Local woman drops 42 pounds after hypno-bypass

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Posted: 07/18/2011

BOWIE, Md. – A few months ago, we told you about a medical miracle; weight loss surgery without ever having to go under the knife.

It’s not a dream. It’s hypnosis and a local woman has had huge success in the months since she had the pseudo-surgery. ABC2 News Joce Sterman has more on the weight she’s lost and the surprising decision her family has made to pass along the technique to others.

When we last saw Sondra Lambert, she was being lulled to sleep. Nearly seven months later, she says she’s had an awakening, “It’s been awesome, really, really awesome.”

What is awesome is the transformation Sondra is experiencing after undergoing gastric band surgery, without ever entering a hospital.

Instead, the procedure was all in her mind, performed by a hypnotist. Lambert explains, “People freak out at the word hypnosis. They think it’s something weird. They think it’s something crazy.”

But Sondra embraced the idea and it’s paying off. She’s down 42 pounds and has lost 32 inches from her chest, stomach and hips. Sondra says there’s been no radical change that amped her weight loss, like marathon training or extreme dieting.

She says she exercises and eats healthy, but credits the hypno-bypass for making the mind-body connection that helps her shed pounds. Lambert says, “It’s not been hard. There’s not been a hard day. All along the way it has been simple because I’m not fighting it.”

In fact, Sondra is still going through pseudo surgery sessions, although the person whispering in her ear now has a closer connection. Larry, her husband, also went through the hypno lap band procedure and has since become a certified master hypnotist. The couple believes in the process so much, Larry decided to make it happen for others. Sondra hopes to get the training as well. She says, “This will be our future.”

Their future is symbolized in a simple gold ring Larry bought when Sondra’s wedding band became too big because of the weight she’s lost. Lambert tells ABC2, “Larry gave me a hug and a kiss and slipped this red ring on my hand to anchor my wedding ring. So my wedding ring is as I was and we’ll see my progress. But he put the red ring on my hand to anchor it with the promise of tomorrow.”

Alternative Tompkins: Entering the relaxed state of hypnosis

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Richard Schissel sits across from his clients in his office on West Seneca Street and asks them to count backward. He tells them how every number is going to help them become more relaxed.

“You will begin to feel your arms relax,” he says, while swinging a pendulum or pocket watch to focus their attention. “Your eyes will feel heavier.”

Once their eyes close, his clients enter into what Schissel and other hypnotists call a trance. With his client in a trance, Schissel keeps their conscious mind busy with a visualization of being at a beach, or on a ride in a hot-air balloon, so that he can artfully persuade their subconscious mind to change.

He might suggest: “Every time you eat a doughnut it’s going to taste like Crisco.” Or: “You will find that a small plate with half portions is enough.”

At its base, hypnosis is a state of focused attention, “much like we experience while being absorbed in a really good book,” said Schissel, adding that the whole point is to move the critical, conscious mind out of the way to free the less picky subconscious mind.

Schissel moved to Ithaca in 1985, and opened his private practice in 1998. He specializes in pain and stress management, and occasionally on smoking cessation. “But they have to want to quit,” he said. “It won’t work otherwise.” Schissel quit smoking in 2004 with the aid of self-hypnosis. “I even created a hypnosis CD which was played during my lung cancer surgery.”

Schissel is also an associate professor at Ithaca College and chair of the graduate program in speech-language pathology and audiology.

Brian Apatoff, a New York City neurologist, explained hypnotism as a deep state of relaxation that does not alter brain wave activity. “It’s akin to a meditative state,” Apatoff said.

For Schissel, 63, who received his hypnosis certification from theNational Guild of Hypnotists in New Hampshire, meditation was the catalyst that impelled his study of hypnosis. “That’s when I saw the added value of positive suggestions during deep states of relaxation,” he said.

Ellen Peterson is a hypnotherapist in Ithaca. She uses hypnosis for psychotherapeutic purposes. Her favorite guided visualization to put her clients in a trance is to take them on a walk down 10 levels of a hillside.

“Ninety percent of the mind is subconscious and 10 percent is conscious,” said Peterson. “We only operate from 10 percent of our mind. When we’re hypnotized, or even when we meditate, all of that changes.”

Alternative Tompkins appears monthly in The Journal and looks at the non-traditional health, nutrition and lifestyle choices practiced by Tompkins County residents. If you have an idea for a future article, send your idea toijnews@gannett.com

Hypnotist Offers Relief to Tinnitus Sufferers

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Many Americans struggle with tinnitus. Hypnosis counseling can offer significant relief.

Point Pleasant Beach, NJ (PRWEB) July 20, 2011

Millions of Americans are distressed by tinnitus. Yet Certified Hypnotist James Malone believes many could experience significant relief through hypnosis counseling.

Tinnitus is a condition where the individual hears persistent noises that are generated internally rather than from the external environment, with some calling it “ringing in the ears.”

Exposure to loud noises and certain medications are known to cause tinnitus, however in many cases the origin is unknown. In severe and persistent cases, it has the potential to severely disrupt a person’s quality of life.

Malone states, “many experts now believe tinnitus is similar to phantom limb pain, the condition where a person experiences discomfort in a body part that was amputated. Although there may be a physical origin of tinnitus, eventually the noise becomes like an endless tape loop that plays in the person’s mind and brain rather than being an actual signal from the ears.”

He adds, “its only natural that the more a person fears his or her tinnitus, the more attention it will be given. This focus makes the tinnitus more noticeable, creating a vicious cycle. The task of the hypnotist is to help relieve the stress and fear so that the client can begin to refocus his or her attention in a healthier direction.”

Although people generally are becoming more open to the idea of hypnosis for self-improvement, Malone does feel it necessary to point out that, “your experience with a certified hypnosis professional will not resemble what you see in comedy stage hypnosis shows. You will not be given silly suggestions or ever feel out of control. Rather it is a relaxed state of focused attention where you can alter your perceptions in a healthy way. Once you release the fear of tinnitus you will become better able to ignore it.”

James Malone has had hypnosis counseling practice at the Jersey Shore since 1995 since he was first certified by the National Guild of Hypnotists, the oldest and largest organization of its kind. He is also the publisher of the Creative Calm online newsletter and is the author of several self-improvement e-books.

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Police pension group OKs hypnosis

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Meghann M. Cuniff The Spokesman-Review

A retired Spokane police officer will have his hypnosis weight-loss therapy paid for by city tax money.

Members of the Spokane Police Pension and Relief Board unanimously approved the unusual claim from board member Gary Gow at its meeting Thursday.

Gow, who retired from the Spokane Police Department in 1985 after 20 years of service, abstained from voting. He’s been a member of the pension board for 21 years.

The board agreed to pay $2,207 for the nine-month program.

Gow is required to submit a treatment plan and progress notes regarding his weight loss.

Gow said he expects the therapy to become a widely covered practice in the private insurance industry.

“I think that in time you’ll see a lot of this covered,” Gow said after the meeting. “They never used to pay for heart transplants, but they do now.”

The therapy is an example of unusual practices paid for through the pension and relief board, which manages health insurance and pensions for the city’s retired police officers. Washington’s Law Enforcement Officers and Firefighters Plan 1 pension system, which was replaced by a more modest retirement plan in 1977, calls for cities to provide retired police employees with free lifelong coverage of anything deemed “necessary medical services.”

The board previously has approved services including non-emergency flights, penile implants and Viagra and other anti-impotence drugs. Requests for unusual services are voted on by board members at their monthly meeting.

“There’s a lot of medical things that go on like this at every meeting,” said board member Ron Vanos.

No one could recall if the board had ever before approved a claim that paid for a retiree to undergo hypnosis to aid weight loss.

“We always consider the effectiveness of the treatment,” said City Council President Joe Shogan, board president.

Shogan said the board’s first priority is the retiree’s health and welfare, and the second is the cost of the treatment.

“It’s a balance,” Shogan said.

‘Medical Muses’: Putting hysteria under the microscope

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Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris
By Asti Hustvedt

W.W. Norton. 372 pp. $26.95

Reviewed by Joelle Farrell
Asti Hustvedt, an editor and translator in New York City, was first drawn to the subject of hysteria while working on her doctorate in French at New York University. She aimed to write a “nonhysterical book about hysteria,” a condition that, at least in part, was “an illness of being a woman in an era that strictly limited female roles.”Her book, Medical Muses, examines the lives of three women diagnosed with hysteria who, through the work of a famous French neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot, became medical celebrities.

Hustvedt’s focus on the three women – Blanche, Augustine, and Geneviève – gives a face to her story of a condition that the medical community no longer recognizes.

Her thorough research and elegant writing bring the women to life and prevent the story from getting bogged down in social and medical questions about hysteria itself.

All three women came from impoverished families and suffered abuse and neglect that seemed to provoke some of their early hysterical outbursts. They ended up at the famous Salpêtrière Hospital, a massive institution that housed women suffering from mental and physical ailments, as well as some women who were simply poor or elderly.

Doctors diagnosed hysteria in women who suffered from a variety of symptoms that resembled conditions ranging from depression and anxiety to schizophrenia or epilepsy. But doctors also linked seemingly normal behavior to the illness, as was the case with Augustine, then 14, who had a rebellious streak and liked to look pretty.

“Everything in her . . . announced the hysteric,” one doctor wrote about Augustine. “The care that she takes in her toilette; the styling of her hair, the ribbons she likes to adorn herself with.”

Charcot believed that hysteria was an illness linked to brain anatomy, and he looked in vain for lesions in the cadavers of women who had suffered from the illness. He used the three women to prove his hypothesis that hysterics would present certain poses under hypnosis – that despite the array of symptoms, a common thread linked them.Hustvedt is unflinching in her descriptions of the treatment the women received at the Salpêtrière Hospital, then one of the most respected in the world. Ovary compressors were used to stop hysterical fits – the device worked like a vise grip to put pressure on an ovary. Doctors, fascinated by the apparent skin sensitivity displayed by some hysterics, would scrawl words, even their own names, onto a patient’s skin. Needles were stuck through the arms of hysterics, who allegedly did not feel pain and would not bleed from the wounds.We can cut them, prick them and burn them and they feel nothing,” a student of Charcot wrote, as quoted in Hustvedt’s book. “Even better, these completely numb spots are so poorly irrigated that when we wound them, there is not a drop of blood.”

It was Charcot’s work with hypnotism that made the women famous. Under hypnosis, Charcot believed he could provoke symptoms of hysteria. His lectures took on a theatrical quality, as students, authors, and artists packed halls to see Charcot and his strange muses.

Under hypnosis, the women would strike odd poses and act on suggestions made by doctors, acting out skits for a rapt audience. They convinced the women that snakes were at their feet or that they were soldiers in a war. They would put the women into a catatonic state and mold them like wax sculptures into unnatural positions.

While Charcot’s tricks made for a good show, Hustvedt points out that the doctors did little to relieve their patients’ symptoms. And the doctors clearly abused their power. They once asked Blanche (under hypnosis) to undress for them. Blanche, who was said to be very modest, at first complied, but then broke down in a hysterical fit.

Hustvedt doesn’t mince words in describing Charcot’s “treatments” for hysteria, describing the doctors as “giddy with power.”

But she also gives Charcot his due. She acknowledges that his work with hypnosis, which influenced Sigmund Freud, laid the groundwork for psychoanalysis.

And while his theories on hysteria were discredited after his death, Charcot left a legacy of groundbreaking research in other neurological diseases. He discovered the pathology of multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). By studying cadavers, Charcot found lesions in the brains of those who had suffered from the diseases. Hustvedt also credits Charcot for taking the symptoms of hysteria seriously and for recognizing that ” ‘hysterical’ did not mean ‘unreal.’ ” Doctors may no longer diagnose women with hysteria, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deal with illnesses that are just as mysterious to them as hysteria was to the doctors in the late 1800s. Chronic fatigue syndrome, for example, appears to affect mostly women, and like hysteria in its day, the illness has become somewhat of a “medical trash can,” a diagnosis made by ruling out other possibilities. Recently, doctors have begun to question whether antidepressants, drugs taken by one in 10 Americans annually, work any better than placebos. Some researchers now say the “chemical imbalance” theory of depression may be on “just as shaky ground” as Charcot’s theories, Hustvedt writes. As for whether the women’s hypnosis was simply an act, Hustvedt acknowledges that it’s possible. But she still believes that the women were suffering, and that hysteria, like depression, anxiety, or chronic fatigue syndrome, was simply a socially acceptable manner of expressing their pain.

“[Blanche] lived during a period that allowed her to express her suffering in a particular way, through a particular set of symptoms, symptoms that are no longer an admissible way to express illness,” she writes.

Contact staff writer Joelle Farrell at 856-779-3237 or jfarrell@phillynews.com.

Amethyst BioMat Newest Alternative Cancer Treatment

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This newest mat addressing numerous cancer related issues

Richway company producer of this newest alternative cancer treatment, developer of medical and therapeutic products now introduces the BioMat.

BioMat which looks much like that of a yoga mat is said to help numerous cancer related issues including circulation, inflammation, pain, and fatigue by using thermo-technology.

The quantum energy it uses is said to alleviate several health and illness problems these include cancer, high blood pressure and even Lyme disease. According to what is written on this newest therapy, it uses the combination of infrared rays which can penetrate up to six inches into the body and attack the cancer cells. The negative ion therapy heightens the immune systems, aide’s waste removal and restores the body’s balance. The pure amethyst superconductor can soothe the central nervous system.

According to Calvin Kim, owner of Richway, when you get sick you have a temperature which aides in fighting the virus which made you sick. Therefore, by increasing the body temperature by one degree by using the BioMat, it remarkably increases the immune response. Mr. Kim further remarks that this treatment makes a major difference in peoples lives. Noting that it is simple to use, affordable and convenient.

This new treatment is registered by the U.S. FDA registered medical device for pain management

According the companies website it provides numerous benefits in which include alleviating migraines and tension headaches, improves cardiovascular health and decreases allergy symptoms.

If you wish to try it the price tag on the BioMat professional will cost $1450.00

You can get the mini-version for $550.00

If you wish to explore alternative therapies for cancer there are several available a few of these include:

Chiropractic

Chiropractic care does aide cancer patients to better handle issues such as incapacitating pain and discomfort. The care in which they can provide can decrease stress and aide in increasing mobility. It has been noted to offer many effective strategies in decreasing the pain and suffering in cancer patients plus it is affordable. Many insurance companies cover chiropractic care. It has been established to boost the body’s immune system and provide overall health benefits.

Hypnotherapy

For a long length of time hypnotherapy has been noted to aide in a long list of medical conditions and supported by reputable medical professionals. In 1959, Time magazine had released on article on hypnosis for cancer pain. The article had cited Dr. Jabob H. Conn, psychiatry professor at John Hopkins University stating that hypnotherapy (hypnosis) was relatively quick and easy method for pain relief. The relief it provides could last for hours or longer.

In trials conducted with children who endure cancer, hypnosis has demonstrated that children had decreased pain from medical procedures as well as cancer related pain.

In 2010, a researcher at the University of Buffalo had demonstrated that hypnosis does in fact help alleviate pain in women with metastatic breast cancer.

There is substantial documentation on hypnotherapy. Along with reducing or even eliminating pain it can also help in other ways which include decrease stress, eliminate or reduce the effects from chemotherapy or radiation therapy. It will also improve sleep quality, restart a healthy appetite, improve mood, and even motivates a person to stick to their practitioners protocol. More and more major insurance companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield do endorse the use of hypnotherapy as an additional treatment to improve health.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture has numerous roles. It can be used to decrease post-operative pain, pain control and speeding up recovery from side effects of different therapies. It aides in reducing nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy and certain drugs.

Acupuncture just like chiropractic and hypnotherapy or used at a variety of medical institutions.

Debbie Nicholson is based in Detroit, Michigan, United States of America, and is Anchor for Allvoices

Self-Hypnosis for Weight Control: Three Steps to Avoid the Buffet Binge

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“Oh no! I can’t resist Nana’s famous coconut frosted devil’s food cake! Well, just a small slice.”

“Look, honey, it’s that special barbecue sauce we had when we were in Memphis. Pour some of that on these ribs for me.”

“I never saw a cupcake wedding tower before. I’ll just have a bite of each flavor. I’m on a diet.”

“Hey, the sign says ‘All You Can Eat Tacos,’ so dig in, kids!”

Summer is a great time to visit with friends and family. Picnics, cookouts, beach parties, weddings and graduations fill up our calendar before the suntan lotion hits the store shelves.

Many cultures use food as a social event, and the temptation to overeat can be compelling. We often find ourselves face to face with some of our most cherished childhood memories, like Mom’s secret recipe macaroni and cheese, a giant 12-pound cheesecake or those huge yeast rolls that don’t even need butter. Perhaps the most insidious challenges are those loving relatives who hand you a paper plate loaded with all your guilty pleasures on one cheap wicker holder. Here’s your dear Aunt Maria offering you an entire dessert buffet of brown sugar-laced strawberry rhubarb cobbler, blueberry pie with mounds of real whipped cream, a king-sized slice of key lime pie with a teetering tower of meringue and a “healthy” slice of watermelon with a layer of sea salt.

You try to take just one forkful of each dessert, convinced you can still maintain some semblance of your diet. And while you’re talking and eating, someone’s grabbed your now-empty plate, ladling on homemade vanilla ice cream with thick fudge sauce that’s been sitting on the grill in a pot of hot water.

So on your guilt trip back home you feel bloated with too much food and a sinking sense of failure.

You think to yourself, “I may as well have that margarita to wash down the salsa and chips now.”

Now you have the power to resist those food fetishes and avoid the guilt trip, too. Self-hypnosis allows you to take back control of your life by putting food in its proper place … in your thoughts and in your life, too.

There are only three practical things to remember to regain your sense of balance over food.

  • Begin by turning off your all of your tech gadgets: TV, music, cell phone, computer, tablet, laptop, pager, etc.
  • Get into a comfortable chair — not your bed. This is not nap-time.
  • Make-believe you can feel or see soothing, golden massage oil that follows gravity, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, relaxing every tense, knotted muscle.
  • Next, imagine there is a blackboard in front of your minds’ eye, complete with a brand new piece of chalk and a new eraser, too. Begin to write and then erase your numbers, going down the scale from 100.
  • When the numbers start to look mixed up, and you feel like you’ve lost your place, just put down the chalk and eraser on the shelf in front of the blackboard.
  • You will see a damp sponge on that same shelf. Wash off the blackboard, and as it dries you will notice that you now have a clean slate before you.
  • Now, taking up the chalk, write in large letters, “My Plan” and underline it.
  • Next write:
  1. Food is Fuel
  2. Sugar + Starch= Sludge
  3. Water flushes Fat

Now you have the ability to enjoy a meal out or at home, alone or with others and keep food in its proper place in your life. Just as easily as you consistently choose the best fuel for your car, you will choose the best fuel for your body.

And enjoy those gatherings for the laughter and talking. Because food is just fuel!

Valorie J. Wells, Ph.D. has been in practice as a clinical hypnotherapist for nearly 20 years. Her educational background in industrial psychology, coupled with advanced hypnosis studies, creates an alternative healing environment that appeals to today’s informed consumers as clients. Her determination to limit her practice to hypnotherapy has forged a secure bond between area health care providers, hospitals and their referrals. This innovative, cross-discipline approach to patient care serves as a vital link for the integrative chain of careful attention to the individual’s needs. Moreover, the rapport between providers and patients encourages participation, dialogue and continuity of care. To find out more about Valorie and her work, read her blog on Red Room.

Are your allergies making your 4th of July Picnic unbearable? Try hypnosis, says East Bay CA expert.

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PressMediaWire.com (Press Release Distribution) – Jul 02,2011 -With Accuweather.com allergy forecasts ranging from “Moderate” to “Extreme” for the 4th of July weekend in Northern California, grass pollen, tree pollen and ragweed may chase allergy sufferers throughout the East Bay area away from picnics, parties and parades.

Most allergy sufferers turn to antihistamines and decongestants for relief. But a Vacaville clinical hypnotherapist offers a drug-free alternative.

How can hypnosis—most often thought of as a way to help people lose weight or stop smoking—help relieve allergy symptoms?

“Hay fever and allergies are physical manifestations of immune processes that can be controlled at the subconscious level,” says Dennis Atkinson. “An allergic reaction occurs when the immune system encounters a foreign substance like cat dander or grass pollen,” he says. “These substances are not poisonous or harmful for most people.

But if you suffer from an allergy, your immune system overreacts to something harmless like pollen—sending out killer T-cells as though it’s an anthrax spore or bubonic plague bacteria. Your body is flooded with histamines. Your eyes water, you sneeze, you get itchy. You may get congested.”

“The good news is that the immune system can be retrained with hypnotherapy,” says Atkinson, who is certified by the American Council of Hypnotist Examiners.

“Many people with minor environmental allergies can give up decongestants and antihistamines completely after just a few sessions,” says Atkinson. The retired police officer founded his hypnotherapy practice in Fairfield, California in 2009.

A hypnosis study published in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis reported that 86% of the study participants who had been taking medication for allergy relief had been able to reduce their medications. Three out of four participants reported an improvement in their symptoms.

“We simply use hypnosis, guided imagery and other related tools to help your immune system react appropriately to the substances that are not otherwise harmful,” says Atkinson.

For more information about hypnotherapy for allergy relief, contact Dennis Atkinson at 707-474-9230. An initial consultation for allergy sufferers is $45 and includes an assessment, a hypnosis session, and customized hypnosis CD to take home.

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About Dennis Atkinson

Dennis Atkinson has over 30 years of hypnosis experience, with a number of specialized certifications — including allergy relief — from the California Hypnotherapy Academy. With offices in Fairfield and Vacaville, Atkinson sees hypnosis clients from throughout the East Bay area.

Dennis Atkinson was inspired to learn hypnosis as a police officer for the City of Garden Grove, California in the early 1980s. “The department was training officers in hypnosis to help victims recall details about violent crimes,” says Atkinson. “I wasn’t in the training, but I was so impressed by what my fellow officers could do, that I learned hypnosis and hypnotherapy on my own.”

Hypnotherapist tries to help equestrians curb fears

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By AMY BOWER DOUCETTE

Amy Bower Doucette writes about the equestrian communities for Neighborhood Post. Send mail to 2751 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach, FL 33405. Call (561) 820-4763, fax (561) 837-8320.

Updated: 7:05 p.m. Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Posted: 7:03 p.m. Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The crowd falls silent. Your horse trembles under you in anticipation of the course laid out before him. Your mind races. Am I good enough? Have I practiced enough? Your confidence wavers.

Even seasoned competitors can fall victim to self-doubt. But some of them have a secret weapon: hypnosis.

Laura King, a licensed hypnotherapist, works with equestrians from her office, Summit Hypnosis and Wellness, in Lake Park. King is a self-proclaimed product of hypnosis. She said that with her help, riders can access their subconscious to release hidden fears and believe in their own abilities.

“You have to figure out what is keeping you from what you really want,” King said. “Olympians use hypnosis to figure out what obstacles stand in the way of winning. If you get rid of the obstacles, the brain will help you produce your desired outcome.”

King suffered through a traumatic childhood and used hypnosis to recover.

“I was very depressed from things that happened to me as a child,” she said. “I attempted suicide three times. After my third attempt, my mother said there had to be something else besides drugs that could help me.

“She found a hypnotherapist who worked with me and helped me. She got rid of what was going on in my subconscious mind and helped me find a way to function. She saved my life. Her name was Dorothy Gates.”

King has ridden horses her whole life. When she started her own practice 11 years ago, she began with athletes and gravitated toward equestrians once she realized the same methods applied to them.

“I rode in the circuit a long time ago,” she said. “When my kids got older and left home, I started a career in hypnosis. My first client was a professional golfer. I went to a hypnosis convention and took a course on hypnosis for golfers. The subjects were releasing performance anxiety, concentration, peak performance and fearlessness. I thought, ‘The heck with golfers. I’m going after the equestrian market.’ ”

King offers in-person sessions, CDs and books.

“People love the CDs because they can listen to them when they go to bed,” she said. “You can do reprogramming while you sleep. Some people like the sessions and get a CD to back them up. It depends on what kind of learner you are. They both work.”

She insists there is no truth to movies and television shows that show a hypnotist snapping their fingers and controlling a person.

“I can help by desire only,” she said. “If someone comes up to me and says, ‘Make me stop smoking,’ I tell them I won’t take their money because I can’t make them do anything. There isn’t a hypnotherapist on this earth that can make someone do something they don’t want to do.”

Through hypnosis, King hopes she can help people find strength and peace within themselves.

“I’m on a passion-filled process to help as many people as I can,” she said.

Healthy Living > Hypnosis can be used in medicine

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Written by Fred Cicetti
Wednesday, 13 July 2011 09:47
0 Comments and 32 Reactions

Q. Can hypnosis help me to quit smoking?

Hypnosis is one of several relaxation methods that was said to be useful by an independent panel of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The panel found it may be helpful for treating chronic pain, alleviated anxiety, reducing the frequency and severity of headaches, and controlling bleeding and pain during dental procedures.

Hypnosis is also promoted to change undesirable behaviors, such as smoking, alcohol dependence, and bedwetting. It is used along with other methods by some mental health professionals to help patients overcome common fears, such as the fear of flying or of meeting new people.

Hypnosis achieves focused attention. It is like using a magnifying glass to focus the rays of the sun and make them more powerful. When our minds are concentrated, we are able to use them more powerfully.

Hypnosis—also known as hypnotherapy or hypnotic suggestion—has been a healing practice for thousands of years. The term comes from the Greek “hypnos,” which means sleep. The use of trance-like states and positive suggestion was an important technique used in the early Greek healing temples. Variations of those techniques were practiced throughout the ancient world.

Modern hypnosis can be traced to the German physician, Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that imbalances in magnetic forces in the human body were responsible for illness. Mesmer applied a therapy, which he called mesmerism; it involved the use of tranquil gestures and soothing words to relax patients and restore the balance to their magnetic forces.

The evolution of Mesmer’s ideas and practices led the Scottish neurosurgeon James Braid to coin the term hypnosis in 1842. Called the “father of modern hypnotism,” Braid rejected Mesmer’s theory of magnetic forces and instead ascribed the “mesmeric trance” to a physical process that resulted from prolonged attention to an object of fixation.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychotherapy, found hypnosis useful for treating hysteria, but later abandoned the practice after observing that he stirred up powerful emotions within his patients.

Eventually, the notion of using a state of altered awareness gained greater acceptance in conventional Western medicine. Today, hypnosis is used widely in the United States and other Western countries. People who practice hypnosis are generally licensed and are often trained in several psychological techniques.

Under hypnosis, you’re more open than usual to suggestions, and this can be used to modify your perceptions, behavior, sensations and emotions. Therapeutic hypnosis is used to improve your health and well-being and is different from so-called stage hypnosis used by entertainers. Although you’re more open to suggestion during therapeutic hypnosis, your free will remains intact and you don’t lose control over your behavior.

Some people are not able to enter a state of hypnosis fully enough to make it effective. Certain qualities may mean you’re more likely to have success with hypnosis. These include the ability to be so engrossed in an activity that you aren’t aware of your environment, the capacity to recall vivid memories through the sense of smell, and the ability to recall physical sensations of past events.

Before using hypnosis, you should wear comfortable clothing to help with relaxation, and make sure you’re well rested so you won’t fall asleep during the session.

Choose a therapist or healthcare professional to perform hypnosis. When you do find a potential hypnotherapist, ask lots of questions, such as:

* Do you have training in a field such as psychology, medicine, social work or dentistry?

* Are you licensed in your specialty in this state?

* Where did you go to school, and where did you do your internship, residency or both?

* How much training have you had in hypnotherapy and from what schools?

* What professional organizations do you belong to?

* How long have you been in practice?

* What are your fees?

* Does insurance cover your services?

In general, a hypnotherapist explains the process of hypnosis and reviews what you both hope to accomplish. The hypnotherapist usually induces you into hypnosis by talking in a gentle, soothing tone and describing images that create a sense of relaxation, security and well-being.

When you’re in a deep trance-like state, the hypnotherapist suggests ways for you to achieve specific goals, such as reducing pain or eliminating cravings to smoke. The hypnotherapist also may help you visualize vivid, meaningful mental images in which you picture yourself accomplishing your goals. When the session is over, either you are able to bring yourself out of hypnosis or your hypnotherapist helps you end your trance-like state.

A typical hypnosis session lasts about 30 to 60 minutes. You may benefit from just one session or several sessions of hypnosis. You can usually resume normal activities immediately. You may eventually be able to practice self-hypnosis.

The American Society of Clinical Hypnosis recommends that you choose a healthcare provider who is properly trained, licensed and credentialed. This means that the individual has graduate training and holds a currently valid license in a healthcare field, such as medicine, dentistry, psychiatry, psychology, social work, or nursing.

This generally also means that the individual holds an academic degree from a regionally accredited institution of higher education, and has had supervised experience in offering professional services to clients and patients. An additional benefit of choosing a licensed healthcare provider is that your healthcare insurance may reimburse for services provided, although you should determine this in advance by contacting your insurer or asking your provider.