What is Hypnosis

What is Hypnosis?

What is Hypnosis?

People often ask, “Can I be hypnotized?” Before answering, I ask them two questions.

1) Do you at least have average intelligence? 2) Can you follow simple, clear instructions?

Anyone of normal intelligence, who can and will follow simple instructions, can be hypnotized. I also ask: 1) Are you afraid to be hypnotized? 2) Do you want to be hypnotized? People who have misinformation or no information about hypnosis are sometimes fearful of it. And nobody can be hypnotized against their will. You must be willing in order to be hypnotized. As soon as you understand what hypnosis is and how it works, you’ll realize there is nothing to fear.

Have you ever become so engrossed in a game or TV program that you didn’t hear someone calling your name? Or have you ever been so preoccupied with another situation while driving your car that when you arrived at your destination, you couldn’t remember the details of your trip? Then, in both instances, you were hypnotized—that is, in a light hypnotic trance. Your concentration was so selectively focused that you tuned out or paused your conscious awareness of everything else around you. Could you have emerged from that hypnosis anytime you wanted? Sure. Could you have responded to an emergency situation if needed? Absolutely. Were you unconscious? Of course not.

Are you out during a formal hypnosis session? No. Do you give up control of your mind during hypnosis? No way. Contrary to what you may have seen on some really bad late-night TV movies, hypnosis is not a Voodoo-like mind-control game. The medically accepted definition of hypnosis is: an altered state of consciousness in which the conscious mind is temporarily bypassed, so that the subconscious mind becomes highly receptive to selective, positive suggestions. During hypnosis you hear every word your therapist says—if you didn’t, how would you benefit from the suggestions? And if you don’t agree with a particular suggestion, you automatically reject it. Can you be made to do things you don’t want to do? Absolutely not. Will you disclose your deepest secrets during hypnosis? No. In fact, if asked a question, a hypnotized subject can choose to answer it, not answer it, or even falsify the answer.

All right. If you’re still in control when in a hypnotic trance, what does the hypnotherapist do? A hypnotherapist serves as a professional guide to direct you to accurately set aside your critical and judgmental conscious mind, to then enable direct communication with your far more powerful subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind is truly amazing. It’s the seat of your memory, your emotions, and your imagination. Think about that for a moment. These three things represent a huge part of who you are. The subconscious is also in full control of your body’s autonomic(without conscious thinking) functions, such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, temperature regulation, perspiration, elimination, hormone and insulin levels, and on and on. You trust it with your life every day. Your habits, both good and bad, reside in the subconscious. Why do you think it’s so difficult to break a habit such as smoking or drinking or biting your nails? Because when you make a conscious decision to stop, that decision has virtually no effect on your subconscious, where the original reason for the habit lives. Giving up a habitual behavior using “will power”(a conscious decision) works for about one day before most people become exhausted and give up. A hypnotherapist, however, understands how to communicate directly with the subconscious to remove the desire for the habit, or to substitute a more desirable behavior. When we truly no longer desire something, it’s quite easy to eliminate it from our lives.

Similarly, unwanted feelings and behavior such as fear of flying, fear of the dentist, fear of spiders(in fact, all phobias,) stress and anxiety stemming from work or personal relationships, panic attacks, insomnia, poor performance in athletics or academic pursuits—all can be eliminated or dramatically improved by communicating directly with the subconscious mind, where the underlying causes exist.

Pain can be made more tolerable, or eliminated in some cases, by reducing the anxiety that generally accompanies pain-generating conditions. Several prominent medical centers now employ hypnotherapists for pain relief as well as for relief of pre-surgical anxiety, and pain-free childbirth without the use of analgesic drugs or anesthetics. (For more information on the use of hypnosis in mainstream medicine, see the page on this website entitled HYPNOSIS IN MODERN MEDICINE.)

Now that you know what hypnosis is, you can easily see why it is so successful in improving many areas of our daily lives. What habit, fear, condition, or situation would you like to improve? Chances are, it can be easily remedied by asking one of our professional hypnotherapists to show you how to communicate properly with your subconscious mind. This can easily be done during a telephone consultation. We also offer professional CDs for your use at home. For more information, call us today.

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