Hypnotherapy: The Therapy for you

The word hypnotherapy is a union of “Hypnosis” and “Therapy”. In the simplest sense, Hypnosis is an altered state of awareness – a Trance state. I know this sounds bit ambiguous but what if I say you experience this state daily or may be a number of times on daily basis. Can you remember the time when you were driving from home to work, you just set your foot on the accelerator and the next thing you know is you already are at office. Or the time when you sat down with a book to read and suddenly you realise you had already read a page or two but couldn’t recollect. Or the time when you put on your favourite music to complete some daily monotonous chores but by the time you realise you had already completed that boring task. So now we know everyone has experienced this state, without exception. Won’t you agree? 

As is apparent from above, the Trance state is not a sleep/ unconscious state as widely mistaken for. Let me explain this through the below chart

So, the Trance state is in fact a state where both the minds are working however, the conscious mind takes the back seat and allows the sub-conscious to take control. But, it in no sense implies that conscious mind will let anything harmful/ hurtful happen to the client while in a Trance state induced during a hypnotherapy session. It immediately takes over if there is anything that seems not right to share, experience or feel.

Hypnosis comes with a lot of misconceptions attached to it, can’t address all the concerns but one thing that can be said for sure is “Hypnosis if rightly used as a therapy can work like miracle”. Contrary to popular misconceptions, hypnosis used in a therapy induces a heightened state of awareness where the client is more open to suggestions that can help them make positive changes in their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Through hypnotherapy one’s subconscious mind, also referred as the power house at some places, can be easily accessed helping implement positive changes. 

As rightly said by Dr. John Kappas, a famous hypnotherapist, “Hypnosis is a state of selective thinking or consciousness, involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.”

Therefore, hypnosis when used as a therapy, can address a wide range of issues, some of which are: 

• Behavioral changes: Such as smoking cessation, weight management, or overcoming phobias. 
• Emotional well-being: Managing stress, anxiety, depression, or trauma. 
• Performance enhancement: Improving focus, concentration, and confidence in various areas like sports, academics, or public speaking. 
• Physical health: Alleviating chronic pain, managing symptoms of certain medical conditions, or enhancing relaxation during medical procedures.

But is that all what hypnotherapy is about? 

No, it isn’t. Rather it looks for what is, in most cases, hidden from the naked eye. Generally, everyone looks for a cause (migraine) to the effect (headache), not bothering to go beyond that nor does it seem relevant to them. 

What if I say that there is one more thing to be looked for, which we call the “Root Cause”. As a tree cannot be completely removed unless uprooted, similarly the cause and effect will keep showing up unless the Root Cause is removed. 

In fact there are certain cases with apparent effects (for example, pain in a body part, heartaches etc) but invisible cause. For example, you are having difficulty in breathing but the reports turn out to be normal.

There was a man who was suffering from frequent painful headaches (effect) since last year. When he got himself checked, he was diagnosed with migraine (cause). As soon as his diagnosis came, he started taking measures to remedify the cause. However, no matter what medicines he took, the headaches resulting from migraine would show up again. Totally devastated from these headaches, he went to a trusted friend of his for some solace. When the friend heard about this. He immediately asked, have you identified what caused migraine in the first place (root cause). The man was stumped as he was so busy correcting what was already done that he forgot to pay attention to what started it (and probably what was stopping him from completely erasing this loop of cause and effect). 

You might not have a friend like this man who can help you in identifying the root cause to your issue, but there is someone who knows what the root cause or invisible cause is. Wondering, who it is? It is you and yes only you can heal yourself but oh boy had it been that easy then there would not be any dis-ease. 

See, it is not exactly the client but their sub-conscious mind who witnesses all, knows all and has the power to heal all (no I am not trying make it a God but there are enough researches proving the power of sub-conscious, hypnotherapy being one of the biggest). The root cause is something privy to your sub-conscious mind and through hypnotherapy we seek its assistance to identify the root cause and heal it (believe me it is not as easy as it sounds but yes totally possible if you will). 

If this piques your curiosity about the mind and, in particular, the subconscious mind, you may go ahead and read the next post in ‘Hypnotherapy – The Series’ @ Meraki’s Blog.