Brief Hypnosis Facts

Robert M. Dick, PhD, CGP, AC

Hypnosis is a powerful tool for strengthening both adults’ and children’s responsiveness to treatment in most psychological, dental and medical issues – for example: the anxieties (stress, tension, anxiety, phobia, PTSD), the depressions, unresolved grief, relationship/couple and family/parenting difficulties; creative problem solving, enhancing artistic expression; learning/study/test performance; both physical and mind-body disease/healing; habit change, substance abuse, and dealing with death.

Clinical hypnosis is often understood as an altered state of consciousness, much like other common altered states, like: “highway hypnosis”, meditation, deep prayer, day dreaming, concentration, or enjoying imaginative fiction in movies or books. Greatly increased focus and concentration automatically alter sensory, physical, thinking and emotional processes and possibilities, and strongly enhance learning, self-exploration and self-regulation. The resulting state of intense awareness and self-control is called trance. Hypnosis has been approved and supported for many decades by both the American Psychological and the American Psychiatric Associations.

It’s useful also to recognize what hypnosis is NOT. It is not a state of unconsciousness, accompanied by loss of control or automatic amnesia. Neither is it something that someone does “to” another person; ALL HYPNOSIS IS SELF-HYPNOSIS, and it’s your trance, to use however you choose. Hypnosis is not a sleep state, and the EEG more closely resembles a waking than a sleeping EEG. An individual in a trance generally knows what is occurring, and will not reveal secrets. People who use trance are not weak-minded or gullible; in fact, intelligence and the learnable skill of concentration are necessary. There need be no concern about ending a trance, since clients are aware and functional, and will choose the appropriate time to begin and end the trances.

Hypnosis is NOT a treatment in itself; it’s a tool to greatly strengthen treatment relationships and instructions. Trance, often but not always, involves deep and active relaxation, useful in itself. However, focused use of trance is what offers the opportunity for exploration and changing thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behavior. In clinical situations, hypnosis becomes an extension of the existing rapport relationship. Although not essential, formal structured hypnotic techniques give both the clinician and the client the opportunity to realize that something very unusual and constructive is happening. Often helpful, these exercises make it simpler to allow, discover, and use your own personal trance abilities - to learn to change yourself.

Attitudes that help develop clinical hypnosis include: the willingness to learn to concentrate (practice makes progress); the willingness to believe that something beneficial can result; and high motivation for personal change. Important principles include: 1) Understanding that when one’s attention is repeatedly concentrated on something, it makes goals much more likely and more easily accomplished (sometimes called “positive thinking”); 2) Combined with imagination, emotion is a very powerful tool for change; 3) Direct and indirect suggestions can be equally effective; 4) The clinician’s verbal and nonverbal communications need to be consistent with the client’s personal world and values.

Once trance has been established, additional suggestions and invitations are offered to encourage deeper absorption in the client’s experience, and the development of some of the useful phenomena of hypnosis, such as greatly increased receptiveness to healing possibilities and choices; flexibility and creativity; increased options and choices; enhanced physiological control; and disconnection from pain. Cooperative use of trance continues with support and suggestions appropriate to the client’s changing needs. The clinician’s positive attitude, support and interpretations usually increase the effectiveness of hypnosis, and audio tapes may be recorded for regular practice at home. As the client’s inter- and intra-personal situations change, clinicians must constantly notice and use feedback from the client to personalize the experience. As client and clinician work together over time, they often recognize spontaneous readiness for trance. This permits conversational trance, bypassing the classical, more structured induction techniques.

Hypnosis is not magic and not a panacea, nor a substitute for good therapeutic technique. It is used to get a client’s fullest and most receptive attention, in order to maximize learning and change. Hypnosis is a very useful adjunct in all health professions, for reducing stress and increasing comfort for everyone, for maximizing individualized learning potentials, and for accessing internal abilities and resources not usually available in ordinary consciousness.

Extensively edited by Bob Dick, PhD, CGP, AC from a Kaye F. Thompson, D.D.S. handout