What Hypnosis Can And Cannot Do, and Why It Matters

Hollywood is very good at entertaining us, but it has unfortunately given us a very inaccurate picture of what hypnosis can and cannot do.  So let's take this opportunity to review more accurate information about this topic.  In short, hypnosis can do a lot of beneficial things, and not nearly as many mad-scientist or evil-monster type things.  Let's take a closer look.

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What Hypnotherapy Can
Help You Accomplish

Recall from elsewhere on the website, that the alpha state is that brain state where the conscious and subconscious overlap.  That overlap gives us simultaneous access to both mental levels.  This access is a golden opportunity to consciously change beliefs, values, and/or identities which are either undesirable or flat out dysfunctional.  These changes then influence our waking behaviors, and improve our quality of life. 

More specifically, here is a partial list of what we can change and improve with hypnosis:

• We can access long-buried memories
• We can create, modify or remove habits
• We can access and increase personal traits such as creativity, confidence, motivation, and intuition
• We can ask the subconscious questions about our behaviors, beliefs, values and identities, then change these as we need to
• We can reduce negative emotions and experiences, such as anxiety and depression
• We can build motivation, confidence and creativity
• We can also influence bodily functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, immune function, and the perception of pain.  This last aspect is the basis for medical hypnotic anesthesia.  Considerable research has been done on using hypnotic anesthesia for those patients who cannot tolerate modern anesthetic drugs, or who need to be conscious during surgery.

Keep in mind the above list is only partial.  Clinical hypnotherapists are continuing to find additional ways to help patients by working with the subconscious.

Another interesting way to use hypnotherapy is in conjunction with conventional medical or psychological practitioners.  More and more physicians and mental health professionals are partnering with hypnotherapists to provide comprehensive care for their clients.  If you are already working with a physician, counselor or other healthcare provider, and would like to explore hypnotherapy, ask your provider if they would consider a referral.  Contact me if you would like a specialty referral for a hypnotherapist working with specifically diagnosed medical, mental or emotional issues.  I can also refer you or your health care provider to hypnotherapists who specialize in medical or dental anesthesia.

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What Hypnosis Cannot Do, And Why

Now let's look at what hypnosis can't do. 

Hollywood loves the whole concept of hypnosis, and unfortunately screenwriters have drastically stretched what can be done with hypnosis.  Movies have frequently portrayed hypnosis as being a way to program people against their will, and thus turn them into criminals, monsters or war machines.  Thankfully that is false, for a very specific reason.  As we have discussed elsewhere on this site, the human mind has multiple layers of protection, and "rules of conduct".  Without going into a great deal of psychological theory, suffice to say that the subconscious has certain "prime directives" to protect the self, and preserve certain very deeply held ethics and values.

What are the implications of that?  If someone else tries to use hypnosis to compel a person to do something which goes against those values and ethics, the mind will not only refuse the attempt but also break out of the alpha state and regain instant full wakefulness.  It is a self-defense mechanism, and it works very, very well.  It works so well that one rule of working with clients is that they actually need to be willing participants in their hypnotherapy.  For instance, if a well-intentioned friend or family member tries to "convince" someone to go get hypnotized, that generally doesn't work out.  One of the first questions we ask is if that person is actually willing to be hypnotized, AND if they actually want to make the changes which motivated that appointment.  If either answer is no, hypnotherapists generally won't take the case because that client is extremely likely to either refuse to go into an alpha state, or will simply break out of it as soon as the therapeutic portion of the session gets underway.  Bottom line, people can't be hypnotized against their will.

This actually becomes an issue for hypnotists when trying to conduct a Las Vegas-style stage hypnotism event.  While the audience is generally focusing on the goofy things done by the people on stage, the careful observer can watch a different show entirely.  If you ever have a chance to attend a Las Vegas style show, pay attention to how many people the hypnotist invites up on stage, and then how many he or she ends up sending back to their seats in the audience.  The people coming up on stage generally want to be part of the entertainment; that's part of the fun.  But some portion of them will not want to do whatever the hypnotist has in mind.  The hypnotist will very quickly and quietly test them for tolerance.  You'll see this as the hypnotist moving quickly from one person to another, speaking something very softly to them, then moving on.  Those who would not willingly go along with his or her show antics, will simply be sent back to the audience.  That's because the stage hypnotist doesn't want them snapping out of the hypnotic trance in the middle of the show.  That's the mind's protective mechanism at work.

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Informed Consumers, and Informed Choices

One of the guiding purposes of this website is to provide the most accurate information I can provide about hypnosis, success coaching and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).  These three disciplines are well-respected by the health practitioners, scientists and therapists who have studied them.  But the general population still carries around a lot of misunderstanding about what they are, and what they can or cannot do.  I hope by these informative pages I can help provide accurate information so that you, the reader, can make whatever well-informed decisions best suit your needs and goals.  

If you have any further questions, or would like to work with a hypnotherapist, contact me for an appointment.

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Contact Me For Help Reaching Your Goals

When you're ready to move forward, push through obstacles and make real progress towards your goals, Contact Me today.

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