Hypnotism, Health, And You

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Hypnotism is used for far more than comedy & entertainment

You are getting sleepy, very sleepy. We’ve all seen this scenario play out, maybe in a movie or at the circus, where a hypnotist dangles a pocket watch on a chain to slowly and seductively put his subject into a trance-like state. 

Once under the hypnotist’s spell, it seems the person will do anything and everything they are instructed to do. It can take a comic turn and be quite playful, like asking someone to act like Santa Claus or Henry VIII. But some are now using the mysterious practice as a vehicle for self-improvement and harnessing the science of brainwaves to lead a more emotionally-rich life.So the old cliché about a person getting sleepy under hypnosis is half true. 

“Hypnosis is the area in your brain right before you go to sleep,” says stage hypnotist Gary Conrad. “Once in a trance, the subconscious mind comes to the forefront and the person is more open to suggestibility.”

Gary Conrad was first interested in hypnosis in the fourth grade. He did a book report on the human mind. Although he doesn’t remember the grade he got on the report, it did ignite a life-long interest in what the brain can and cannot do.

The brain can heal the body, digest food, and control things like hearing and auditory experiences. Then you delve deeper and you get into the unconscious mind.

“Moving in between the conscious and unconscious minds, you reach a sort of grey, twilight area,” explains Conrad. 

Obviously, not all suggestions are positive and all of us have been subject to negative reinforcement at some time during our lives.

“Under hypnosis, it’s my goal to take out the negative programming,” says Conrad. “People’s negative programming really holds them back from living their best life.”

Conrad goes on to mention Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” published in the winter of 1845. The tale only seems to add to the mystery surrounding hypnosis. In the story, an unidentified narrator hypnotizes a dying man bringing him to articulo mortis or “at the point of death”. 

Having finally fallen under complete memorization for the first time, the dying man slowly loses physical function of his body but can continue to talk with his tongue. Scientists had already started to experiment with the procedure, but Poe’s story is where the word “hypnosis” appears in the fiction for the first time.

The history of hypnosis is as ancient as that of sorcery, magic, and medicine; indeed, hypnosis has been used as a method in all three. Its scientific history began in the latter part of the 18th century with Franz Mesmer, a German physician who used hypnosis in the treatment of patients in Vienna and Paris. 

Because of his mistaken belief that hypnotism made use of an occult force (which he termed “animal magnetism”) that flowed through the hypnotist into the subject, Mesmer was soon discredited; but Mesmer’s method—named mesmerism after its creator—continued to interest medical practitioners. 

A number of clinicians made use of it without fully understanding its nature until the middle of the 19th century, when the English physician James Braid studied the phenomenon and coined the terms hypnotism and hypnosis, after the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos.

Hypnosis attracted widespread scientific interest in the 1880s. Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault, an obscure French country physician who used mesmeric techniques, drew the support of Hippolyte Bernheim, a professor of medicine in Strasbourg, France. 

They had written that hypnosis involved no physical forces and no physiological processes but was a combination of psychologically mediated responses to suggestions. 

“We are all subject to suggestions,” Conrad continues. “Suggestion has crept into our subconscious over time.”

Of course the almost infamous Austrian physician Sigmund Freud was impressed by the therapeutic potential of hypnosis for neurotic disorders. On his return to Vienna, he used hypnosis to help neurotics recall disturbing events that they had apparently forgotten. 

As he began to develop his system of psychoanalysis, however, theoretical considerations—as well as the difficulty he encountered in hypnotizing some patients—led Freud to discard hypnosis in favor of free association. (Generally psychoanalysts have come to view hypnosis as merely an adjunct to the free-associative techniques used in psychoanalytic practice.)

Conrad talks about the Mayo Brothers from Rochester, Minnesota being leaders introducing hypnotherapy to soldiers who had experienced combat neuroses during World Wars I and II.

“It’s much easier to help people who have experienced a one-time traumatic event, like soldiers in war, than someone who has experienced a lifetime of trauma,” says Darlene Karst, LPC-MHSP with the Center for Mind Body Therapy here in Chattanooga.

Karst goes on to talk about EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a psychotherapy treatment originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. But this treatment has now evolved into RRT, or Rapid Response Treatment.

RRT is a unique therapeutic modality that includes somatic awareness, attachment focused therapy and applied brain science. Karst says treatment focuses on the subconscious mind, the seat of most problematic behaviors and thoughts. This therapeutic approach is very effective with anxiety disorders, trauma and addictions. 

“Since it uses the language of the subconscious, results can be experienced after only a few sessions,” says Karst.

Hypnosis by itself just relaxes whoever is being put under the spell. In a clinical setting, it’s crucial for the therapist and client to be in agreement on what behavior they want to change before the procedure.

Various researchers have put forth differing theories of what hypnosis is and how it might be understood, but there is still no generally accepted explanatory theory for the phenomenon.“And that’s what it is,” says Conrad. “A genuine hypnotic phenomenon.”

However, the techniques used to induce hypnosis share common features. The most important consideration is the subject be willing and cooperative and that he or she trust in the hypnotist. Subjects are invited to relax in comfort (low lighting, soothing calm music) and to fix their gaze on some object. 

The hypnotist continues to suggest, usually in a low, quiet voice, that the subject’s relaxation will increase and that his or her eyes will grow tired. Soon the subject’s eyes do show signs of fatigue, and the hypnotist suggests that they will close. 

The subject allows their eyes to close and begins to show signs of profound relaxation, such as limpness and deep breathing. They have entered the state of hypnotic trance. 

“Clients have to buy into the process on an emotional level,” says Karst. “If the procedure doesn’t work, then me and the client haven’t successful identified what they want.”

Karst says it’s all in an attempt to move the brain forward. The client has to find the emotional hook of the behavior being identified. During hypnosis, the therapist can tap into the subconscious and get to the emotional root of the behavior. 

“This therapy really depends on the person,” says Karst. “I have a lot of intelligent clients but the goal here is that the logical and emotional mind are in agreement.”

Hypnosis can treat everything from helping people stop smoking (smoking cessation), weight loss, sexual dysfunction, depression, anxiety, pain relief, self-esteem issues, physical healing, trauma, bad habits and phobias, in addition to many other issues.

In fact, you might be hard pressed to discover something that hypnosis won’t be able to treat.“But all hypnosis is a form of self-hypnosis,” says Nancy Holland LPE. “If the individual does not believe or accept what is suggested to them, they will not take the suggestion.”

Holland encourages clients to identify a symbol, like an animal in the wild they feel exhibits characteristics they want in themselves, and/or a place that can connect them with thoughts of what that place symbolizes. 

A good example for some people might be the beach or another relaxing location.

“We then incorporate three or four key words they can connect with the symbol and these are reinforced several times during the hypnosis to help connect to further strengthen the hypnotic suggestions,” says Holland.

“Recognition and replication,” adds Conrad. He goes on to explain the different types of suggestibility or learning.

“Learning to ride a bicycle as a kid growing up, you’ve mastered about 80 percent of that skill,” says Conrad. “But something like learning French at a young age, it would be harder to recall that skill say at the age of 30 if you haven’t consistently used it.”

One common misconception is that people don’t remember being in a trance.

“People are afraid to be hypnotized because they think they will reveal their secrets, humiliate themselves or be humiliated,” says Conrad. “You’re not going to strip off your clothes and go running down the street naked.”

And then there is the fear that the hypnotist will be able to control your mind and actions.“Some people think they are giving up control of their mind which is not true,” says Karst. “If that was true I would be rich. I would just tell people to open their wallets.”

Kevin Hale is a journalist and internet and television marketer living in North Chattanooga. He enjoys chasing flying saucers and saving bees with his 6-year old son.