As the therapist’s voice says,
”
Now focus on your breathing,
”
I feel myself becoming more relaxed.
”
Think about breathing very slowly, very deeply, and very
regularly,
”
the voice continues.
What am I doing lying on a couch at 3:00 in the afternoon, I’m
wondering.
”
You are breathing very slowly, and you are breathing more and
more deeply.
”
Did I take the phone off the hook?
As the therapist’s voice says, “Now focus on your breathing,” I feel myself becoming more relaxed. “Think about breathing very slowly, very deeply, and very regularly,” the voice continues.
What am I doing lying on a couch at 3:00 in the afternoon, I’m wondering. “You are breathing very slowly, and you are breathing more and more deeply.” Did I take the phone off the hook? “And you are breathing very regularly.” I don’t think she can really hypnotize me, but I figure I should try it once before writing about it. “And now you feel your toes tingling and you are breathing very slowly.” But if the phone rings, it will ruin my concentration. “Each toe is becoming very relaxed. You are breathing very deeply. And now your legs are starting to relax.” I wonder if I turned my cell phone off. “You are breathing very regularly.”
“When I count to three, you will feel very relaxed and you will wake up … 1-2-3!” Her hands come together in a sharp clap. My mind snaps to attention and I sit straight up. I realize I have no idea what she has been saying for the last 10 minutes. It’s like driving across town and then realizing you have no memory of all the stops and turns you made to get there. My stress has melted away.
I have just had a taste of the relaxing effects of hypnotherapy, according to Edna Dowell, who has been a licensed hypnotherapist for 24 years.
Today, when you mention hypnosis or hypnotherapy, many people automatically think of the hypnotists they’ve seen in Las Vegas shows or on TV who can seemingly make members of the audience do whatever they want them to, such as barking like a dog.
“That’s entirely different,” says Charles Krahenbuhl, a licensed psychotherapist and hypnotherapist for 34 years. “At least 20 percent or more of the general population is willing to be under the control of a stage hypnotist. It’s a safe situation for them to go along with suggestion, and that’s when the closet exhibitionists and mystics make their appearances.
“The hypnotist looks over the audience, and he can recognize those who are most willing and ready to go into a trance state. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis, whether you realize it or not.”
He elaborates: “It’s merely another state of consciousness. It’s not a sleep state; tests of brain wave show that you are wide awake while hypnotized. It’s simply a certain kind of deep concentration, such as some people have when doing something they enjoy, like reading a really riveting novel.”
Dowell adds: “Hypnosis is not mind control. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
An ancient tradition
People have been seeking ways to alter consciousness since the dawn of time, from the trances induced during religious rituals in ancient cultures to the stage shows of Franz Mesmer (we get the English word “mesmerize” from his name) in the 18th century courts of Paris, where the hypnotist would be surrounded by a circle of women captivated by the magnetized iron rods he used for healing.
Many hypnotherapists market their craft as a means to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, ease pain and even lower a golf handicap. Some doctors promise results after only one visit.
“You have to be careful about ads like that,” Krahenbuhl says. It takes patience when it comes to altering deeply ingrained personal habits, he adds.
“Rapport plays an important part in effective hypnotherapy. Find someone you can trust and make sure they’re trained.”
Dowell says much the same. “Make sure [the hypnotherapist] is trustworthy. The best way to determine that is a referral from a friend.”
Proper and effective hypnotherapy takes time, both therapists say, which can be difficult for some people to accept in our fast-paced society. “The noise and busyness of our culture doesn’t allow us to concentrate,” Krahenbuhl says.
“Everyone wants a quick fix.”
Until recently, no psychotherapist could practice hypnotherapy without being licensed. While all psychotherapists generally have some training in hypnotherapy these days, a hypnotherapist doesn’t have to be licensed anymore; he or she can be certified by simply taking a course in hypnotherapy.
Another popular use of hypnotherapy is analysis of one’s past.
“The danger is that only someone certified as a hypnotherapist can tap into the really deeply repressed stuff,” says psychology graduate student Roberta Faust, who is practicing hypnotherapy techniques as part of her current studies. “[Those who aren’t properly trained] may not know how to deal with it.”
“There’s a reason for defense mechanisms like selective amnesia, which keep you from remembering things that are too painful,” Krahenbuhl says. “If you suspend the ego supports and defense mechanisms that keep us sane, you are opening a very dangerous can of worms. It’s risky to open up repressed memories until the person is ready for it, and sometimes the person is never ready.
“You never want to embarrass or humiliate someone to effect change, and if you are untrained in psychotherapy, you can do so without even realizing it.”
Easing the pain
When practiced by a highly skilled therapist, there can be great benefits from hypnotherapy. James Esdaile was an English surgeon whose skill with hypnotherapy enabled him to cut into patients before anesthetics were invented – without them feeling any pain. In the 1800’s about half of all people died during surgery. Esdaile’s success rate for survival was almost eight out of 10.
Today’s hypnotherapists say that pain control is one of the top reasons patients seek them out for hypnosis. It’s counterintuitive, but focusing on your pain can often reduce it.
Krahenbuhl explains: “When you pay attention to pain, what happens is that your body releases natural pain killers called endorphins.”
The problem with this approach is how much time it takes. It took Esdaile as long as two hours to put someone under deep enough for surgery, and the same is true today. Hypnotherapists use natural induction (inducing an altered state of consciousness without the use of drugs) and relaxation techniques that don’t work as well if rushed.
“Our minds and bodies are so tightly linked,” says Krahenbuhl. Just as stress can affect our bodies, even to the point of making us sick, so the reverse is also true. When people are given suggestions at a certain level, the hippocampus [section of the brain] translates the change from a suggestion into actual chemical changes in the body.”
“Hypnotherapy has been used very successfully to control pain, even the pain of childbirth,” according to Faust.
“There have even been hysterectomies performed without anesthesia. Some women bring their hypnotherapist into the birthing room with them.”
Dowell says that there are emergency room workers who use hypnotherapy to help stop bleeding. “I once knew one who would whisper into the patient’s ear words like ‘You can control the bleeding. You are going to stop bleeding now.'”
She says that when you are in shock, you are in a type of trance-like state in which you are very open to suggestion. Dowell has also used hypnotherapy to stop migraine headaches.
Kicking the habit
Breaking bad habits is the No. 1 reason people visit hypnotherapists. People go to hypnotherapists to stop themselves from pulling out their own eyelash hairs, gnawing their fingernails down to the quick, smoking, and of course, to lost weight.
Weight loss coupled with behavior modification, such as dieting and exercise, is one of the more successful uses of hypnotherapy. To reinforce good eating habits over bad, Krahenbuhl takes his subjects down a mental path through a redwood forest, and out into a clearing where they discover a garden filled with delicious healthy foods, such as crisp sweet apples that fill them up.
One area where hypnotherapy has been less successful is in curing smoking. “I find that patients have to be so scared they are going to die that it motivates them to quit,” Krahenbuhl says.
Dowell encounters patients who claim they want to quit, “but deep down they have all kinds of excuses for not really doing it. This is especially true of smoking. As far as changing habits, hypnotherapy only works if the patient is truly determined to change.”
Other reasons to visit a hypnotherapist include getting over stress during school tests or job interviews, and for athletes, finding “the zone” where performance is maximized.
Hypnotherapy patient Eileen Peterson had such severe test anxiety that “it held me back and made college really difficult. I would totally panic and go blank.”
She began hypnotherapy and says, “I would go [to a session] right before my exam, and we would run through the entire test, as if I were already answering everything in my mind that I expected to be on it. I never thought I’d graduate, but eventually, I was able to earn my degree.”
Hypnotherapy is also successfully used by athletes who learn to visualize the entire routine of their performance as a type of mental warm-up exercise. Golfers in particular have also advanced their game by using hypnotherapy to improve their timing, judgment and confidence in their abilities.
In the end, just as no surgeon would claim that surgery is a cure-all, neither can any hypnotherapist claim that their branch of medicine is 100 percent effective in all situations. But hypnotherapy can be a very useful tool in overcoming many bad habits and managing pain. And it might even lower your golf handicap.
