Hypnotherapy Information Exchange

Hypnosis was once relegated to the realms of enter­tainment, with stage hyp­notists per­forming to a drunken audience in night-​​clubs and pubs. Later it developed into a massive money-​​spinner for TV celebrities such as Paul McKenna. Hyp­no­therapy made many people wealthy with self improvement hypnosis tapes and videos. Now, however, hypnosis is regarded as a powerful medical tool by the medical estab­lishment!
Clinical Hypnosis tech­niques are being increasingly and suc­cessfully employed by medical prac­ti­tioners to treat a diverse amount of symptoms. They target the symptoms of diseases and ill­nesses such as eczema, asthma, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, cystic fibrosis, warts, snoring, migraines and even chest pain. It has been used to relieve pain and eliminate the need for med­ication in dental work and to create an optimum pain-​​free state during childbirth. It has also been used prior to, and after, medical pro­cedures that require surgery and to alleviate anxiety and stress.

In France hyp­no­ther­apists have suc­cessfully used hypnosis to lower blood pressure. In America it was found that 50% of smokers who used hyp­no­therapy to quit did not return to the habit. As far as smoking goes, this is a huge statistic!

Although hypnosis is a mind altering technique that spans thousands of years and has been used throughout that time to treat many diverse illness and con­ditions it dis­ap­peared from public con­sciousness until rel­atively recently. As was already men­tioned its return was in the form of enter­tainment. Hol­lywood cer­tainly had a role to play in this within this and the last century. Unfor­tu­nately, Hol­lywood hasn’t por­trayed hyp­notists as being that ethical or helpful. Most have a criminal mind-​​set and hypnosis itself, in the film industry, tends to be used for selfish, gov­ern­mental or even evil purposes.

Real hypnosis is a far cry from anything Hol­lywood has offered us. However, exactly how it works no-​​one knows. At its simplest explanation hypnosis can be called a form of mental and physical relaxation but anyone who has exper­ienced a hypnotic state or practised hypnosis on another knows there is a lot more to it than that!

Old memories, long for­gotten, can be evoked from the mind. Emo­tional upsets can be released. Physical pain can be con­trolled and elim­inated. Some physical symptoms can be com­pletely erad­icated and some can be induced. In addition to these aston­ishing uses, post hypnotic sug­gestions can also be given that can cause life-​​altering beha­vioural changes (but only when the subject is willing!).

In order to gain the full benefits of using hypnosis you must move past the Hol­lywood myths, ste­reotypes and common mis­con­ceptions about all forms of hypnosis and what you think it can and can‘t do.

Hyp­no­therapy has a reported 50–60% success rate for quitting smoking. It would probably be much higher if the subjects took a 6 week course. Hyp­no­therapy is now being used in a number of ways in dentistry. It is used instead of a local or general anaes­thetic during filings and teeth extractions.

It is estimated that 1 in 4 people suffer from IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) as it is probably the most common of the sever gastrointestinal dis­orders. The main symptoms of this disorder include severe abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhoea and/​or con­stipation. The colon of the sufferer stops working but the reason for this is not known. Current medical treatment for IBS has an extremely limited effect­iveness for most people and just doesn’t work at all for many. This is perhaps why so many suf­ferers turn to alternative therapies for treatment and why hyp­no­ther­apists have developed such effective treatments. Hypnosis has a very high success rate at elim­inating the symptoms of IBS.

In Manchester, England, NHS (National Health Service) studies have been con­ducted into reducing chest pain in patients who had angina with an 80% success rate. In the USA Harvard medical research teams dis­covered that surgical wounds healed at a much faster rate when hyp­no­therapy was employed. They found that people with broken bones healed up to three weeks faster than those who received no hypnosis. In the case of surgical wounds they found that hypnosis not only increased recovery time but also reduced pain, inflam­mation and scarring!

To list all the uses and suc­cesses of clinical hypnosis would take a book. I therefore leave with food for thought. If hypnosis can help heal bones quicker and reduce scarring what else can it do?

This article was ori­ginally pub­lished on www.HypnotherapyClinic.info by Con­sultant Clinical Hyp­no­therapist & Pys­cho­therapist Noel Bradford –

As a pro­fes­sional therapist Noel help people with everything that you would expect including giving up smoking, con­trolling their weight, dealing with fears and phobias. However his services go far beyond this and encompass things that affect everyone at some time in their life, such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, stress, and low self esteem.

He  also has detailed spe­cialist training in several areas including but not limitted to Irrittable Bowel Syndrome and Pyscho­sexual matters that affect men such as Errectile Dys­function and Pre­mature Ejac­u­lation as well as those affecting women such as Hyper Desire Disorder, Vaginisums, and Dys­pareunia.

Ori­ginally posted 2009-​​12-​​20 23:49:10.