Hypnotherapy Today

Today Hypnotherapy is practiced as a person-centred Psychotherapy which employs guided visualization to achieve an altered state of consciousness called trance.  This altered state is characterized by an increase in focus and concentration.  In this state of heightened awareness a trained hypno-psychotherapist can help a Client bring about the changes that they wish to make in their lives.  By bringing the sub-conscious mind, which is often a source of inner conflict, to an understanding of what the Client wishes to consciously achieve it is possible to harness the full mind and direct it towards the required goals.

In Hypno-psychotherapy the practitioner can draw the Client’s attention to new possibilities, to alternative patterns of thought, emotions and behaviour and to an understanding of their conditioned responses as a basis for exercising new choices.  The tactics and strategies employed are designed to use the resources which reside in all of us and do not require the individual to fit into a standardised protocol.  The use of a person-centred approach ensures that the therapy is not directed by the Therapist but by the Client’s own wishes and expressed needs.

The current cognitive-behavioural view of Hypnosis sees the highly focused state of consciousness, often called a “trance” state which is achieved in Hypnotherapy, as being a completely normal facet of everyday life.  There are many examples of operating in a trance state ranging from “day-dreaming” through wondering where the last 2-3 kms went when we are driving, to being completely immersed in reading a story, watching a film or simply “fantasising”.  Of course many of the routine actions which we engage in during the average day are also often performed in a trance-like state whilst we consciously attend to something which has caught our attention.

The figure below is an attempt to illustrate this focused trance state.  In the upper part of the figure (part A) a person is sitting in a relatively noisy environment trying to read a book with children playing noisily, the TV playing music and some adults speaking in the background.  Because of all this background noise the person needs to focus their attention on the book (part B) and when the story is sufficiently engaging succeeds in focusing to such an extent that the “thought bins” associated with the story produce a larger signal than the background noise; so much so in fact that if one of the adults were to try to talk to the person in this focussed state they would find it necessary to raise the volume of their voice considerably.  We have all experienced this at some time or another in a variety of situations, for example reading a food label in a noisy supermarket, trying to hear an announcement in a noisy airport and so on.

 

 

 

We would also have found that, when fully engaged with the story, it is remarkably easy to feel the emotions and experience the sensations and imagery associated with that story.  We are able to do this because all interfering thoughts, sounds, sensations etc are effectively reduced in amplitude by the narrow focus on those thought bins containing information relevant to the story.

In a clinical session a competent professional Hypnotherapist is able to facilitate the trance state in a client quite rapidly and thus allow the client to focus in upon the feelings, emotions and imagery associated with the situation they have come to therapy for.  In this state the sub-conscious mind engages with the situation whilst the conscious mind, with its supreme critical faculties, steps aside for the moment and allows the client to accept suggestions benevolent to their situation quite readily.  These suggestions are ideally not of the Hypnotherapist’s making but rather come from the client’s wishes now unimpeded by the conscious mind’s often distorted thinking which gives rise to inner conflict, doubt, lack of confidence and etc.

Indeed the feelings, emotions and imagery (which comprise the “language” of the sub-conscious), and which can easily be experienced in the trance state, reside in the mid-brain in that area of the brain known as the “primitive” reptilian-mammalian brain – the so-called old brain below the more modern cortex where most of the conscious thinking is done.  This old brain is the seat of powerful motivations which are aimed at diminishing anxiety, avoiding fear, seeking nurture, and above all, ensuring survival.  A competent hypnotherapist can bring to the client’s situation these powers of the sub-conscious mind to address their personal difficulties without inner conscious conflict from the cortex.  Clients are often amazed how clearly they can see their situation when in a trance state and also how clearly they can see what choices they need to make to empower themselves.

A few years ago the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, carried an interesting illustration of the mechanism of positive focussed suggestions in trance.  Thus the figure below illustrates to the left the normal state in which units of mind power (or “thought bins”) are scattered and the mind is constantly undergoing a barrage of consecutive thoughts each trying to actualize their own potential.

 

In this normal state only a few units of mind power are influenced by a given suggestion.  However when the mind is focussed during the induced trance then all units (or nearly all) are affected by the suggestion and when the client leaves the trance state and returns to normal, the units of mind power are scattered again but now each carries a dose of suggestion with it.

Hypnosis today is most often used in Hypno-psychotherapy to ~

• Bring into effect benevolent thinking and behavioural suggestions based on the client’s wishes;
• Analyse and interpret  difficult periods in the client’s personal history;
• Create a “safe” environment in which a client can review highly emotional situations “from a distance” and draw conclusions without being overcome by emotion;
• Safely rehearse thinking and behavioural strategies designed to overcome previous difficulties, feel their success and be in a position to implement them in everyday life;
• Reinforce successful application of choices and strategies adopted in therapy.

 

Hypnotherapy Effectiveness

Trance work is appropriate to a vast range of difficulties encountered in everyday life ranging from phobias, stress management, eating disorders, substance abuse, relationship difficulties, issues related to self-worth and confidence, medical applications such as pain management, preparation for surgery (both to be carried out under medical supervision), mood disorders, depression and anxiety disorders, as well as trauma management.  Hypnotherapy is also particularly powerful in transpersonal-spirtual application.

There is a vast body of research that shows that hypnosis used in conjunction with leading psychotherapies such as cognitive-behavioural therapy and interpersonal therapy has an effectiveness between 2 and 3 times that of other psychotherapies.  Most importantly studies show that the benefits of hypnotherapy increase over time, particularly if on-going treatment with recorded personalized scripts is used.  The relapse rate in substance abuse and eating disorders, for example, is almost non-existent.  Hypnotherapy has the remarkable property that it can help clients to experience themselves and their interactions with their environment in a profoundly positive way, thus enabling them to make significant empowering choices which have a marked impact on their lives and their world view.

 

Medical Hypnotherapy

The American Medical Association published a study recently that indicated that Stress was a prime factor in more than 75% of medical conditions.  As we learn more and more about the way certain conditions are acquired and perpetuated, the resolution of maladapted behaviour patterns by therapies including Hypnotherapy become more relevant.  Medical Hypnotherapy is not however confined to maladapted behaviour, it can be used with considerable benefit in many somatic and psycho-somatic conditions.  Common examples include Preparation for surgery, Dental disorders, Pain management, Dermatalogic disorders, Cancer treatment side-effects, Sleep disorders, Burns and emergencies, Neurological conditions, Intestinal disorders, Involuntary muscle disorders, Tinnitus, Hypochondriasis, Depression and Anxiety, Trauma, Asthma, Urinary retention and etc.

One of the primary aims of the Institute is to promote the practice of Hypnotherapy within orthodox medicine.  To this end the Institute in Australia also runs specific medically-oriented training Workshops.  Two recent workshops include Hypno-analytical therapy for Depression and Anxiety disorders and Trauma therapy for sufferers of Post-traumatic Shock and for victims of long term reinforced trauma.

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