HEAL YOUR LIFE...
FACTS & MYTHS IN HYPNOTHERAPY
HEAL YOUR LIFE... |
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FACTS & MYTHS IN HYPNOTHERAPY |
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Table of contents
Introduction
Introduction
Why write yet another book on
hypnotherapy?
One reason is to dispel the myths about what hypnosis can and can’t do. The extravagant claims of high success rates that, at least some hypnotherapists claim, is not backed up by research. This is explained later on.
Another reason to write a book on hypnotherapy is to give guidance about what it can and can’t do in relation to various problems that people come to hypnotherapists for. It is dangerous to use it in some areas such as anorexia and bulimia. Conditions such as these do need trained practitioners to deal with them. However, in desperation in can be the case that parents of the child with such problems or the person themselves will use hypnosis as a “last resort” which it really would be if the hypnotherapist is not trained to deal with these conditions.
What is covered in this book is as follows:
 | The use of hypnosis to become a non-smoker so you don’t need to smoke rather than you “give up” smoking and feel like a deprived ex-smoker. There is a difference. |
| In weight control hypnosis encourages you to feel in control rather than deprived as happens when you go on a diet. Likewise controlling drinking through hypnotherapy where control is definitely encouraged through hypnosis and not the idea that you are always one drink away from excessive drinking. Practice moderation in all things: true control is moderation. A wise saying which applies to everything. |
| Past life regression: how far is this a “real” experience through hypnosis? I discuss what past life regression should be used for. Is it alright just to use it for interest and research into the mind? Should it be used for healing which some therapists say that is all past life regression should be used for as it has been proven to be effective in that way? |
| Treating anxiety, worry and stress through hypnosis. Again seeing these as normal so control is sort for rather than “cure”. They are only harmful if excessive, like most things in life. |
| Use of hypnosis to control thinking patterns in a positive and effective way with the aid of neurolinguistic programming(NLP). I also mention cognitive behaviourial therapy(CBT) which works in a similar way to NLP. |
| Accessing your “inner power” through hypnosis. This involves an approach called psychosynthesis where the overall aim is to help the person to control their mind, body, emotions, thoughts, feelings and desires. This works well with hypnosis which encourages dissociation, i.e., the ability to step outside of the body, feelings, emotions, thoughts, etc, and see that you control them and not they control you. |
| Other topics I cover are: The use of hypnosis to help improve study habits, memory and concentration. Hypnotherapy and dreams. Hypnotherapy and problems in sport. Hypnotherapy to treat sexual problems. Self healing through hypnosis and the use of self-hypnosis. |
As a trained hypnotherapist/psychotherapist /counsellor of 14 years standing, and a member of the British Psychological Society, The United Kingdom Council of Psychotherapy and the National Register of Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy I see so many claims about hypnotherapy which are not supported by research I thought it was time to write an honest book. For example, many claims for success rates are just pure fantasy. Many hypnotherapists claim a 95% success rate in helping to give up smoking and that this can be done on your first attempt! Research shows that this is simply not true. It is also true that hypnotherapists often do not follow-up on people they have seen so how could they know what the percentage success rate is? It can take from one to ten attempts or about five attempts on average to defeat the weed. So effort is needed, but anything worth having does take an effort. It is also best to know the truth because otherwise people who don’t succeed first time might think they are just hopeless failures or that hypnosis doesn’t work when the truth is a number of attempts are required. This is not to say, of course, that people cannot give up in one attempt if they are really determined.
There are three factors that work here and this also is true of therapy as a whole. First, there must be belief that you can do it. Hence the phrase, “You’ll see it when you believe it.” Then there is motivation: for smoking this is the motivation to put long term gains in front of short-term, so-called, pleasures. Finally, there is commitment, which in smoking, is to the idea that you truly are a non-smoker in your future and can see this in your mind.
What research does show is that hypnosis is the most successful single method to use in giving up smoking. So what is needed is facts not fantasy. It is also true that if a person is 100% convinced that they can become a non-smoker that it is much more likely to happen. So it is true that nearly 100% of those who are determined to become non-smokers will succeed but not necessarily on their first attempt.
When using hypnosis it is important to know how it works. Research is still going on in that area in universities and in research departments of hospitals. But there are certain facts which are known at present. It is important to know that suggestions given with hypnosis do not always work straight away. They might, but it is more common for the subconscious mind to take in suggestions through repetition and then work on them so it might be a while before any effect is shown. A good example of this is in enuresis where the child wets the bed at night. I emphasise that in this problem a skill is being built up of controlling the sphincter of the bladder until the child will not wet the bed at night. This has to be done in the subconscious mind as that is the part of the mind awake when the conscious mind is asleep. Through self-hypnosis and by listening to a tape the child gets it deep into his/her mind that the brain and bladder will communicate during the night so that either the child is woken up to go to the toilet or the sphincter muscle of the bladder will stay closed all night so there is no wetting and the child can go the next morning.
My experience with this problem is that there is not a response to suggestions immediately. A common pattern is that there are more and more dry nights. It cannot be predicted either how long this should take before the child is dry. The same pattern applies for other problems too that are often dealt with through hypnotherapy.
Although a similar pattern is followed in many other problems I still do not encourage that way of thinking in smoking. I endeavour to get the message immediately to the subconscious mind that the person is now a non-smoker. The reason for this is that invariably people say they cannot cut down and that it is necessary to just “make the break”. I agree with this because I was a smoker of twenty years standing and I eventually just broke it by saying enough was enough. I no longer was willing to be controlled by a habit that was dirty, disgusting and told me what to do from first thing in the morning to last thing at night seven days a week! This is the 24/7 syndrome applied in a different way.
Another fact is that the subconscious mind can work much faster than the hypnotherapist and client would expect. For example, I had a client of 35, in a professional job, who had an embarrassing thumb sucking habit. After just two sessions he told me that the habit, which had persisted from childhood, had now gone. We had decided not to plan a specific number of sessions as the problem had lasted so long and no previous treatment had been effective. Clearly, a long drawn out treatment was not necessary because he found the hypnotherapy so effective.
The subconscious mind works all the time whether it is day or night. It is below the level of consciousness and comes out most strongly at night in our dreams. This is discussed in Chapter 9 "The use of hypnotherapy in sleep and dreams". It works during the day too, of course. Any time we are indulging a habit such as smoking without thinking, driving on “automatic”, day dreaming without knowing what is going on around us(how often did that happen in school?) then the subconscious mind is taking over. A flash of inspiration is an indication that the subconscious mind is at work, as is remembering someone’s name after you have talked with them, but not while you were talking to them.
The above flash of inspiration is connected to the idea of the unlimited potential of the subconscious mind. It is important to remember that the subconscious mind has everything in it that we have experienced, that we have learnt and know. This is why it has a great deal of power to help us but to disturb us too with things we don’t want to remember or feel again. Because research is ongoing, and we don’t have any real knowledge of the extent of the potential in most people’s minds, then we have to infer it rather than say that we know it definitely exists. Suffice it to say that most people are not aware of this unlimited potential and the great creativity of the subconscious mind. This creativity can be used to come up with many solutions to the problems they have.
I emphasise both these points when I do hypnosis with people. It is to use hypnotherapy to release the power, strength, creativity and energy of the subconscious. It is to avoid, as far as possible, the tendency to live in the basement of our minds and to think that that is all there is. This way of thinking is common in depression and boredom. But I do emphasise that with the right frame of mind there is no chance you will be bored or depressed.
The subconscious mind works too on the basis of metaphors, as in dreaming(see Chapter 9 again), which means that one thing stands for another. It works too like a metaphor in itself and the one I sometimes use is that it is like a horse. It will do what you want when you are firm and clear about what it is you actually want. If there is no clear message then it can cause great disruption to your life and becomes like a “wild horse” that has a will of its own with no regard for the real situation. This is illustrated in panic attacks where there is no real reason to feel panic but the person’s mind reacts in such a strong way that he/she can feel as if they are dying. So the same applies to a horse that runs wild, when terrified, and the rider then has to gain back control. If control is not gained then the person may be in for a “long ride” that they don’t want or even be thrown off and seriously injured! The same then applies to the subconscious mind and the need to get it under control so it does not take us for “rides” that we don’t want to go on or even worse throw us as in panic attacks.
A further example of how the subconscious mind works, outside of the person’s control, is in paranoia. I have treated paranoia frequently and in that sense it can be seen as quite normal as so many people are paranoid to some degree. It is only when it “goes over the top” that it is seen as abnormal. For example, one of the clients I have treated for paranoia thought that when she saw a famous personality on TV that if that person touched their clothing in some way then this was a secret signal that this person was out to get her and to kill her. This paranoia was severely out of control when she first came to me but now, after treatment, it just doesn’t exist anymore as the subconscious has accepted that the fears generated by paranoia are not justified or realistic.
Seeing ghosts, spirits, and being afraid of the dark are other areas which show how the subconscious mind works. Whether the fears are buried in the subconscious from childhood or whether they are deeper than that, and may even originate from a past life, research still has to reveal. We all know that these fears are irrational but this still doesn’t convince the subconscious mind which takes these things literally and embroiders the situation to make it seem that the ghosts, spirits and the dark contain threats and dangers even when the person has never seen a ghost!
This though is similar to xenophobia where the people are afraid of anything that looks different whether it is a person who comes from a different country or background and doesn’t look the same as people in the particular village, town, city, country, etc., where the person lives. I have had to deal with getting the message deep into people’s mind that the subconscious mind is not responding to reality but to some deep primitive fear that anything which appears different must be threatening. So I make it clear that there is a parallel here between being afraid of anyone “foreign”, feelings of paranoia and being afraid of ghosts or spirits. Since it is the case that no one has definitely been harmed by spirits or ghosts then the “threat” must be manufactured in some way whether it is by films or the subconscious mind just working overtime. As I said to one client of mine why couldn’t she think of ghosts as being friendly. There have been stories of ghosts warning people in some way that they are in danger so they can save themselves.
Milton Erickson: The father of modern hypnosis
No introduction on hypnotherapy would be complete without mentioning Milton Erickson the “father” of modern hypnosis. He was trained as a medical doctor and although he died in 1979 he has remained even more influential in death than he was in life. The way he worked with people was to “read” them and their problems and come up with a solution unique to that person. He used metaphors a great deal in his work. A famous example was an alcoholic who came to him for treatment. He worked on a newspaper so was in an occupation where drinking was an occupational hazard. Erickson told the man to go to the Botanical Gardens and look at the cacti there. He told the man to marvel at the fact that cacti can go three years without rain and then to do a lot of thinking about that idea. Twenty years later a young woman came into his office and said that Erickson had treated her father for alcoholism successfully by making him visit the Botanical Gardens and learn from the cacti how to get along without drinking. She had only been three at the time and now wanted to see what kind of man could cure an alcoholic in that way. She confirmed that her father had not been drinking since that session. So in this particular case, and with many other people he treated, Erickson did not use a textbook type of approach. He stated that you ought to look at the person and figure out what kind of man or woman he/she is and then deal with the person in front of you in a way which fits their unique problem. To do this in one session shows what a genius he was. It is an amusing aside though that Erickson said to the daughter that he hadn’t been paid for the session as the journalist had not returned to the clinic.
As mentioned before metaphors are a major way of the subconscious mind contacting you. This happens most often in dreams but it also happens in the daytime too. Phobias are metaphors for some fear that goes beyond the fear of the object itself. One person who had bathophobia or fear of being out of her depth in water, thought that her fear was a metaphor for the fear of committing herself deeply in relationships. This was conscious reasoning on her part and an interpretation she made for herself but the fear was there in the subconscious mind so just analysing wasn’t enough. It is necessary to tackle the fear at its origin which in this case would be the relationship problem.
Self-hypnosis has a place in the introduction because this is what is commonly recommended by hypnotherapists for their clients to learn. I do recommend it but find that more than half of the clients I see have a difficult time making it work. This is the reason that I sometimes start them off with a tape that helps them to practice hypnosis first through my voice if I can fit it into the first session. This has the added advantage too that when I do hypnosis in the therapy session it will also have accustomed them to my voice.
A good idea of how you could treat yourself using self-hypnosis is in Appendix 5. This tells you how to hypnotise yourself, if you choose to use this method. Of course, self-hypnosis is useful to bolster your will power and your creativity. Going to an hypnotherapist, for most people is what is recommended. It is far more effective than self-hypnosis or using a mass produced self-hypnosis tape which is made for the general public and is not especially designed for you. When you visit an hypnotherapist it is common for tapes to be made especially for you and, in my practice, they are a recording of the hypnosis as it takes place within the session. However, there is no harm trying self-hypnosis first and finding out how good you are with hypnosis.
Finding a hypnotherapist near you
There are a number of national registers which can give you a list of hypnotherapists around the country. Unfortunately the quality of the lists varies enormously and it is advisable to stick to those which are reasonably rigorous about the amount of training the hypnotherapist has. Some registers would accept practitioners of hypnotherapy who basically have only a couple of weeks worth of training.
In Appendix 1: Useful Information I have listed organisations which you can contact if you want to find a trained hypnotherapist.
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