Hypnosis Overview

Hypnotherapy is the art of facilitating trance for a specific therapeutic purpose. Modern day applications of hypnotherapy are mainly based on the premise that the conscious mind, and the critical faculty often get in the way of harnessing the great power of the unconscious. For example, financial success, creativity, reaching full potentials and reaching goals. However, it is a very effective tool for performance enhancement, overcoming past conditioning, reversing trauma, spiritual growth, immune function, mental and physical health, and medical applications such as analgesic and anesthesia.

Behavioral Changing Applications

Humans are meaning making machines. We naturally make associations by our experiences, or situations of high emotional states, whether good or bad. When we come into this world, we are like a blank hard drive. From our experiences, interactions and circumstances, we gather ways of coping, ways of responding, and projections are made subconsciously. These learned behaviors become

conditioned responses. As we move through life, we continue to use our conditioned responses, because that is what "worked" in the past. Subconsciously, when something similar happens to us, we react and respond the same way, or attract the same kind of people into our lives. It was the foundation set, and those learned behaviors become our default setting. In many cases these responses, beliefs, and coping mechanisms are ineffective, and outdated. With the use of hypnosis we can re-educate the subconscious mind so we have a more beneficial response, cope effectively, and attract healthier relationships, we actually change our default setting. We can release the negative associations and emotions, which allows us to pave the way for new neurological pathways, which in turn create new options and behaviors.

Mental Health Applications

Hypnosis is an excellent resource in psychiatry, specifically, it is often employed in addictions, depression, mood disorders, anxiety, and general stress related conditions. When hypnosis is applied in a remedial and generative context, new thoughts, beliefs and strategies are installed with triggers or anchors. These assist the client by using post suggestion and post therapy responses and behavioral changes. Self hypnosis is also a great management tool that is often used, so clients can decrease their stress response, and elicit the relaxation response for overall better health, mentally and physically.

Sports Performance and Related Applications

Performance enhancement with hypnosis employs end result imagery and mental rehearsal. Athletes and coaches and sports medicine physicians regularly use hypnosis for reaching their peak performances, removing mental blocks, eliminating distractions, anxiety, increasing mental stamina, and restoration of performance after an injury. Creating an ideal mental state with positive self talk will enhance athletic peak levels of performance, and career longevity.

Medical Applications

In European hospitals, hypnosis is much more mainstream when it comes to medical procedures. As research indicates, in some hospitals, half of all operations use hypnosis instead of anesthesia. The medical applications such as analgesic pain management, and anesthesia is used in dentistry, childbirth, and surgical procedures. Utilizing the trance state, hypnotherapy offers the client less pharmaceuticals, less post operative pain, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, and less toxicity to the body, as well as a much faster recovery.