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Not all hypnotherapy is the same

Date: January 16, 2010
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Uncategorized
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An excellent technique delivers far better results

Many people assume hypnotherapy is a uniform treatment. However, different hypnotherapists use different techniques and some techniques are better than others.

Hypnotherapists often hear people saying ‘I’ve tried hypnotherapy before. It didn’t work.’  However, what people often don’t realise is that just because hypnotherapy didn’t work for them with a specific therapist, it doesn’t mean that hypnotherapy doesn’t work.  It’s similar to saying “I went to school but didn’t pass any exams, and therefore school doesn’t work”. It clearly depends on many factors, including the quality of the teaching at the school and your commitment to learning.

The skill of the therapist and, more importantly, the specific techniques they are trained in affect success rates. A good hypnotherapist with an excellent technique will deliver far better results than those using more basic methods.

Some hypnotherapy approaches and techniques are better than others

Finding out which are best is not easy because every hypnotherapist believes their approach is best. This can be difficult because many hypnotherapists assume their client is cured, without checking a few months after the hypnotherapy.

The trouble with many of the quick fix cures, such as the fast phobia cure, is that they are just that. They can appear to work after one session, but often that change is short term or doesn’t work at all, and that, of course, is not a solution.

In addition, some hypnotherapists weaken their therapy with other therapies such as CBT (behavioural therapy) and NLP (neuro linguistic programming). This is similar to using two or three different recipes for a cake at the same time – it might taste good, but it might not and you won’t know until it’s come out of the oven. Specialist advanced hypnotherapy is like following the best and tastiest, tried and tested recipe. You leave nothing to chance, knowing that it will taste good each and every time you make it.

Clients want permanent changes and solutions to their problem. To get a higher long term success rate, hypnotherapy with specialise is required.

Suggestion hypnosis

Suggestion based hypnotherapy is the most commonly available on the market. ’Suggestions’ or ideas around new attitudes and behaviours are given during hypnosis. For uncomplicated problems, the treatment can work well. However, the downside with suggestion hypnotherapy is that it can appear to work after a session, but because it doesn’t address the real cause of the issue, it can manifest in other ways or return later.

Research has shown that suggestion only works for around a third of issues.

One of the largest scientific studies on hypnotherapy success was reported in the New Scientist in October 1992¹. Comparing success rates for stop smoking therapies, 72,000 people across 600 studies were evaluated, and hypnosis was proven to be the most successful stop smoking treatment on the market. Even the most basic suggestion hypnotherapy tapes worked far more effectively than any other treatment, including willpower, nicotine patches and counselling. At worst, suggestion hypnosis was shown, to have a 30 per cent success rate, but it could double to 60 per cent with a good, trusted therapist and good suggestion.

These success rates significantly outperform any other treatment for stop smoking on the marketing, including nicotine patches and Champix/Chantix. However, more specialist advanced techniques have been shown to be even more successful.

Hypno-analysis

Hypno-analysis, also known as ‘free association’, is another technique which currently appears to be very popular. This approach can delve deeper into the inner mind and involves asking the subconscious mind to bring forward information relating to the problem.

However, problems can arise with as this undirected approach. This is because it can also bring up more issues in addition to the one the client came in with. Not only can this leave the client more problems than the original one, it can establish an unhealthy dependence on the therapist.

Advanced hypnotherapy can a be permanent solution

When used properly, advanced hypnotherapy, can be permanent solution because it takes a holistic approach to addressing the problem. An advanced hypnotherapist will have undertaken specialist training and is rare. The advanced hypnotherapist is skilled at gaining direct access to the subconscious mind and finding the root of the problem. The problem can be addressed once the source of it has been found.

Just like an expert computer hacker, the advanced hypnotherapy specialist eliminates the ‘mind viruses’ causing the issues. When the ‘mind viruses’ are deleted and the attitudes and behaviour pattern reprogrammed, the problem can be fixed.

Hypnotherapy’s success has been proven in thousands of academic research studies. One notable study was by Von Dedenroth (1968), who found 94 per cent of over 1,000 smokers that stopped smoking with hypnotherapy reported being non-smokers at least 18 months later².

Advanced hypnotherapy that includes age regression can work within just 3-7 sessions, compared with suggestion or hypno-analysis that can take up to 20 sessions and still not be fixed. Advanced structured hypnotherapy involves following set of specific protocols that address the problem from all sides. The approach works with a client’s unique mind programmes. It works with the parts of the mind keeping the problem in place and age regression to bring forward information to help understand, solve and deal with the problem. Once the source of the problem has been dealt with, suggestion is used to lay down the foundations of a new set of behaviours and attitudes.

Age regression is essential to ensuring that the root of the problem is reached and fixed permanently. Advanced hypnotherapy is a specialist skill, but one that delivers long term results for most people, most of the time.

References

¹New Scientist (Robert Matthews, Issue 1845, October 1992). Collected from statistics from more than 600 studies, covering almost 72,000 people in America, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe and including 48 studies of hypnosis covering 6000 smokers

²Von Dedenroth, T. (1968) American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

What Is Hypnotherapy And How Does It Work?

Date: December 22, 2009
Author: Penny Pettman
Categories: Uncategorized
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Although the word “sleep” is often used in correlation with hypnosis and hypnotherapy, hypnosis is not a state of deep sleep. It does, however, induce a trance-like condition that actually increases the subject’s state of awareness in their own subconscious. Because the subconscious is under the mental surface and we are mostly unaware of it in our normal conscious state, the hypnotic state is necessary to gain access to it.
A hypnotherapist, after the subject is in their hypnotic state, is able to suggest ideas to them as a form of therapy. These ideas are implanted deep into the psyche and can help with any number of issues. For example, while under hypnosis, a therapist may be able to suggest to you that cigarettes taste and smell awful, they make you sick and you want nothing to do with them. This is only a suggestion and may not work 100% the first time. Instead, the next time the subject picks up a cigarette, they may smoke it but will gain less enjoyment from it, hopefully leading them to eventually quit.
Hypnosis is the act of hypnotizing a subject. The practice of healing or positive growth through hypnosis is known as hypnotherapy. This is the method most subjects seek out to help them stop smoking, lost weight, reduce anxiety, and so on. Hypnotherapy focuses on ‘reprogramming’ certain behavior patterns within the mind. This can enable you to conquer your fears, bad habits and negative thoughts toward yourself.
Hypnotherapy can treat physical symptoms as well as mental ones. As the subject is placed under hypnosis, they are much more relaxed. This is more than a mental state, as the blood pressure and breathing will slow, releasing pressure on the heart and other organs. This is effective for pain management and often to promote physical healing after an injury or major surgery. Hypnotherapy is practiced on the principle that the mind and the body are one connected thing and that one can control the other.
Hypnosis is effective as a treatment process chiefly because it allows the subject to shut down the “thinking” part of the brain. In other words, under hypnosis you do not think about the stresses of your everyday life or the logistics. The non-analytical side of the brain (our right hemisphere) is empowered and allowed to be affected and cause changes in the person. This may seem a little far-fetched for some, but millions of people around the world swear by these methods.
Hypnotherapy can treat any number of disorders from bad habits such as smoking and overeating, to suppressed memories that inhibit you from carrying on successful relationships. It has been endorsed by medical professionals as an effective pain management technique and is often chosen over epidural’s during childbirth. However, none of these conditions can be treated effectively if the subject does not believe that they will. Because hypnosis is a science of the mind, it cannot be entered into involuntarily and must have your full cooperation in order to be effective.