If you think you have never been hypnotised in your life, you are wrong. For example, if you get on a train and listen to the monotonous sound of the wheels, if you see the scenery passing behind the window of your compartment without paying attention to any details, then you are already in a trance.
Hypnosis while driving?
It gets even worse when you drive a car. A long straight road, light reflections between the trees, a monotonous landscape while the eyes are fixed on the road markings, all this makes the brain start producing alpha waves.
Although the driver is sitting at the wheel with his eyes open, after a while he is in an altered state of consciousness. Very often this state is confused with "sleep at the wheel" (which of course also exists).
It is already clear that the "monotony trap" can lead to a trance state in a very natural way. Even shortly before falling asleep, when the first images of hypnagogic dreams reach consciousness, similar trance states occur.
Who is afraid of hypnosis?
Almost everyone. It is therefore important to be well informed about this method in order to know what you can and cannot achieve with it. You can tell a good therapist by the fact that they tell you about it, and they will never start hypnosis therapy without having detailed conversations with you.
A full medical history is also absolutely necessary, as there are also some contraindications.
Many people also believe that hypnosis is something that happens to them. This is a mistake. Hypnosis is a method, and the state of consciousness that a person falls into when using this method is called trance.
These trance states can be triggered not only by hypnosis, but also by other methods, for example in situations like those described at the beginning of this article. A trance state as such is therefore neither threatening nor abnormal.
Hypnosis is a concentration of consciousness
Trance states are essentially states of concentrated consciousness. They may be accompanied by a decrease or increase in awareness. The aim of a trance state is to break out of the rigid thought patterns of everyday life and thus open up to new ways of thinking or to the perception of other realities. Trance thus serves to expand consciousness, as it makes other forms of thought, feeling and experience tangible.
Therapeutic use of hypnosis
Hypnosis can be used to influence almost any autonomic process in the human body, for example digestion, hormonal gland activity or immune system function.
Other areas of application of hypnosis are pain management and addiction therapy (e.g. alcohol, smoking cessation). It is now also used in childbirth and as a supportive treatment in cancer therapy.
Besides psychosomatic medicine, another important application of hypnosis is in the field of analytical psychotherapy.
A third possible application is in modern behavioural therapy. In hypnosis, the therapist allows the patient to visualise typical everyday situations and then encourages him or her to react to these situations in a new and confident way.
In this way, behavioural patterns are practised safely in the protected area of the therapy room before the person concerned has to apply them in reality.
Therefore, hypnosis itself is not yet a therapeutic method, but only a tool with which the most diverse therapeutic measures are made possible, from psychosomatic medicine to supportive psychotherapy and hypnotic analysis.
The decision to use this tool in a particular case depends primarily on the therapist's objectives and, above all, on his or her experience, skills and knowledge.
Especially in unexplainable states of fear and panic, therapeutic hypnosis can help to clarify the causes and then, in a second step, to dissolve the fears.
Suggestion and biofeedback
For a long time, medicine has known about the strange effect that a person's state of consciousness can be profoundly altered by the simple act of talking.
A state described as a trance is reached, which is roughly on the borderline between waking and sleeping. In reference to the Greek word hypnos, this procedure has been called hypnosis.
It allows the therapist to influence the patient's bodily and conscious functions through verbal suggestions, which are not normally subject to conscious control.
However, it has never been possible to fully clarify what hypnosis is and how and especially why it works, but it certainly does work and, as an empirical science, medicine uses this valuable method.
In hypnosis, the therapist does not exercise any "power" over the person, he does not "reprogram" them or "force" anything on them. This applies at least to modern hypnosis therapy, as founded by the American psychiatrist Milton Erickson.
Erickson hypnosis no longer works with 'commands' from the hypnotist, but uses a person's individual structure of consciousness to help them initiate a trance state.
In short, it is not the hypnotist who "hypnotizes" the person, but the person does it himself, and the therapist only assists him in this task.
To this end, the modern hypnotherapist makes people suggestively aware of processes that are actually taking place but which are outside their everyday awareness (e.g. heaviness in the limbs, tiredness in the eyes). The most important component of modern hypnosis is therefore biofeedback, the awareness of body functions.
Human consciousness is not reprogrammed, but simply shifted. The personality structure remains intact. Man is only offered a framework within which he can change himself.
Self-confidence
Why do we absorb suggestions more easily in a trance than in a normal waking state? Science has long sought the answer to this question. The latest research at Imperial College London has shown that hypnosis has a huge influence on the part of the brain responsible for planning and decision making.
It also seems that the principle of putting words into practice is at work here. In everyday life, we think about many things that we don't do immediately. In trance, as in the night dream, this is different.
Self-hypnosis
A slightly higher level of hypnosis is self-hypnosis (self-hypnosis). It can only be practised after a thorough medical consultation. It is also very important to formulate suggestions in a professional way.
Self-hypnosis can help people to progress in their spiritual development, for example to learn to dream clearly, etc.
Self-hypnosis can also be used to learn about so-called "out-of-body" experiences. However, it requires a great deal of patience, personal responsibility, discipline and a range of precautions to be taken.
Hypnosis in the operating theatre
In some countries, hypnosis is already used instead of the usual anaesthesia for minor operations in hospitals. When the hypnotherapist suggests anaesthesia, the skin at the site of the operation becomes distinctly pale and cold.
In this case, the therapist is with the patient throughout the operation. He accompanies him and makes sure that the trance state is maintained at all times.
At the end of the procedure, the therapist usually gives a suggestion to help the wound heal. In biliary operations, for example, after the application of hypnosis, the stitches are removed on the third day, and the patient can leave the hospital on the fourth day.
With conventional anaesthesia, the stitches are not removed for ten days and rehabilitation takes almost two weeks.
There is no doubt that hypnosis can make a valuable contribution to many therapies, but it should never be forgotten that it must be based on something very essential: trust between patient and therapist.