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Holistic hypnotherapy is the practice of using guided imagery, affirmations, and mental images to help people achieve better physical and mental health.
No study has ever found that hypnosis cures any condition 100% of the time. Neither do studies find that medications or other medical procedures cure conditions 100% of the time. Holistic hypnotherapy is not a sure-fire cure. Nothing is. But holistic hypnotherapy can help a very large percentage of the problems people bring to physicians.
How does holistic hypnotherapy work? The underlying principle of holistic hypnotherapy is that the mind processes thoughts through images. When we recall past events, we remember pictures, sounds, pain, smells, tastes, and words, or a combination of some of all of these. Sometimes the brain organizes memories so that one perception takes precedence over all others.
Very commonly this is smell. Chemotherapy patients often hypnotize themselves—and not in a good way—when they try to eat a favorite food when they are nauseous because of cancer treatment. The brain associates the undesirable side effect of chemotherapy with the formerly pleasant aroma of the food, and a once highly desirable food becomes a trigger for nausea, even when chemotherapy is complete.
Restaurants and food manufacturers also know the role of sight, sound, and smell in hypnotizing the brain. Hundreds of millions of Americans remember happy times from childhood whenever they see the golden arches of McDonald's. Just to see the "big M" or the familiar brick building is enough to trigger salivation.
Holistic hypnotherapy does, and sometimes undoes, what advertising does to all the time, only the objectives of holistic hypnotherapy are chosen by the patient. Negative thoughts are replaced by positive thoughts. Negative associations are replaced by positive associations—except when aversion is the goal, such as is the case with aversion therapy for smoking cessation.
The professional hypnotherapy helps the patient harness the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touch that have entered the mind in ways that give control over breathing, appetite, addiction, pain, and even bleeding, flatulence, muscle tremors, skin blemishes, and warts.
Very commonly this is smell. Chemotherapy patients often hypnotize themselves—and not in a good way—when they try to eat a favorite food when they are nauseous because of cancer treatment. The brain associates the undesirable side effect of chemotherapy with the formerly pleasant aroma of the food, and a once highly desirable food becomes a trigger for nausea, even when chemotherapy is complete.
Restaurants and food manufacturers also know the role of sight, sound, and smell in hypnotizing the brain. Hundreds of millions of Americans remember happy times from childhood whenever they see the golden arches of McDonald's. Just to see the "big M" or the familiar brick building is enough to trigger salivation.
Holistic hypnotherapy does, and sometimes undoes, what advertising does to all the time, only the objectives of holistic hypnotherapy are chosen by the patient. Negative thoughts are replaced by positive thoughts. Negative associations are replaced by positive associations—except when aversion is the goal, such as is the case with aversion therapy for smoking cessation.
The professional hypnotherapy helps the patient harness the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touch that have entered the mind in ways that give control over breathing, appetite, addiction, pain, and even bleeding, flatulence, muscle tremors, skin blemishes, and warts.
So how can you avail yourself of the potential of holistic hypnotherapy? Here are some important suggestions:
- Whenever possible, seek individual hypnotherapy sessions rather than group hypnotherapy sessions. Individual sessions bring quicker, faster, and longer-lasting changes in behavior.
- Ask to see a disclosure statement. In most of the United States and Canada, hypnotherapists are required to show you a statement of their qualifications, theory, and ethical code before they begin treating you, and you are required to sign it. If your would-be hypnotherapist does not offer a disclosure statement, leave.
- Ask your hypnotherapist how he or she mastered her profession. Mastering hypnotherapy takes hundreds of hours of classroom work and a supervised internship, or advanced training in a related field, such as nursing, psychology, or medicine. If your therapist cannot document his or her professional training, leave.
- Ask how long treating (fill in the blank) will take. It is a reasonable request of your hypnotherapist to estimate the number of sessions required for results.
- Don't be afraid to ask which kinds of diseases hypnotherapy cures.
- Stewart JH. Hypnosis in Contemporary Medicine. Mayo Clin Proc. 2005 Apr, 80(4):511-24. Review
- Photo courtesy of Eltman on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/eltman/468987734/