Hypnosis as sorcery or facilitator?

What is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a special psychological state with certain physiological attributes, resembles sleep only superficially, and is marked by a functioning of the individual at a level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state. This state is characterized by increased receptiveness and responsiveness in which inner experiential perceptions are given as much significance as is generally given only to external reality.

Hypnosis, also referred to as hypnotherapy or hypnotic suggestion, is a trance-like state in which you have heightened focus and concentration. Hypnosis can help you control undesired behaviors or help you cope better with anxiety or pain. It is important to know that although you are more open to suggestions during hypnosis, you do not lose control over your behavior.

Hypnosis is usually done with the help of a therapist using verbal repetition and mental images. When under hypnosis, you usually feel calm and relaxed and are more open to suggestions.

Techniques

Hypnotherapy utilizes techniques including:

• Relaxation: The hypnotherapist will guide you to visualize yourself in a state of peacefulness and relaxation, even when confronting a problematic behavior or the object of your fears.
• Suggestion: Your hypnotherapist may make gentle suggestions for behavior changes to help you conquer your issue. For example, you may be taught to see yourself as a supportive advisor during a phobic reaction, thus learning to trust yourself and your ability to get through the situation.
• Coping skills: You may be taught certain cognitive-behavioral coping skills, such as guided imagery and the STOP technique, to use when confronting fears or anxieties.
• Exploration of past experiences: You may even be encouraged to talk about the first time you experienced the behavior or problem you are trying to overcome and how you felt.

The hypnotic state

The hypnotized individual appears to heed only the communications of the hypnotist and typically responds in an uncritical, automatic fashion while ignoring all aspects of the environment other than those pointed out by the hypnotist. In a hypnotic state, an individual tends to see, feel, smell, and otherwise perceive under the hypnotist’s suggestions, even though these suggestions may be in apparent contradiction to the actual stimuli present in the environment. The effects of hypnosis are not limited to sensory change; even the subject’s memory and awareness of self may be altered by suggestion. The effects of the suggestions may be extended (post hypnotically) into the subject’s subsequent waking activity.

Hypnotherapy can be an effective method for coping with stress and anxiety. In particular, hypnosis can reduce stress and anxiety before a medical procedure, such as a breast biopsy.

Hypnosis has been studied for other conditions, including:

• Pain control. Hypnosis may help with pain due to burns, cancer, childbirth, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, temporomandibular joint problems, dental procedures, and headaches.
• Behavior change. Hypnosis has been used successfully in treating insomnia, bed-wetting, smoking, and overeating.
• Mental health conditions. Hypnosis may help treat symptoms of anxiety, phobias, and post-traumatic stress.

Applications of hypnosis

The approaches used to induce hypnosis have certain characteristics in common. The most critical factor is that the hypnotized person (the subject) is willing and cooperative and trusts the hypnotist. Subjects are urged to unwind and concentrate their eyes on an item. The hypnotist maintains, generally in a low, calm voice, that the subject’s relaxation will increase and his or her eyes will become weary. The subject’s eyes soon begin to exhibit exhaustion, and the hypnotist proposes that they close. When the individual closes his eyes, he begins to exhibit indicators of profound relaxation, such as limpness and deep breathing. He has fallen into a hypnotic trance. A person will be more receptive to hypnosis if he feels he can be hypnotized, that the hypnotist is skilled and trustworthy and that the effort is safe, suitable, and aligned with the subject’s wishes. As a result, induction is usually preceded by creating a sufficient rapport between subject and hypnotist.

Hypnosis begins with straightforward, unobjectionable recommendations provided by the hypnotist, nearly always accepted by all subjects. At this point, neither the subject nor the hypnotist can identify if the subject’s behavior is a hypnotic reaction or just compliance. The subject is then gradually offered ideas that necessitate growing distortion of their perception or memory, such as making it difficult or impossible for them to open their eyes. Other induction methods may be utilized as well. It might take a long time or only a few seconds.

The resulting hypnotic phenomena differ markedly from one subject to another and from one trance to another, depending upon the purposes to be served and the depth of the trance. Hypnosis is a phenomenon of degrees, ranging from light to profound trance states but with no fixed constancy. Ordinarily, all trance behavior is characterized by simplicity, directness, and literalness of understanding, action, and emotional response suggestive of childhood. The surprising abilities displayed by some hypnotized persons seem to derive partly from the restriction of their attention to the task or situation at hand and their consequent freedom from the ordinary conscious tendency to orient constantly to distracting, even irrelevant, events.

One fascinating manifestation that can be elicited from a subject that has been in a hypnotic trance is that of posthypnotic suggestion and behavior; that is, the subject’s execution, at some later time, of instructions and suggestions that were given to him while he was in a trance. With adequate amnesia induced during the trance state, the individual will not be aware of the source of his impulse to perform the instructed act. Posthypnotic suggestion, however, is not a particularly powerful means for controlling behavior when compared with a person’s conscious willingness to perform actions.

Many subjects seem unable to recall events that occurred while in deep hypnosis. This “posthypnotic amnesia” can result spontaneously from deep hypnosis or a suggestion by the hypnotist while the subject is in a trance state. The amnesia may include all the events of the trance state or only selected items, or it may be manifested in connection with matters unrelated to the trance. Appropriate hypnotic suggestions may successfully remove posthypnotic amnesia.

Hypnosis has been officially endorsed as a therapeutic method by medical, psychiatric, dental, and psychological associations worldwide. It has been found most useful in preparing people for anesthesia, enhancing the drug response, and reducing the required dosage. In childbirth, it is beneficial because it can help to alleviate the mother’s discomfort while avoiding anesthetics that could impair the child’s physiological function. Hypnosis has often been used in attempts to stop smoking, and it is highly regarded in the management of otherwise intractable pain, including that of terminal cancer. It is valuable in reducing the common fear of dental procedures; in fact, the people dentists find most difficult to treat frequently respond best to hypnotic suggestions. In psychosomatic medicine, hypnosis has been used in a variety of ways. Patients have been trained to relax and carry out exercises that have had salutary effects on some forms of high blood pressure, headaches, and functional disorders in the absence of the hypnotist.

Though the induction of hypnosis requires little training and no particular skill, when used in medical treatment, it can be damaging when employed by individuals who lack the competence and skill to treat such problems without the use of hypnosis.

People who begin therapy assuming that hypnosis would help them improve typically have a self-fulfilling narrative that should be addressed in their treatment. According to research, clients who sought hypnosis and received a regular relaxation sequence that included the phrase “hypnosis” instead of “relaxation” whenever feasible demonstrated better subjective and objective gains than those who received standard relaxation treatment.

Source:

Dr. Asir Ajmal, Ph.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j08ciA-4Zo8

Orne, M. T. and Hammer, . A. Gordon (2021, August 15). hypnosis. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/hypnosis