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Hypnosis treatment

Hypnosis is a psychological state with physiological attributes superficially resembling sleep and marked by an individual’s level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state. Another description of the phenomenon is that of an altered mental state, while another links it to imaginative role-enactment.

A person under hypnosis is said to have heightened focus and concentration with the ability to concentrate intensely on a specific thought or memory, while blocking out sources of distraction. Hypnosis is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction involving a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions.

The use of hypnotism for therapeutic purposes is referred to as “hypnotherapy”, while its use as a form of entertainment for an audience is known as “stage hypnosis”.

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The term “hypnosis” (Greek: ὕπνωσις) comes from the Greek word hypnos, “sleep”, and the suffix –osis, or from hypnoō, “(I) put to sleep” (stem ofaorist hypnōs-) and the suffix –is. The words “hypnosis” and “hypnotism” both derive from the term “neuro-hypnotism” (nervous sleep) coined by the Scottish surgeon James Braid around 1841. Braid based his practice on that developed by Franz Mesmer and his followers (“Mesmerism” or “animal magnetism”), but differed in his theory as to how the procedure worked.

There is a belief that hypnosis is a form of unconsciousness resembling sleep, but contemporary research suggests that hypnotic subjects are fully awake and are focusing attention, with a corresponding decrease in their peripheral awareness. Subjects also show an increased response to suggestions. In the first book on the subject, Neurypnology (1843), Braid described “hypnotism” as a state of physical relaxation accompanied and induced by mental concentration (“abstraction”).

A person under hypnosis experiences heightened suggestibility and focus accompanied by a sense of tranquility. It could be said that hypnotic suggestion is explicitly intended to make use of the placebo effect. For example, in 1994, Irving Kirsch distinguished hypnosis as a “nondeceptive placebo,” i.e., a method that openly makes use of suggestion and employs methods to amplify its effects.

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The hypnotized individual appears to heed onlythe communications of the hypnotist. He seems to respond in an uncritical, automatic fashion, ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out to him by the hypnotist. He sees, feels, smells, and otherwise perceives in accordance with the hypnotist’s suggestions, even though these suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the stimuli that impinge upon him. Even the subject’s memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion, and the effects of the suggestions may be extended (posthypnotically) into the subject’s subsequent waking activity. 


Hypnotism has also been used in forensics, sports, education, physical therapy and rehabilitation. Hypnotism has also been employed by artists for creative purposes, most notably the surrealist circle of André Breton who employed hypnosis, automatic writing and sketches for creative purposes. Hypnotic methods have been used to re-experience drug states and mystical experiences. Self-hypnosis is popularly used to quit smoking and reduce stress, while stage hypnosis can persuade people to perform unusual public feats.

Some people have drawn analogies between certain aspects of hypnotism and areas such as crowd psychology, religious hysteria, and ritual trances in preliterate tribal cultures.

Traditional hypnotherapy (Hypnosis treatment)

The form of hypnotherapy practiced by most Victorian hypnotists, including James Braid and Hippolyte Bernheim, mainly employed direct suggestionof symptom removal, with some use of therapeutic relaxation and occasionally aversion to alcohol, drugs, etc.

Ericksonian hypnotherapy

In the 1950s, Milton H. Erickson developed a radically different approach to hypnotism, which has subsequently become known as “Ericksonian hypnotherapy” or “Neo-Ericksonian hypnotherapy.” Erickson made use of an informal conversational approach with many clients and complex language patterns, and therapeutic strategies. This divergence from tradition led some of his colleagues, including Andre Weitzenhoffer, to dispute whether Erickson was right to label his approach “hypnosis” at all.

The founders of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), a methodology similar in some regards to hypnotism, claimed that they had modelled the work of Erickson extensively and assimilated it into their approach. Weitzenhoffer disputed whether NLP bears any genuine resemblance to Erickson’s work.

Cognitive/behavioral hypnotherapy

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy (CBH) is an integrated psychological therapy employing clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The use of CBT in conjunction with hypnotherapy may result in greater treatment effectiveness. A meta-analysis of eight different researches revealed “a 70% greater improvement” for patients undergoing an integrated treatment to those using CBT only.

In 1974, Theodore Barber and his colleagues published an influential review of the research which argued, following the earlier social psychology of Theodore R. Sarbin, that hypnotism was better understood not as a “special state” but as the result of normal psychological variables, such as active imagination, expectation, appropriate attitudes, and motivation. Barber introduced the term “cognitive-behavioral” to describe the nonstate theory of hypnotism, and discussed its application to behavior therapy.

The growing application of cognitive and behavioral psychological theories and concepts to the explanation of hypnosis paved the way for a closer integration of hypnotherapy with various cognitive and behavioral therapies. However, many cognitive and behavioral therapies were themselves originally influenced by older hypnotherapy techniques, e.g., the systematic desensitisation of Joseph Wolpe, the cardinal technique of early behavior therapy, was originally called “hypnotic desensitisation”and derived from the Medical Hypnotism (1948) of Lewis Wolberg.

Hypnosis in childbirth

Hypnotherapy has long been used in relation to childbirth. It is sometimes used during pregnancy to prepare a mother for birth, and during childbirth to reduce anxiety, discomfort and pain.

Psychotherapy

Hypnosis was originally used to treat the condition known in the Victorian era as hysteria. Modern hypnotherapy is widely accepted for the treatment of anxiety,  subclinicaldepression, certain habit disorders, to control irrational fears, as well as in the treatment of conditions such as insomnia and addiction.  Hypnosis has also been used to enhance recovery from non-psychological conditions such as after surgical procedures and even with gastro-intestinal problems, including IBS.

Cognitive hypnotherapy and bulimia

Scientific literature suggests a wide variety of hypnotic interventions can be used to treat bulimia nervosa. Similar studies have shown that groups suffering from bulimia nervosa, undergoing hypnotherapy, were more exceptional to no treatment, placebos, or other alternative treatments.

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