All on Hypnosis
Hypnosis myths
The concept of hypnosis might call to mind an entertainer lulling an audience member with a shiny pendulum, and then getting them bark like a dog.
But in medicine, hypnosis means putting a patient in an enhanced state of relaxation during which the patient is more open to suggestions. You are not asleep, nor unconscious, and does not lose control over your actions. People do not turn into a zombie, they will not quack like a duck, and in fact we ususally do not have swinging pocket watches.
It’s using your mind and your thoughts to help yourself feel better.
During a session, a client is first brought into a trancelike state of highly focused attention. You may move into and out of this state many times a day, and liken it to being completely absorbed, as in watching a sunset and losing words. It basically feels like that period of time right before you fall asleep. You’re still aware of everything, but your attention is very focused.
In this state, brain changes occur that make people better able to alter their perceptions. For example, a hypnotherapist may ask a patient to change the location, intensity or quality of their perception of pain, for example, imagining a burning sensation instead feels like water.
How well does it work?
According to a 2008 review article in the journal Nature, “there is an emerging body of evidence that hypnotherapy is clinically effective for the treatment of IBS.” Several well-designed studies have shown long-term benefits for patients, including reductions of abdominal pain, anxiety and depression, the researchers said.
In 2007, a study of 200 breast cancer patients who needed surgery. About half underwent a 15-minute hypnosis session before their surgery; the other half talked with a psychologist about their thoughts and feelings pre-surgery.
Patients who underwent hypnosis required less sedative during the surgery, and perhaps because they were more relaxed, their surgeries lasted 10 fewer minutes on average. They experienced less pain, nausea, fatigue and emotional upset following the surgery. The researchers calculated the hospital could save about $770 per cancer patient by employing hypnosis before surgery.
What is hypnosis?
This is not a question that you don’t have answers about and need me to give you an answer.
This is a question that everybody has answers, maybe way too many. This word, like another word God, is loaded with meanings and feelings. A hundred people may have a hundred different answers to this one question.
When my former boss sent an email to me asking how I was doing, I told him that I was doing hypnotherapy pretty well; and he replied immediately saying, “I hope you know what you are doing. Hypnosis is dangerous.” Once a boss, always sounding like a boss.
Indeed. I have never been so sure about knowing what I am doing.
In those early days when I was studying, a friend of mine Mo called. She would call me once in a couple of months, reporting her life. In explaining why I spent Christmas alone at home, I had to mention me taking hypnosis course. There was this extraordinary long pause I had never experienced with her. In the end, she simply put, “I guess I’ll have to be more careful when I’m with you.”
I thought if you asked around who regarded Kemila as a kind and warm-hearted person, she’d normally be the first one to put up her hand.
Ok, the one hundred and first answer: what do I think what Hypnosis is? Simple. I think it is a tool.
Like any other tools it’s neutral. It depends on when and where and how you use it. In our course, of course hypnosis is absolutely safe and secure – But you know, a safe and secure paring knife is not allowed on an airplane. People do freak out, as any tool can mean anything to anybody.
Hypnosis, a mind-awake-body- asleep process, is a natural state of our existence. Hypnotherapy is not a licensed industry because it doesn’t have to! Only real dangerous areas are licensed, like driving, or hospital – Do you know more people die in hospital than anywhere else?
This is also a tool that is made use by a lot of movies to dramatize its stories, of which as a result hypnosis is even more mystified. That just reminds me, once at a Halloween party, a friend of ours suggested that I act out as a hypnotist to hypnotize someone so he becomes a serial killer… No wonder my friend Mo decided to be more careful when I am around.
For people who still dare, hypnosis can be a real wonderful tool to help you achieve your goals faster, more effortlessly, because it makes it possible for your subconscious mind, which is in real control of your life, to agree with your conscious decisions, for example, your goals, so to end the enigma of conscious desires and subconscious motivations. When that happens, what, in the whole world, can stop you?
Not a thing!
