Saving...The U.S. (Department of Labor) Directory of Occupational Titles (D.O.T. 079.157.010) supplies the following definition:
“Hypnotherapist – Induces hypnotic state in client to increase motivation or alter behavior pattern through hypnosis. Consults with client to determine the nature of problem. Prepares client to enter hypnotic states by explaining how hypnosis works and what client will experience. Tests subject to determine degrees of physical and emotional suggestibility. Induces hypnotic state in client using individualized methods and techniques of hypnosis based on interpretation of test results and analysis of client’s problem. May train client in self-hypnosis conditioning.”
The Following is from Wikipedia
Hypnosis is a mental state (state theory) or set of attitudes and beliefs (non-state theory) usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions. Hypnotic suggestions may be delivered by a hypnotist in the presence of the
subject, or may be self-administered (“self-suggestion” or “autosuggestion”). The use of hypnotism for therapeutic purposes is referred to as “hypnotherapy”.
Modern hypnotherapy has been used in a variety of forms, such as regression hypnotherapy (or “hypnoanalysis”) and Ericksonian hypnotherapy.
Hypnosis has been studied clinically with varying success. Applications include:
* pain management
* weight loss
* skin disease
* soothing anxious surgical patients
* psychological therapy
* habit control
* a way to relax
* sports performance
Self-hypnosis is popularly used to quit smoking and reduce stress, while stage hypnosis can persuade people to perform unusual public feats.
Medical applications
Relaxation techniques and suggestion have been used to reduce pain in childbirth (sometimes called ‘Hypnobirthing’)
Hypnotherapy has been used to treat irritable bowel syndrome. Researchers who recently reviewed the best studies in this area conclude:
The evidence for hypnosis as an efficacious treatment of IBS was encouraging. Two of three studies that investigated the use of hypnosis for IBS were well designed and showed a clear effect for the hypnotic treatment of IBS.
Hypnosis for IBS has received moderate support in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance published for UK health services. It has been used as an aid or alternative to chemical anaesthesia, and it has been studied as a way to soothe skin ailments.
A number of studies show that hypnosis can reduce the pain experienced during burn-wound debridement, bone marrow aspirations, and childbirth. The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis found that hypnosis relieved the pain of 75% of 933 subjects participating in 27 different experiments.
In 1996, the National Institutes of Health declared hypnosis effective in reducing pain from cancer and other chronic conditions. Nausea and other symptoms related to incurable diseases may also be managed with hypnosis. For example, research done at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine studied two patient groups facing breast cancer surgery. The group that received hypnosis reported less pain, nausea, and anxiety post-surgery. The average hypnosis patient reduced treatment costs by an average $772.00.
Treating skin diseases with hypnosis (hypnodermatology)has performed well in treating warts, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis.
Hypnosis may be useful as an adjunct therapy for weight loss. A 1996 meta-analysis studying hypnosis combined with cognitive-behavioural therapy found that people using both treatments lost more weight than people using CBT alone.
Hypnotherapy is the use of hypnosis in psychotherapy
It is used by licensed physicians, psychologists, and others. Physicians and psychiatrists may use hypnosis to treat depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sleep disorders, compulsive gaming, and posttraumatic stress.
Certified hypnotherapists who are not physicians or psychologists often treat smoking and weight management. A 2007 study of patients hospitalised for cardiac and pulmonary ailments found that smokers who used hypnosis to quit smoking doubled their chances of success.
In a July 2001 article for Scientific American titled “The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis”, Michael Nash wrote:
…using hypnosis, scientists have temporarily created hallucinations, compulsions, certain types of memory loss, false memories, and delusions in the laboratory so that these phenomena can be studied in a controlled environment.
Controversy surrounds the use of hypnotherapy to retrieve memories, especially those from early childhood or (alleged) past-lives. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association caution against repressed memory therapy in cases of alleged childhood trauma, stating that “it is impossible, without corroborative evidence, to distinguish a true memory from a false one.” Past life regression, meanwhile, is often viewed with skepticism.
Hypnotism has also been used in forensics, sports, education, physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Hypnotism has been employed by artists for creative purposes most notably the surrealist circle of André Breton who employed hypnosis, automatic writing and sketches for creative purposes. Hypnotic methods have been used to re-experience drug states, and mystical experiences.
Many famous sports figures like Tiger Woods have used hypnosis to gain an edge on their competition. This is accomplished by accessing an athlete’s altered conscious state and incorporating a different way of processing information.
Some History:
The words ‘hypnosis’ and ‘hypnotism’ both derive from the term “neuro-hypnotism” (nervous sleep) coined by the Scottish surgeon James Braid around 1841. Braid based his practice on that developed by Franz Mesmer and his followers (“Mesmerism” or “animal magnetism”), but differed in his theory as to how the procedure worked.
Contrary to a popular misconception – that hypnosis is a form of unconsciousness resembling sleep – contemporary research suggests that it is actually a wakeful state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility, with diminished peripheral awareness.
In the first book on the subject, Neurypnology (1843), Braid described “hypnotism” as a state of physical relaxation accompanied and induced by mental concentration (“abstraction”).
Hypnosis is normally preceded by a “hypnotic induction” technique. Traditionally this was interpreted as a method of putting the subject into a “hypnotic trance”; however subsequent “nonstate” theorists have viewed it differently, as a means of heightening client expectation, defining their role, focusing attention, etc. There are an enormous variety of different induction techniques used in hypnotism. However, by far the most influential method was the original “eye-fixation” technique of Braid, also known as “Braidism”. Many variations of the eye-fixation approach exist, including the induction used in the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS), the most widely-used research tool in the field of hypnotism.
When James Braid first described hypnotism, he did not use the term “suggestion” but referred instead to the act of focusing the conscious mind of the subject upon a single dominant idea.
Contemporary hypnotism makes use of a wide variety of different forms of suggestion including: direct verbal suggestions, “indirect” verbal suggestions such as requests or insinuations, metaphors and other rhetorical figures of speech, and non-verbal suggestion in the form of mental imagery, voice tonality, and physical manipulation. A distinction is commonly made between suggestions delivered “permissively” or in a more “authoritarian” manner. Some hypnotic suggestions are intended to bring about immediate responses, whereas others (post-hypnotic suggestions) are intended to trigger responses after a delay ranging from a few minutes to many years in some reported cases.
Consciousness vs. unconscious mind
Some hypnotists conceive of suggestions as being a form of communication directed primarily to the subject’s conscious mind, whereas others view suggestion as a means of communicating with the “unconscious” or “subconscious” mind. These concepts were introduced into hypnotism at the end of 19th century by Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet. The original Victorian pioneers of hypnotism, including Braid and Bernheim, did not employ these concepts but considered hypnotic suggestions to be addressed to the subject’s conscious mind. Indeed, Braid actually defines hypnotism as focused (conscious) attention upon a dominant idea (or suggestion). Different views regarding the nature of the mind have led to different conceptions of suggestion.
Hypnotists who believed that responses are mediated primarily by an “unconscious mind”, like Milton Erickson, made more use of indirect suggestions, such as metaphors or stories, whose intended meaning may be concealed from the subject’s conscious mind. The concept of subliminal suggestion also depends upon this view of the mind.
By contrast, hypnotists who believed that responses to suggestion are primarily mediated by the conscious mind, such as Theodore Barber and Nicholas Spanos tended to make more use of direct verbal suggestions and instructions.
Ericksonian Hypnotherapy
Milton H. Erickson was one of the most influential hypnotists of the 20th century. From around the 1950s onward, Erickson developed a radically different approach to hypnotism, which has subsequently become known as “Ericksonian hypnotherapy” or “Neo-Ericksonian hypnotherapy.” Erickson made use of a more informal conversational approach with many clients and complex language patterns, and therapeutic strategies. However, this very divergence from tradition led some of his colleagues, most notably Andre Weitzenhoffer, to dispute whether Erickson was right to label his approach “hypnosis” at all. Nevertheless, Erickson’s work continues to be one of the most influential forces in modern hypnotherapy.
The founders of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), a methodology similar in some regards to hypnotism, claimed that they had modelled the work of Erickson extensively and assimilated it into their approach called the Milton Model.
Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH) is an integrated psychological therapy employing clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
In 1974, Theodore Barber and his colleagues published an influential review of the research which argued, following the earlier social psychology of Theodore R. Sarbin, that hypnotism was better understood not as a “special state” but as the result of normal psychological variables, such as active imagination, expectation, appropriate attitudes, and motivation. Barber introduced the term “cognitive-behavioral” to describe the nonstate theory of hypnotism, and discussed its application to behavior therapy.
The growing application of cognitive and behavioral psychological theories and concepts to the explanation of hypnosis paved the way for a closer integration of hypnotherapy with various cognitive and behavioral therapies. However, many cognitive and behavioral therapies were themselves originally influenced by older hypnotherapy techniques, i.e., the systematic desensitisation of Joseph Wolpe, the cardinal technique of early behavior therapy, was originally called “hypnotic desensitisation” and derived from the Medical Hypnotism (1948) of Lewis Wolberg.
The traditional style of hypnotherapy can be seen as precursors of cognitive-behavioral therapy insofar as both place emphasis upon “common sense” theoretical explanations and the use of relaxation, and rehearsal of positive ideas and imagery in therapy. Modern cognitive therapy primarily differs from previous hypnotherapy approaches by placing much greater emphasis upon the direct Socratic disputation of negative beliefs. However, cognitive-behavioral hypnotherapists have assimilated this technique alongside their use of hypnosis.
