacceptable to yourself and
others. Hypnosis releases you to be yourself.
The
word trance itself sounds like something mystical or magical,
yet it is nothing of the sort. It is simply an everyday natural
phenomena being used in a therapeutic way. If you've ever
lain in bed on a Sunday morning, all snuggled up in the blankets
nice and warm and cosy, drifting in and out of dreams, with
an almost total lack of awareness of the time - then you've
been in a trance. If you've ever been driving along a familiar
route and suddenly realise you don't remember part of the
journey, or you've driven the way you usually go instead of
the way you wanted to go - then you've been in a trance. When
you become totally engrossed in a book or a film and lose
track of time - this too is a form of trance. So you can see
the hypnotic trance is nothing to be feared, it is simply
a pleasant relaxed state of mind and body where the mind is
freed to wander and explore the world of the imagination.
Freed
from the limitations and restrictions of logical thinking
(this is the thinking that generates irrational fears and
maintains unwanted habits) your mind is enabled to use symbolic
thought processes to solve problems. This way you don't need
to see how to solve the problem from a rational point of view
and so the barriers to problem solving are removed.
For
instance, the problem with the smoking habit is that people
define themselves as either Smokers or Ex-Smokers. But the
truth is that when each of us is born we are a Non-Smoker.
That is what we are. The Hypnotic treatment that I use to
assist people in giving up the habit re-defines them, at an
unconscious level, as a Non-Smoker and because, after treatment,
they see themselves as a Non-Smoker there are unlikely to
be any cravings, or any of the other adverse side-effects
that other methods of stopping smoking can have. But it only
works if there is a determination to stop. Hypnosis can never
make someone do what they do not, deep down, want to do. But
if you are determined hypnosis can help remove the 'pain'
from the process.
Hypnosis
can be used to help a wide variety of problems: pain control
(with the approval of GP or consultant); achieving and maintaining
a target weight by shifting the focus to healthy, enjoyable
eating rather than diets; creating a better self-image and
boosting self-confidence; as well as a variety of other disorders.
|
