What is the healing power of hypnosis?
Let’s start with a definition of hypnosis. According to the American Psychological Association, hypnosis is defined as ‘A state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterised by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion.’ Hypnosis is a form of communication between conscious and unconscious minds. As indicated in the quote above, a state in which an unconscious mind is more welcoming and capable of change of underlying patterns and consequently conscious thoughts, actions and behaviours. The healing power of hypnosis is not an effect of a magic trick, but it is an effect of the inner working of your mind and proof that your mind is the most powerful tool that has ever existed.
What does the healing hypnosis do?
Let’s take a moment to run a thought experiment. Imagine that you are a computer. The computer has multiple programs installed on it, sometimes these programs go bad. For example, some programs, although they are minimised they run in the background slowing the machine down. Some programs may run into errors when you try to open them. And some work just fine. Of course, your computer may also slow down as time goes by, because of the files that clutter the processing power and disc space. Hypnotherapy is a healing process, in which a hypnotherapist is like an IT specialist who can dive deeper into the programming of your unconscious code and work with you to fix it, change it, replace it, bin it or perform any other action that will maximise your healing powers. The difference between the IT specialist and a hypnotherapist is that the hypnotherapist will hand the healing power and authority over to you, as you already have all resources you need to heal yourself.
Can everyone be hypnotised?
The short answer is yes. Of course, everyone is different and there are some people who experience an altered state of consciousness easier than others. But, hypnosis is a natural state of your mind. Research shows that people spend approximately 46% of their wake state in ‘dreaming’. The factor that aids hypnotisiability is the relationship that you build with your therapist. Always go for someone that you like and feel you can trust.
What does it feel like to be hypnotised?
Over the course of decades, driven by pop culture and stage magicians an aura of mysticism arose around hypnosis. It led some people to believe that hypnosis is a magical trick. It also made some other people worried that whilst under hypnosis, they will reveal all of their secrets, others believe that they may get stuck in hypnosis. All of these claims have been proven false and undermine the healing power of hypnosis.
Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, people who are hypnotised are awake, conscious and in full control. It is not true that you need to be in a deep trance to experience the full power of healing hypnosis. In fact, most people have very positive experiences with hypnosis reporting that hypnosis is a state of deep relaxation, bliss and tranquillity, similar to the moment before falling asleep or reading your favourite novel.
Further, hypnosis is not a form of treatment in itself, but it is an important tool in the toolbox of a therapist. Hypnosis typically works with other modalities of psychotherapy and when being combined with suggestions, it can help you to identify underlying problems, and aid healing. Often this can produce results more quickly than would be possible by employing other methods. It is important to ensure that hypnosis should be delivered by a trained professional e.g. someone who is registered with a professional body such as UK’s CNHC, UKCP, BACP. Hypnotherapy can produce results that are long-lasting and prove to be permanent. Below I present some findings that suggest what healing hypnosis can help you with.
What can healing hypnosis help you with?
Let’s start with the perspective. Ask yourself, if the glass is usually half-full or half-empty? I am pretty sure that you have heard that one before. Nonetheless, it is important to ask yourself, as it can reveal your perception, the lenses you wear to see the world. I once heard Alan Watts speech in which he described an interesting conundrum by asking the following question. Is your mind inside your brain or is your brain inside your mind? By pondering this question you may realise that you are in charge of your perception, and you and only you can decide how you want to look at any given issue. Healing hypnosis reminds you that you are in charge, every single moment gives you the opportunity to change your perception. Start fresh. Every single moment is your opportunity to free yourself from monsters that might have been haunting you for a while. Every single moment is a new opportunity to start seeing the world completely fresh.
Hypnotherapy is therefore a very effective treatment for anything that requires a change of perspective or relationship with reality. It has been shown that hypnotherapy is an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, phobias, trauma and PTSD, low self-esteem, sexual dysfunction. Hypnosis can help you with physical dimensions as well and it has been shown that it has a positive impact on the healing process, immune system helps with IBS, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic pain. Hypnotherapy is also very effective form of performance-boosting, it can really help you with business and sports performance, aid your memory, concentration, speed reading ability and many, many more.
Of course, the list is not exhaustive and there are many more wonderful effects of hypnosis. The healing power of hypnosis can be experienced by anyone and as hypnotherapy can be safely delivered online it is an accessible form of treatment whenever you are.
About me
I am a hypnotherapist, coach, senior fellow of Higher Education Academy. I am interested in consciousness, philosophy of mind, Eastern philosophy, mindfulness meditation and incorporate these in my practice. I offer a range of services that can support you on your journey. Check my other articles and my website: https://www.karolkosinski.org/
You can also find my podcast on Spotify:
