Hypnosis is being researched more and more these days, by the scientific and medical professions, and is being used in hospital settings for pain relief in procedures such as child birth, dental surgery and for end of life emotional and pain support. It is pleasing to see these developments in a profession that was once the realm of the magician who places a hapless person from the audience into a hypnotic trance to perform silly antics for the benefit of the audience..
Hypnosis Therapist's have long been helping people with smoking, overeating, stress and anxiety, and a myriad of emotional issues., and it is due time to recognise Hypnosis for its power to change thinking and behaviour, and the benefits of this kind of therapy to change lives.
According to to this new review, [Hypnotic suggestion: opportunities for cognitive neuroscience - David A Oakley & Peter W Halligan] it has shown our colleagues who study the brains of people who are prone to trance like states, that hypnosis is not necessarily hocus-pocus. The age-old practice profoundly alters neural circuits involved in perception and decision making, changing what people see, hear, feel, and believe to be true. Recent experiments led people who were hypnotised to “see” colours where there were none. Others lost the ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English words and thought they were gibberish.
The experience of Hypnosis practitioners has shown that a clear majority of, if not all, individuals who seek hypnotherapy can enter hypnosis and that it is a natural state of mind that can be enhanced by a trained hypnosis therapist in the right setting, who can then use that altering of the neural circuits to help an individual to re-pattern their thinking on an issue or a habit.
A recent comparative study by the American Health Magazine on 'How Effective is Hypnosis'; Psychoanalysis was found to have 38% recovery after 600 sessions, Behaviour therapy was found to have 72% recovery after 22 sessions and Hypnotherapy a beautiful 93% recovery after just 6 sessions.
These statistics are jewels to our profession, in supporting our work and encouraging people who need support, to work on their issues with a Hypnosis Therapist.