What Is Hypnotherapy?Essay Preview: What Is Hypnotherapy?Report this essayIntroductionThis essay will give a definition of hypnosis, and will describe the psychological and physical aspects of hypnosis. It will then proceed to discuss the role relaxation within hypno-sis. It will also outline the benefits of relaxation offering sound reasoning for the role of relax-ation within hypnosis.
What is Hypnotherapy?In therapy hypnosis usually involves the client experiencing a feeling of relaxation with their attention focusing on the hypnotists voice and appropriate suggestions and appellations created by the hypnotist tailored to meet the clients specifications. These suggestions can help the client make positive changes within themselves (Hadley J & Staudacher C 1996). In a hypnosis session the client is always in control and the client is never made to do anything to hurt or humiliate the client. It is widely acknowledged that all hypnosis is ultimately self-hypnosis and a hypnotist primarily aids your experience and guides you to relaxation. Hypnosis is considered to work by altering the level/state of consciousness of the client through switching the left hand side of the brain off, while the right hand side of the brain is turned on. The conscious control of the mind is inhibited and the subconscious mind is woken. Leaving the mind more accepting to suggestions and appellations (Hadley J & Staudacher C 1996).. The subconscious mind is more deeply rooted and is a more instinctive force than the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is the part of the mind that needs to re learn behaviour and or change to have a positive impact on the clients behaviour and physical state to alter and adapt to change through suggestions (www.articleonlinedirectory.com). For example a client who actively and consciously wants to overcome a fear may try anything possible they can do, but will fail to overcome their fears if the subconscious mind retains the information associated to the fear. Progression towards overcoming the fear will only be obtained by reprogramming the subcon-scious mind so the deep rooted instinctive beliefs are altered for a positive outcome eventually allowing and helping the client to overcome the initial fear (www.articleonlinedirectory.com).
Hypnosis essentially harnesses the subconscious mind that resides within all of us. Memories, habits, thoughts and even our beliefs are all accumulated deep inside our sub-conscious minds. This would then go without saying that if we were able to retrieve these thoughts and memories, we would be able to alter them, particularly our habits. Hypnosis en-compasses assisting the client into an altered state of consciousness where the client will be more open to suggestion. It is particularly effective at adapting and dealing with issues such as addictions, anxiety and insomnia, but it is certainly not restricted to the aforementioned. Be-havioral reformations, such as stopping smoking, alcoholism and even anorexia nervosa have also proved to be relatively successful. There are three main aspects to hypnosis: absorption, dissociation, and suggestibility these will determine the efficacy of hypnotism on a client.
The Benefits
Hypnosis is able to help a patient with a difficult condition become more compassionate and receptive to help and to ask for help, or for them to change their thoughts and actions to try new things, especially in situations where the client might have no idea what the best strategy might be. However, it does not have the quick-fix kind of results in many cases. At the end of each session, when the psychotherapist leaves, he or she is able to bring back a patient who has shown to be so completely altered by the intervention he or she provided, including a sense of empathy and a kind of sense of freedom from anxiety and stress. For this patient, hypnosis was more effective than prior hypnosis treatments because of the strong connection the therapist was able to draw to this condition.
The drawbacks
Although the hypnosis used the exact same techniques described above, it resulted in an altered state of the body in some cases. Most notably, many people found that the changes caused by a hypnosis were immediate or long term and that the only change they experienced was the feeling of calmness. This made hypnosis the preferred therapy for those with a “cold and/or negative” personality. For example, in an attempt to help people regain feelings of comfort when they were experiencing a nervous or anxious emotional state or when they were thinking about being unable to take a job or life, a sufferer on methadone was able to bring this negative psychological state to the foreground and calm the person. Although some people were able to restore their calm and to be more objective, a hypno-hypnosis patient who could not be helped by that negative experience experienced the effects it brought on the person. They also experienced a lack of motivation to do something about the situation. Thus, it does not help that a hypno-hypnosis patient often feels completely indifferent and doesn’t feel the full range of life or happiness they have.
Hypnosis can also lead to an unrealistic or unrealistic outlook; that a person’s true outlook is likely to be compromised by the intervention. This means that many patients have difficulty forming realistic perceptions of themselves due to the effect of their beliefs and values. It also means that some are more easily swayed or manipulated. Another positive effect is that it can be difficult for a potential hypno-hypnosis client to remain conscious and open to help themselves. In addition, some patients can use hypnosis to feel their negative experience. However, even if a hypnotherapy patient can be induced to change their view of the situation by hypnosis, those who are unable to control their thoughts may be less capable of controlling it themselves.
In conclusion, these may be the main drawbacks of hypnosis as is often the case. However, in that case hypnosis can be beneficial for patients in distress or with anxiety who also do not have a well-coordinated, positive or negative outlook on life or who may feel that such a situation is not normal. At the same time, some psychotherapists may not believe people like them when they look at the truth of things and might try to change it. However, hypnosis can certainly alleviate emotional pain and, as such, it can be a powerful tool to help a mental health practitioner.
Dr. Stephen J. A. Schiller
Psychedelic Hypnosis, Mental Health Professional, Clinical Psychology Professor, NYU-Purdue University, San Antonio, Texas
University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA
(212) 643-1528
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A massive advantage of hypnosis is that it is non-invasive and conflicting with general con-sensus about hypnosis its perfectly safe. You will not be influenced by any power of sugges-tion if it goes against your morals, values or even beliefs. Hypnotherapy sessions can be tailor-made to suit the clients requirements and needs. It deals with the deep-rooted problems and issues which then allows for lasting growth and potentially a cure in behavioral modification such as stopping smoking and weight loss. Hypnosis stimulates the client to have an enriched perspective about their own health through trying to changing negative thoughts into positive thoughts and real life manifestations. There are no documented negative side effects.
As a holistic alternative treatment, there are very few disadvantages to hypnotism, if any ( www.allpsych.com). However, it should be noted that not everyone is a possible candidate for hypnotherapy (Hadley J & Staudacher C 1996). Numerous people are simply not willing enough to expose their minds to the possibility of being hypnotized. These would usually be individuals who are not open minded and maybe more skeptical or are by their very natures pessimistic and unwilling to change their thought patterns or habits. Even the best hypnother-apist in the world will not manage to get through to them (www.allpsych.com). The effectiveness of hypnotherapy will differ from client to client, depending on their personal requirements and their susceptibility towards hypnotherapy and willingness to work with the hypnotherapist. Hypnosis is a long-term, slow process which can take some time (www.allpsych.com). Results may not be seen for quite some time and the final results are entirely up to you (Hadley J & Staudacher C 1996). Hypnosis cannot cure terminal illnesses like HIV or Cancer, but it can assist in managing the pain and improving the quality of life for the client. (www.articleonlinedirectory.com)
Psychological and Physical aspects of HypnosisThe experience of hypnosis can vary radically from one client to another.Some hypnotized clients may feel a sense of detachment or extremerelaxation during the hypnotic state, while others may feel that their actionsseem to occur outside of their conscious will. Other clients may remainfully aware and able to carry out conversations while under hypnosis.Experiments by researcher Ernest Hilgard demonstrated how hypnosis can beused to radically change perceptions. After instructing a hypnotized individualto not feel pain in his or her arm, the participants arm was then placed in icewater. While non-hypnotized individuals had to remove their arm from the waterafter a few seconds due to the pain, the hypnotized individuals were able toleave their arms in the ice water for several minutes without experiencing pain.Hypnosis is a useful tool for pain management and can effectively lessen cravings and addictive patterns; it is an easy process to use on a client. Hypnotherapy is encouraged in the treatment of many physical and psychological problems. There are no deep or long lasting negative side effects. Hypnotherapy promotes deep relaxation. Understanding that there are barriers to the effectiveness