Many people might start reading this article thinking “Is hypnosis even real?”. A quick and simple answer to this would be “yes”, at least for most cases. In fact, hypnosis has actually been used by psychologists since the 19th century to treat psychological illnesses. However, for the sceptical, the problem is that the less you believe in hypnosis, the harder it is for you to be hypnotised. There are also many other factors that may make someone easier or harder to hypnotise.
The use of hypnosis for therapy is called hypnotherapy, and it has come a long way from the 19th century where it was used to treat mental illnesses such as “hysteria” by recovering the “unconscious”. Currently hypnotherapy is used to treat many disorders such as acute & chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), insomnia, depression, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), stress and anxiety.
In general, it doesn’t strongly differ from the cognitive or behavioural therapies that therapists use. The main goal in both is to change your way of thinking and beliefs to a healthier outlook. However, while a therapist may focus more on talking to do this, a hypnotherapist will mainly use hypnosis to help input the new and better thoughts or beliefs.
This is very close to what will be done when trying to treat depression with hypnosis. In addition to that, a hypnotherapist can teach self-hypnosis. Self-hypnosis is when one puts themself in a trance condition, a state of deep relaxation that happens when being hypnotised. This can be done with specific exercises or even recordings of hypnosis-inducing scripts. This can help the patient maintain and practise what was done during the therapy session, at home.
Although it requires a skilled therapist and it may not work for everyone, as Freud also noticed, there are several advantages of hypnotherapy. One of them is that even after the sessions, the patients can continue the treatment to some degree on their own via self-hypnosis. This could help handle stressful situations, preventing relapse or worsening of symptoms. Other advantages include that it can be less costly and that there are very little physical and mental risks, if done well.
For example, for treating anxiety disorders such as phobias, OCD and PTSD, one major approach is exposure therapy. In this method, a therapist gradually exposes the individual to their fear. The process begins with related items, like a rope for someone afraid of spiders, and progresses to replicas, such as a rubber spider before finally confronting the actual object, a real spider However, exposure therapy can be challenging, dangerous, or expensive in some situations, such as when addressing a fear of flying.
A therapy plan based on hypnosis begins with inducing relaxation through hypnosis, which the patient also learns to do on their own via self-hypnosis. Following this, exposure occurs within the patient’s imagination while in a trance state. This is the key difference: the patient doesn’t need to physically board a plane, but can experience an imaginary flight in the therapist’s office. Under hypnosis, the therapist is able to control the situation, making it feel very real for the patient.
Hypnosis can also be used as a substitute for anaesthesia in highly hypnotisable individuals. For those who are less hypnotisable, it can improve the effectiveness of the drug and reduce the amount needed. This can benefit the patients in terms of less risks from the drug itself and to lower the financial burden. It can also serve as preparation for any other kind of stressful, invasive medical procedure. This kind of hypnosis can help the patient relax but it has also been found to lead to faster recovery and less discomfort, even during childbirth.
Surprisingly, hypnosis is actually used for many conditions, mental and not. These can vary from depression and anxiety disorders, to pain, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome and even human papillomavirus. As our understanding of the brain and human anatomy grows, we may be able to understand better how hypnosis works in the brain and also find new uses for it. As science now often shows us how interconnected everything is!
Author: Kenzo Le Vaillant
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