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Hypnotherapy – fact or fiction?

When you think of hypnosis, you probably imagine a performance where someone dangles an object in front of the participant’s eyes, trying to snap them into a state. Hypnosis may seem like a hoax, but it’s a genuine form of psychological treatment.

Hypnosis, clinically known as hypnotherapy, is usually used along with psychotherapy, allowing you to explore any thoughts, feelings and memories you might have hidden from your conscious mind. Hypnosis helps you to see things differently, like refraining from blocking awareness of painful emotions.

There are two main types of hypnotherapy used for different treatment:

Suggestion hypnotherapy helps you to better understand and respond to suggestions given by a hypnotherapist. This kind of hypnotherapy can help change certain behaviours like smoking, nail biting and unhealthy eating habits. It can also be used to change your sensations and perceptions and is useful in treating pain.

Analysis therapy puts you into a relaxed state to explore psychological causes of symptoms or disorders like a traumatic event that you’ve buried away in your unconscious memory. Once an incident of trauma is revealed, the therapist would then go on with psychotherapy to give you treatment.

How hypnotherapy helps
It can improve the success of other treatments for many conditions, including:

  • Phobias, fears, and anxiety
  • Sleep disorders
  • Depression
  • Stress
  • Post-trauma anxiety and stress
  • Grief and loss

Recently, hypnotherapy has been used to change behaviours like smoking and leading an unhealthy lifestyle. Hypnosis helps you experience things in a multi-sensory way. It aims to make you feel more in control of your behaviour, so you can reach goals like losing weight or quitting smoking.

It tackles the underlying problems which prevent you from your lifestyle improvement aspirations. The therapist would also train you to concentrate on the negative effects that come with your bad habits. For example, if a therapist were to help you quit smoking you might be asked to think of all the negative things involved with smoking, like the bad odour and possible health problems.

When it comes to weight loss, similar therapy would be used. You would be trained to think and feel differently about food to change your behaviour. For example, if you’re an emotional eater the aim of hypnotherapy would be to separate your feelings from eating. In this way, you will be able to work through your emotions and food will be seen as something pleasurable and as a solution to hunger, as opposed to a crutch for your negativity.

Hypnotherapy is useful for tackling food disorders like binge or mindless eating as it also helps you to identify triggers and learn how to disarm them in a healthy way.

Good to know

  • Hypnosis only works if you’re willing and focused on healing. The hypnotherapist can only guide you. You have to do the work.
  • Hypnotherapy is not a quick fix. It takes time, effort and your full participation.
  • Hypnotherapy is a natural healing remedy, which makes it cost-effective.
  • Hypnotherapy could give you more control of your life, your body and your relationships as it’s focused on empowerment.

References