Hypnosis and
Hypnotherapy
For over two hundred years the technique of hypnosis
has been used in medicine to treat a wide range of
physical, psychological and emotional disorders. It
has also long been recognised that hypnosis may
successfully be combined with other approaches and
techniques in counseling and psychotherapy. In 1997,
the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
formally endorsed the new term, hypno-psychotherapy,
as the branch of psychotherapy which uses hypnosis.
Hypnosis and the
Mind
Hypno-psychotherapy recognises that
there are many ways of looking at how the mind works.
Some people , for instance, take the view that our
thoughts and actions are mainly affected by the way
we look at the world and how it treats us. Others
believe that we are mostly driven by our
‘subconscious’ mind, which is taken to be the store
of all our past experiences and emotions. Whatever
theory of the mind is applied, hypnosis can be
integrated with appropriate psychotherapeutic
approaches to help bring about positive changes.
Helping bring
about change
Hypnosis
customarily creates a deeply relaxed state in which
mental stress and bodily tension are reduced. In this
relaxed state, the mind is usually more open to the
process of change. As such, client and therapist can
safely work together, using an agreed approach, to
enhance mental, physical and emotional well-being.
What is Hypnosis?
The word
Hypnosis comes from Hypnos who was the Greek god of
sleep. He was the twin brother of Death and the son
of Night. Hypnotic states have been used in
healing since time immemorial, it’s only relatively
recently that the dynamics have been understood
enough for it to become a therapy in its own right.
Hypnotic or trance states occur quite naturally and
we all experience trance states to some extent during
our day to day lives. One example would be when
you’re sitting in front of the television and you
realise that you’ve been drifting off into your own
thoughts and haven’t really been following the
program.
Now, this state of mind can be very useful for
us because our critical sensor - the part of the mind
that is used to filter all the incoming messages and
allow us to concentrate on tasks in day to day
living, is somewhat relaxed. This allows us to accept
beneficial suggestions at an unconscious level -
suggestions that our critical sensor would normally
reject out of hand.
Television advertising is so powerful because many of
the messages slip through the critical sensor due to
the trance like state often induced by the TV.
Being in this state of mind allows us to gain access
to some of our inherent creative potential.
Our memories are stored in our unconscious minds -
some people would say that we can still access
memories of every experience we have ever had since
the beginnings of our consciousness. Some of these
memories are close to the surface of our conscious
minds and some are buried deeply in our
unconsciousness. (when they stop and think, many
people can remember quite easily what the leg of a
chair tastes like!)
The conscious mind forgets, it has to in order to
make space for pressing issues, but the unconscious
seems to store away memories and the related feelings
- this means that all of us have a vast amount of
knowledge and experience to draw upon. The hypnotic
state allows us to access these almost infinite
resources, and incredible work can be done with them.
A hypnotherapist is someone who works with the
dynamics of this state of mind and can help the
client to work from this place to make beneficial
changes at an unconscious level. Changes at an
unconscious level can then directly affect the
clients feelings, thoughts and behaviors.
laws of the
mind