Centering Tools

Top Ten Benefits of Hypnosis

A Definition

I define hypnosis as a self-directed meditative energetic healing practice that postiviely and pleasantly engages the imagination to achieve chosen goals.  Hypnosis works with inner-directed central focus and the willingness to allow the breath to deepen and regulate itself. 

One is then able to enter what in clinical terms is called a trance state, or what in lay terms might be called a "zone" or receptive state which opens a clear channel to deeper consciousness, enabling one to "plant seeds" to shift and clarify motivation at a core level to alter responses to well synchronize with deep desires.

Who Can Be Hypnotized?

Everyone, provided you are willing, which means open to the experience, and can centrally focus on the direction.  Research tells us we move into a light (sometimes a deep!) trance when we watch television or drive a car at night.  Then there's daydreaming . . .

Here are My Top 10 Benefits:

1.  Releasing mental, emotional and physical stress

2.  Centering yourself

3.  Eliminating addictions

4.  Achieving clarity

5.  Improving self-esteem

6.  Relieving pain

7.  Developing intuition

8.  Heightening motivation

9.  Healing the past

10.  Becoming your own best Self 

A Brief How-to

Intrigued?  Settle back into a comfortable position, close your eyes, and begin to imagine how easily you can direct your breath to deepen.  Then count to yourself 10 full, deep, easy breaths.  Following, for the next several breaths you take, when you inhale, say to yourself this phrase, "Let be", and when you exhale, say to yourself this phrase, "Let go".

Picture yourself floating in your rising and falling, endlessly flowing breath so easily and lightly, like a feather.  Then say to yourself as you inhale, this phrase,  "All is well ".  As you exhale, say to yourself, "I am well, always".

Gradually return to full, waking consciouseness, and when you're ready, open your eyes.  How do you feel?

All Hypnosis is Self-Hypnosis

Remember, nothing can override your innate Will.  We can choose how to direct that Will, and care for ourself to support a foundation which keeps us balanced and clear, which is the state in which optimal results occur through hypnosis. 

Einstein said "The imagination is everything".  Hypnosis is the key to unleashing your own unique infinite power to create within your core where you are free to be.

Related Questions - and Answers - from Centering

• Does hypnotherapy successfully treat phobias?
• Why is hypnotherapy not recommended for people with depression? What conditions can and cannot be treated by hynotherapy?
• Does hypnotherapy work for smoking cessation?

First bullet:

Hypnotherapy is a very successful way to treat phobias.  I combine it with related therapeutic practice, and work uniquely with each individual regarding their particular situation.

Second bullet:

I have successfully used hypnotherapy to relieve a lot of the related symptomatology associated with depression such as anxiety, confusion, irritability, sleep and appetite disturbance.  I use an integrated approach focusing on therapuetic process and problem-solving with behavioral interventions, which also respond well to hypnotherapy and which additionally are self-help and empowerment practices that dramatically improve self-esteem, which typically significantly erodes with depression.  In addition, the malaise associated with depression is relieved with hypnotherapy, which energizes and uplifts the recipient.  Lastly, where depression "roots" in earlier trauma and/or is directly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, hypnotherapy can effectively heal the core, and therefore the related symptomatology that fuels depression disappears.  All of the above conditions respond well within themselves, with or without depression as a clinical diagnosis, to hypnotherapy.

Third bullet:

Hypnotherapy works very, very well for smoking cessation, provided the individual within their own innate will wants to stop.  Whether there is ambiguity with this desire or not doesn't matter - what does matter is that hypnotherapy will not work when a person is only looking to stop smoking because someone else wants them to do it if they really don't want to quit at all, even if the reasons to quit are excellent.  I find, again, that what cements success is combining hypnotherapy for smoking cessation with behavioral counseling, health teaching, and related coaching.

There Are No Limits

Other than our choice and our level of consciousness.  So make your choice, create your experiment, and be open for any and all results! 

Hypnosis in the media

Often times I'll see popular websites/sources of health information as displaying somewhat misleading information about some of the alternative therapies I've used with great success.  I was browsing the internet today and found myself at Mayoclinic's website.  I must say, I was impressed with their characterization of hypnosis.

I really liked their section called "Myths about hypnosis" as I felt that they addressed some of the most common, and thus restricting, misunderstandings about hypnosis and what it can be used for.

Myths about hypnosis

If you've ever seen hypnotism used as entertainment in a stage act, you've probably witnessed several of the myths about hypnosis in action. Legitimate clinical hypnotherapy practiced by a qualified professional is not the same process as that performed on stage.

Myth: When you're under hypnosis, you surrender your free will.
Reality: Hypnosis is a heightened state of concentration and focused attention. When you're under hypnosis, you don't lose your personality, your free will or your personal strength.

Myth: When you're under hypnosis, the hypnotherapist controls you.
Reality: You do hypnosis voluntarily for yourself. A hypnotherapist only serves as a knowledgeable guide or facilitator.

Myth: Under hypnosis, you lose consciousness and have amnesia.
Reality: A small number of people who go into a very deep hypnotic state experience spontaneous amnesia. However, most people remember everything that occurred under hypnosis.

Myth: You can be put under hypnosis without your consent.
Reality: Successful hypnosis depends on your willingness to experience it. Even with voluntary participation, not everyone can be led into a hypnotic state.

You can find the entire article here.

How do you feel about how popular sources of health information characterize certain alternative or "once alternative" practices? 

Do you think that progress has been made, in the sense of medical communities being more willing to accept (culturally/historically) unfashionable therapeutic methods?

Lastly, do you think that the above article was effective in dispelling some of the common myths, or did it leave something out?

Use Hypnosis to Regulate Pain and Anxiety

Hypnosis has been in the news a lot.  For instance, NiagaraThisWeek.com recently had a report on the benefits of hypnosis on the child-birth! 

With the birth of her second child, Milligan used a hypnotherapist, who she and her husband saw once per week for half-hour sessions. She learned how to relax her body using specific breathing techniques to put her body in a calm state, which produces a natural anaesthesia.

Milligan's success story isn't the first one to be told about the medical benefits of hypnosis.  Children are subjects of some of the greatest case studies about the medical uses of hypnosis.  But before reviewing one that I am particularly fond of, we should consider (or reconsider) our understanding of hypnosis. 

Case studies, as a method for evaluating the potential effectiveness of a therapeutic method, can serve as a sort of catalyst for rethinking hypnosis.

Hypnosis and Case Studies

There are many misconceptions, I think, about hypnosis.  Hypnosis is often characterized as a way in which the hypnotherapist gains psychological control over a participant.  We've all seen demonstrations of people "being put under a hypnotic spell" with bizarre or anomalous behavior (i.e. barking like a dog, acting as if they are in love with someone else, and so forth).

There is another (more therapeutic) use for hypnosis which deserves more attention.  One of the ways in which we can appreciate medical uses of hypnotherapy is by reviewing case studies.  Understanding the benefits of hypnosis may help us to rethink several of the medical and societal paradigms we use.

An 8-year-old's struggle with fear and anxiety

Laurence Sugarman's "Hypnosis: Teaching Children Self-Regulation" (Pediatrics in Review,    Vol. 17, No. 1, Jan '96) is a superb example of the kind of lesson case studies can teach us.  I say this merely because it is commonplace, if not standard, to evaluate the empirical worth of a therapy on the basis of its numeric or quantifiable data.  Case studies give us another spin, another way to appreciate the same therapies, or even new therapies.

Sugarman discusses an 8-year-old suffering from "obstructive uropathy." Treatment required an 8-week hospitalization that effected her deeply on a psychological level.  According to Sugarman, Karie's (whose original name has been changed) fear and anxiety culminated in her (weekly) erthropoitin injections. Karie's doctor realized that the time required to calm Karie down was too much (20 mins every time) and began to think about alternative ways to approach this.

How hypnosis can lead a child from fear and anxiety to 'playful cats'

He advised Karie's family to think about hypnosis.  Hypnosis would "diminish her procedure-associated anxiety and facilitate adjustment to her disease."  In simple terms: Karie associated her weekly treatment with the anxiety and fear-ridden experience of her hospitalization and (more generally) of her sickness. Hypnosis would dissolve that link and allow her to remain calm during treatments. 

After her very first visit, Sugarman reports that Karie had learned how to use a past-memory of pain that didn't yield anxiety and fear.  She would "focus her attention while staring at a coin she held at arm's length" as a medium for her to think about the memory of her cat playfully scratching her.  Her focus on the coin motivated a memory of pain that Karie was at home in, that is, familiar with: the pain wasn't associated with any fear or anxiety.  The pain resulted from something Karie was fond of--her cat--and she would focus her mind on that while she was undergoing treatments.

Sugarman goes on to explain ways in which Karie modified and/or articulated her method of projection.  Thus, instead of merely remembering her kitten scratching, Karie learned to modify herself such that the remembered (and imagined) cat was 'being playful'.  The benefits were manifest: Karie progressed rapidly from increased calmness to "I didn't even feel a shot."

The moral of the story

Sugarman's story tells us two things.  One: children can be great candidates for hypnotherapy.  This may be a result of their imagination.  Two: Case studies of individuals who have undergone hypnosis for a medical reason can lead to a different way of understanding just what hypnosis does or (more importantly) what it can be useful for!