Hypnosis is widely used as a complementary therapy to treat a number of ailments. It can be employed on its own as a treatment or as part of an overall strategy for managing a person’s problem. When you undergo hypnosis, you enter a state known as a trance. This simply means that you become deeply relaxed with your mind focused and you are fully aware of everything around you. In this condition, you are much more open to suggestion than you would normally be. This is because hypnotherapy gives entry directly to the subconscious. A hypnotherapist can then make therapeutic suggestions which, providing they are things you agree with or want to do, will be taken on board without question.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

This practice goes back a long way. No one has been able to establish accurately what happens to the brain or nervous system during a trance. One theory is that, while under hypnosis, the logical left side of the brain, which is responsible for speech and reasoning, relaxes and allows the intuitive and imaginative right side to dominate. This is what happens when we dream.

WHAT IS IT USED FOR?

Hypnotherapy is often effective at treating a large number of disorders that are thought to have a psychosomatic element, such as anxiety, asthma and insomnia. This is where the mind triggers or aggravates physical illnesses.

Hypnotherapy can also be a useful tool for developing mental strategies to cope with chronic or persistent disorders, such as the pain of arthritis. Some people have been totally freed from their pain. Fears, phobias, stammering and emotional problems can frequently be overcome with hypnosis. It may also help to break or control habits or obsessive behavior such as overeating or anorexia. Most people can be hypnotized to some stage, although only a few enter a deep trance. When you are in a trance, you usually sense how deep it is and you can feel when you are going deeper.

Treatments like age regression require you to enter a deep trance. This treatment is only practiced by some hypnotherapists. In age regression therapy, the client is encouraged mentally to go back to his earlier years in order to find the root of the problems troubling him now.

WHAT TO EXPECT

At the first session, the therapist will take a detailed history of your case, of past and current treatments and of any more general matters that may be relevant. You should be given a full explanation of what will happen during sessions and should be ready to take part in discussion of what you are both trying to achieve.

In not all, but some cases, it may be that the therapist does not use hypnosis at the first session, but will test your susceptibility to it and/or take you through some simple breathing and muscle relaxation exercises, while preparing your mind to accept the future changes.

In following sessions, you will sit or lie down, making sure that you are warm and comfortable, while the therapist guides you into a trance. This is usually done by talking quietly and making repeated suggestions that you are tired and that your eyelids are gradually becoming heavier. You may be asked to look at some particular thing, such as a light, or a slowly turning wheel, perhaps, or to simply close your eyes.

Many therapists play gentle recorded music and make a tape recording of the session for your use at home through self-hypnosis. This provides a reinforcement through repetition and speeds up your progress. It also means that you acquire a skill which you can use for the rest of your life.

Keep an open mind about how it feels to be in hypnosis. It may not be as you expect!

The feelings you have are similar to dozing off to sleep, being very peaceful and calm. The word ‘sleep’ is often used but in this context means a dreamlike hypnotic sleep and not a natural sleep. You probably won’t feel as though you are in a trance but what you will be aware of is a very particularly pleasant feeling of mental and physical relaxation.

Some other signs of hypnosis that you may be able to detect are: watery or fluttering eyes, changes in your breathing (usually slower), feelings of a heaviness or lightness, warm or tingling feelings in the arms or legs, feeling that you are sinking deeper into the chair, not wanting to move even though you ‘know’ you could, feeling that time has gone very quickly, experiencing little muscle jerks in your hands, arms, feet or legs. Even if you don’t feel any of these things that doesn’t mean that you haven’t gone into a hypnotic trance state.

95% of the population can go into a hypnotic trance with any single induction method or try any particular hypnotist,

While in the trance state, the therapist will talk to you (actually to your subconscious mind) and may lead you through a visualization, possibly of a garden or beach to relax you even more, guide you to recognize your positive attributes and abilities, enable you to view your problems in a better way, or gain insight into past and future behavior and make the desired changes that would be for your betterment.

Sometimes, if a client is very tired, they may pass from a trance into a natural sleep during the session. This is not usually a concern as the subconscious mind is always listening and monitoring.

Clients should have no fear that they will remain in a trance or that they will be controlled by the hypnotherapist. Therapists have no wish to control their clients - and, in fact, work to return control to clients whose illness, anxiety or condition is an indication of a loss of control.

CAN ANYONE BE HYPNOTIZED?

Yes, but only if they want to be. The only requirement is the desire to be hypnotized (or at least allow it to happen) plus an understanding of what they need to do in order to achieve the hypnotic state. The degree, however, varies from person to person. Occasionally a different induction method of a different therapist may be necessary. Most therapy sessions do not require more than a light trance state which everyone can easily achieve with training.

WHAT IF I CAN’T BE HYPNOTIZED?

The only people who cannot be hypnotized are those who are drunk or who are below average intelligence or who don’t want to be hypnotized. The fact that you have read to this point means that none of these probably apply to you. Just remember that being hypnotized may not feel as you expect it to feel, but that does not mean that you are not in hypnosis.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HYPNOSIS AND HYPNOTHERAPY?

Hypnosis has been around for thousands of years. Hypnotherapy is simply therapy which uses hypnosis as a powerful tool to facilitate change. It is used world wide. There are no drugs used, no side effects. Only the natural power of your own mind is used to relieve symptoms and alter unwanted behavior patterns. Hypnotherapy is non-addictive and safe with no unwanted or unpleasant side effects.

WILL I BE IN CONTTROL OF WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Yes, all the time. You do not go ‘out’, ‘under’ or ‘to sleep’. You are not unconscious. You are in an alternative state of consciousness with a very narrow focus of attention. You can hear everything that is being said. Nothing happens without your consent. You have absolute control. However, you are extremely relaxed.

WILL I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE SESSIONS?

Ninety-nine percent of people remember everything they or the therapist said during the session. In rare instances the therapist might need to remind them of one or two points that were talked about in order to trigger off the rest of the memory. It is possible for the therapist to give post-hypnotic suggestions to forget what was said, but this is rarely used in therapy.

IS HYPNOSIS SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

Yes, usually from about the age of six, provided they can understand what is being said, are intelligent and imaginative. Younger children can benefit from the relaxation. In 1981 self-hypnosis was introduced into the national school curriculum in Sweden.

WILL THE THERAPIST HAVE TO TOUCH ME?

Some therapists will touch you on the wrist, shoulder, neck or forehead to test whether you are properly relaxed or to assist you into a deeper state of hypnosis. They should seek your permission first. Other than this form of contact, a therapist has no business touching you.

WILL MY MIND BE INTERFERED WITH?

Could I be influenced to do anything against my will or nature? When I am in a trance can I be made to bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken? Will I say something private I’ve never told anyone? No, you will not do anything that you do not think is acceptable. You cannot be ‘made’ to violate your own values or accepted patterns of behavior. You would either reject the suggestion or come out of the hypnotic trance.

COULD I STAY ‘FROZEN’ IN ONE POSITION AND NEVER COME OUT OF IT?

The trance state can be terminated at any time you choose. It is your choice to enter the trance state and you can always choose to leave it. If you were left in a trance state by your hypnotherapist or by a hypnotic tape, you would either return to full consciousness on your own or enter a natural sleep and awaken after a short pleasant nap.

HOW MANY SESSIONS WILL I NEED?

Simple problems like smoking may only require a little as one or two sessions. More deeply rooted problems require more sessions. Many hypnotherapists offer a free initial assessment consultation in which to meet you, assess your problem, determine your needs and the likely number of sessions. This may also be done over the telephone.