Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Control?

Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Control?

by | Apr 12, 2018 | Health, Hypnosis, Life, mind, Self Development, Self-Hypnosis

Google Alert Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

Every morning I get a set of Google Alerts. You can get emails when new results for a topic show up in Google Search. For example, you can get info about news, products, or mentions of your name.

A couple of my alerts are hypnosis and hypnotherapy this morning.

An alert came in under hypnosis which is the video I have embedded in this post.

 

 

When I was looking for this  YouTube video there had already been 137,306 views.

Now the video is edited and stage managed and you can see from the comments underneath that many people think it is fake.

I am not the best person to judge that but there are hypnotherapists and hypnotists who could comment and I hope they will.

Whatever the situation this is the sort of clip that gives people their impressions and perceptions about hypnosis and that is a shame.

Now here is another Google alert I received under category hypnotherapy.

This blog post which is well researched is by a freelance writer.  You can find the complete blog post at: https://www.self.com/story/hypnosis-for-skin

I love the title of this blog post written by Sarah Ban

I Tried Hypnosis for Insomnia. Then My Skin Cleared Up.
I don’t understand it, either, but I’m not complaining.

How often have I seen that.

So many people who have used hypnosis will say the same thing. “I don’t know how it worked – but it did.”

Adam Eason my hypnotherapist friend was amazed when he was treated for his psoriasis by a clinical hypnotherapist.

He was completely surprised by the effect on his skin as he had tried everything else prescribed.

That is in fact what led Adam to learn about hypnosis and start his hypnotherapy career.

Back to Sarah’s article…

The blog post by Sarah is well worth reading and she points out various studies and research in the field.

She finishes her blog post:

Whether or not I can explain how my skin got better, I’m pretty positive that my hypnosis sessions had something to do with it.

Whichever confounding variable was responsible for the clearer skin I saw after my hypnotherapy sessions (stress reduction, better sleep, placebo effect, or all of the above), I’m just thrilled to have seen results at all.

I was finally able to get my racing mind under control with the help of hypnosis. That meant I went from getting maybe two measly hours of sleep a night to a solid eight hours, which is a massive improvement for me. When I’m well-rested during the day, I’m more equipped to handle hectic situations, which means my stress levels are more under control, and I’m pretty sure that’s resulting in a newly clear complexion. My skin still breaks out when I’m frazzled, but it seems a lot happier overall. And so am I.

It is very easy to get wrong impressions about hypnosis.  The showmen want to make it all look mystical and unreal.

I have videoed many courses where hypnotherapists were being trained.  Many wonderful people with a real desire to help people with annoying behaviours, habits, addictions, pain, self-esteem and so on.

The problem for them especially in their early days is convincing many people out there who have very little knowledge about the therapy.

Ten years ago I was among those who knew very little about hypnosis.

Here are a few facts about hypnosis.

Stage Hypnosis:

This is a difficult one for clinical hypnotherapists to deal with. The on stage guys are clever and use hypnosis and distraction techniques well.

The people selected to go on stage and take part are actually expecting an outcome. They are more prepared than they believe to respond and play the part.

The thing to realise is that they are willingly being led and are NOT really under the control of the hypnotist.

I personally love Derren Brown who actually calls himself a mentalist and illusionist. That is much better title although other people talk about him being a hypnotist.  He often will show at the end of his performance how he has been misleading the audience.  He will show video and you can see the clever language that is feeding the imaginations of those being manipulated.

Myths and Mystery and Bad Journalism

Oh dear I don’t know what to say about this one.

There are TV shows and humour “look into my eyes, look into my eyes” and all of that nonsense.

There are journalists who write for a living who are writing err … garbage!!

There are exceptions like Sarah Bar above who is giving a sensible researched article.

Here is a blog by Adam Eason entitled “The Hypnotist Thief? Was It Actually Hypnosis Used? Or Was It Lazy Sensationalist Journalist”

Here is a short passage.

Firstly, the Telegraph, which you’d expect to have a more sober perspective on the story carries the headline: ‘Hypnotist thief puts shopkeeper in trance before robbing him’ The hypnosis article can be found here if you’d like to read it.
Before I do anything else, let me address the fact that the Telegraph uses the word ‘Trance’ in the title of their article and then assumes that trance and hypnosis are the same thing. They are not.

Hypnotism Is Not A Hypnotist/Hypnotherapist Taking Control

The problem, of course, lies in the way hypnosis is presented again and again by the media, having to explain to clients over and over that hypnosis is something THEY do sometimes feel like a losing battle.
Self-Hypnosis is a skill that can be learned by anyone. Yes it is a learned SKILL

To Take Control Issue Further – For My Christian Friends.

I wrote about this a long time ago in 2008 but I won’t send you to that post.

What I will do in fact is update that blog though as there are some new links to add.

Let Me Rant a Bit – Which Is Not My Usual Style …

(you will see that this post is rather sombre for me – but I so want you all to know more about the subject before criticising)

The usual thing is that people think they know about something without having ever studied the subject at all – they simply have an opinion based simply on intuition, gossip or whatever.

Several of my church friends have questioned my interest in what they describe as taking control of someones mind and over somebody’s thinking?

What? …  WHAT?

I have videoed and sat through hundreds of hours of clinical hypnotherapy and cognitive bahavioural therapy training – AND it is NOT taking control of the clients mind.

If you think there is exasperation showing – you are right!

STOP!!

Let me bow out.

Really I am wise to leave this to somebody qualified to talk about it.

I am no fool.

Here is a YouTube video – well audio really with a ridiculously strange splash screen – about Hypnosis and Christianity. This is a video interview with Rev Dr Scot Giles. This is about his work using hypnosis with cancer patients.

 

 

The talk therapies offer help harmlessly.  There is a lot of research about the effectiveness of many interventions – for example pain relief.  The weakness is that there much more research needed.

So What About Psychiatry?

The very same people that object to hypnosis therapy WILL accept and endorse psychiatrists offering treatments and medication.

From my young nursing days back in the 60’s I had the horror of working with a team giving Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT).  Notice my strong word horror.  I could not believe what I was witnessing.  I will say no more about that as it was a long time ago and I may exaggerate.

I was shocked (there’s a pun) when I found out recently that this therapy was in growing use again.

Here is a piece from an article in The Guardian – Electro-Convulsive therapy on the rise again in England

“The figures, obtained through freedom of information requests, show that despite being a crude, controversial treatment, which fell sharply out of favour around the turn of the millennium, ECT is enjoying a revival.

The procedure involves anaesthetising the patient and passing electricity through the brain to induce seizure. Despite ghoulish depictions in popular culture and a marked lack of science explaining how and why it works, treatments can prove effective. Patient stories range from life-changing benefits to tales of lives being ruined.”

Hypnotherapists are not wanting to get inside your head and control you.  There intention is for their clients to learn the skills of focused imagination and suggesting to themselves the changes they want to make.  That is my simple interpretation.   Don’t let me tell you though.  Better to learn directly from a hypnotherapy practitioner.  I can put you in touch with the best.

What If Hypnotherapists Could Get To Control You?

I remember when I first met Adam, the guy who introduced me to hypnotherapy.

He was introducing his business in a breakfast BNI meeting.  At each BNI meeting you were allowed 60 seconds to tell a story about your business.  A bit like twitter really.

Adam was charismatic and I looked forward to his spot.

One of his minute stories was about hypnotherapists taking control of your mind.

Adam asked us “Why would I be standing up there at 7am to get some new business if I really could use magical hypnosis skills to control somebody?  No!  Surely I would simply make an appointment with my bank manager and get him to write me out a million pound cheque.

Of Course There Are So Many More Question – Another Day

There are so many other questions.

  • What does being hypnotised feel like?
  • Do I go to sleep?
  • Is it like being in the zone – like sportmen?

I really do want you to find out.   So more to follow.

 

Photo by Austin Prock on Unsplash

Doctor Mark Porter Blowing a Smokescreen Over How To Stop Smoking

by | Aug 31, 2011 | Health

I was reading a recent article in the ‘Times’ regarding women’s health problems called ‘How to stub out the habit’ by Dr Mark Porter, which in itself was informative and helpful to those wanting to quit smoking.  But what got my juices flowing was that the article blew a smokescreen over the real reason why folk smoke or cannot break the habit, which like all other habits and addictions is based around the persons mindset.

Dr Porter mentioned the use of willpower and talked a great deal about the use of drugs as replacement treatments but not once mentioned the real cure i.e  dealing with and changing the reasons why people think they need to smoke!  Talking about the use of varenicline as the most popular treatment amongst his patients he goes on to say, “Trials show a success rate as high as 44 percent at the end of the course, reducing to around 25 percent after the end of a year. (Around half of all smokers relapse within a year of quitting whatever method they use.)  But real-world quit rates tend to be lower than this, and side-effects can be an issue, particularly feeling sick, insomnia and nightmares.” Hmm, those side effects don’t sound too good, probably need more drugs to cure them and the success rates don’t seem to be all that clever either especially in the real-world that he mentions, wherever that is – aren’t his patients in the real-world?

Willpower is only as good for as long as you can keep it going, which in most cases isn’t very long, and it can cause a lot of anxiety which of course gives the smoking habit a hole in your defences through which to climb. Drugs are to my way of thinking the last resort, why substitute one drug for another and fill the drug companies coffers at the same time. They merely mask the symptoms without getting to and healing the root causes of the problem.  How we live is determined by how we think, thought is the start of every action that we take from who we like and dislike, what we like or dislike, whether we are positive or negative, what causes us stress and what gives us peace of mind and whether we choose to smoke or not.  If we choose to do something that we don’t really want to do we have the option to be able to alter the way we think about it. Hypnotherapy is a great way of overwriting old ways of thinking with better and healthier options, quickly and painlessly and without the side affects that both willpower and drugs may produce.

So, nice article Dr Porter and I’m certainly not trying to put you down over this, anyone helping people to stop smoking is good in my book but lets not blow a smokescreen over the real reasons people smoke, the reasons that once dealt with then become the cure – thought!

I am generalising of course but ever since I was nursing I have been struck by how few doctors really are interested in the ‘mind – body’ relationship and pooh pooh things like hypnosis that really can offer permanent behavioural change.  Why won’t more GPs link up with Clinical Hypnotherapists to offer a more holistic approach to treatment especially in areas such as smoking and weight loss.

In the last six years of working with my friend Adam Eason a clinical hypnotherapist and seeing him in action, I have witnessed first hand how he has helped thousands of people with his simple to use audio hypnosis MP3s overcome addictions such as smoking with NO SIDE EFFECTS EXCEPT better health prospects.

Come on Dr Mark Porter – you can offer better advice than at present (what about the NHS Smoke Stop programme as well) and I directly challenge you to check out the help Adam Eason and other Clinical Hypnotherapists could offer your patients.