What is Hypnotherapy?

WHAT IS HYPNOTHERAPY?

by Russell Binns

Professor Kathy Sykes is fronting the new BBC2 series “Alternative Medicine”. The BBC calls it ‘the most authoritative and exhaustive investigation into alternative medicines ever conducted on television’. The first episode, aired on March 17th, featured hypnotherapy, and it was clear at the start that Professor Sykes shared many of the popular misconceptions and fears about hypnosis. Is it like stage hypnosis? Will I lose control? Will I make a fool of myself?

As a clinical hypnotherapist, it never fails to surprise me the range and extent of strange ideas new clients have about hypnosis - how frightened they often are, and how much courage it takes to make that first appointment. The fact is - as Professor Sykes discovered - medical hypnosis is a real and powerful phenomena, and deserves a place alongside mainstream medicine. The scene where a patient has two front teeth removed without anaesthetic and has two implants screwed into the jawbone, while sitting calmly awake in the chair, is a powerful testament to the power of medical hypnosis.

Why is it then, that so many people are so wary of hypnotherapy? Two factors have not helped the hypnotherapy profession: one lies in the heart of the nineteenth century, the other closer to our own times. In the first half of the nineteenth century, when surgery had to be carried out without anaesthetic, the new ‘art’ of mesmerism, as it was known then, enabled patients to undergo surgery fully conscious, but without pain. The results were considered so extraordinary, and so mysterious, that the medical profession was suspicious, and the early use of hypnosis was mistakenly linked with the supernatural, and ranked alongside spiritualism. The swiftly following inventions of chloroform and ether killed off the use of hypnosis for anaesthesia, but sadly the aura of mysticism and the occult lingered around hypnosis - a misunderstanding that would surely have been disproved, had the medical profession of the day had more time to familiarise itself with hypnosis, before more ‘scientific’ methods of anaesthesia arrived.

The second factor is stage hypnosis. Stage hypnosis relies on the aura of mystery, and promotes the idea of the hypnotist as someone possessed of special powers, capable of making someone do something against their will. The fact is all stage hypnotists are adept at assessing their volunteers’ suggestibility, and the fact that a member of the audience volunteers should give away the fact that they want to be “made” to do something unexpected. Many of us have a secret exhibitionist streak, and sometimes that lurks in the unlikeliest of people. The fact is that the stage hypnotist gives the volunteer “permission” to do strange things on stage - the hypnotist takes responsibility, not the volunteer, and the volunteer can psychologically ‘disown’ his funny behaviour. It’s entertaining enough, but its a deception. No one can be made to do anything against their will under hypnosis.

Even us practitioners started out with the same fears and misconceptions. I enrolled to study an intensive course at a large working clinic, but I was still fearful, on my first day, that I might not be able to ‘go under’, that I might not be able to ‘let go’, or that I might somehow ‘lose control’. I soon realised how absurd these fears are - but I never forgot what I felt at first, and I never underestimate the courage of my new clients, who often come for a first appointment with a batch of eager friends and relatives just waiting for the end of the appointment to come, so that they can call their friend/spouse on their mobile and say “well, how did it go, then?”

So - what is hypnosis then, in a medical context? First of all it is a natural state, akin to daydreaming. We go into trance quite regularly - when we are driving on ‘autopilot’ down a familiar road, when we are touched by a sad movie, when we read a good book or hear a great piece of music. We are ‘transported’ - we know its a different state, but a pleasant one, and we know we are in full control. We will stop at a red light even when driving on ‘autopilot’, we can turn off the stereo when the phone rings, and we still get annoyed by our neighbour in the cinema crunching their way though popcorn in the quiet scenes. We are still ourselves, but we know that we are ‘somewhere else’.

That’s all there is to trance: a pleasant relaxed state where one’s attention is focussed on one thing. A state where the busy conscious mind is quietened, not unlike meditation. When the conscious chattering mind is quietened, it is then possible to get closer to the unconscious mind, and it is there that we can find the key to so many disorders and problems.
The unconscious mind is like an enormous ‘precedent library’, where are stored all our most powerful memories and emotions, all our joys and fears. It is the unconscious mind that controls our ‘fight or flight’ mechanism, that primitive mechanism designed only for one thing: to save our life in danger. We may no longer have to fend off wild animals, like our stone-age forebears, but our subconscious mind still lives in those primitive times. An overbearing boss, a wandering husband or a bad memory can all be every bit as threatening to our primitive unconscious mind as a sabre toothed tiger, and our unconscious mind will prompt us with one or all of three typical reactions: anxiety (flight), aggression (fight) and/or depression. Those three factors incorporate most of the mental health disorders in modern society.

So how does hypnotherapy actually help? Well, in the calm and relaxed state of hypnosis, it is possible to directly access and influence those powerful emotional ‘templates’ in the unconscious. The practitioner can defuse anxieties, prompt a new way of looking at things, bring half-remembered fears into the conscious mind where they can be processed, and make positive suggestions that the unconscious can take on board to make changes. Because hypnotherapy does not rely exclusively on talking, change can be dramatic and swift, without trauma or painful analysis. Clients mostly remain aware at all times, always able to stop the session if they wish, and for most its an enjoyable experience of release and relaxation.

Even the staunchest of orthodox medical practitioners now acknowledge the power of the mind over all aspects of our lives. So much about our recovery from illness, our achievements in society, our relationships - all depends on our frame of mind, our attitude to life. It is because hypnotherapy goes to the heart of this process that it can claim to treat such a wide range of problems. No one need fear that they might not be able to ‘go under’ - if you have an imagination, if you can enjoy music, or art, or film- or even a memorable football match - you can ‘go under’. No one need fear they will do ‘something silly’, or lose control - it just doesn’t happen. What it can do is teach you how you mind really works, and show you how you can easily make life-changing adjustments. In fact, hypnotherapy removes fear and promotes control. The more you understand something, the less frightening it becomes.

Professor Sykes’ journey was an interesting one. She travelled the path so many of us walk with hypnotherapy, starting out with misapprehensions and suspicion, moving towards an awareness of its real power as a medical tool. She watched some pioneering experiments in the USA comparing the parts of the brain energised in the placebo response in PET scans, with the parts energised during hypnosis. The clinical results seemed to unequivocally point to the fact that something unique is happening in the brain under hypnosis. For instance, when a subject is told under hypnosis to see a black and white image in bright colours - the part of the brain concerned with colour vision actually lights up. Comparison tests with a fully-aware subject told to simply imagine the image in colour showed completely different results.

For us practitioners, the new scientific evidence is welcome, especially if it dissipates some of the old myths around hypnosis, but we do not need to see scientific corroboration. Our clients are usually those who have tried ‘everything else’ first, and who are often at the end of the road. They are often suffering from problems the orthodox medical world consider intractable, and their self -esteem is usually at rock bottom. To see those clients turn their lives around, and to discharge them back to their lives fully recovered, is all the proof we need that hypnotherapy is a powerful healing therapy, that hypnotherapy does, indeed, work.

END

c. Russell Binns March 2008 Bristol.