Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy is the application of hypnosis as a form of medical therapy, usually for relieving pain or conditions related to one's state of mind. Practitioners believe that when a client enters, or believes he has entered, a state of trance, the patient is more receptive to suggestion and other therapy. The most common use of hypnotherapy is to remedy maladies like obesity, smoking, pain, ego, anxiety, stress, amnesia, phobias, and performance but many others are also treated by hypnosis.
History
The roots of medicine by therapy lie in ancient societies even earlier than the Egyptians. Religious rituals were characterized by dancing, music, and masked peoples assuming new identities.
In the nineteenth century, practitioners like Franz Anton Mesmer, James Braid, and Jean-Martin Charcot met resistance from society and the medical community for their novel ideas on using hypnosis to treat illness.
Sigmund Freud tried using hypnosis for psychological treatment in the late 1930s but he was not successful in treating any ailment with it and gave up on it in favor of his newly developed free association technique.
Milton Erickson was one of the most successful modern hypnotherapists. He wrote many books on the subject and is a defining figure of modern hypnotherapy.
Relationship
The Hypnotist-Subject relationship is characterized by many traits according to a book by Milton Erickson in which the subject becomes receptive to ideas because confused.
- Repetition - the more an idea is repeated the more likely it is to be accepted and acted upon by the patient.
- Direct Suggestion - suggesting directly. "When you re-awaken you will feel refreshed."
- Indirect Suggestion - using "interspersal" technique and other means to cause effect.
- Mental State - people are more receptive while relaxed, sleeping, or in a trance.
- Hypnoanalysis - the client recalls moments from his past, confronting them and releasing associated emotions, similar to psychoanalysis.
- Post Hypnotic Suggestion - this is a suggestion that causes trance. "Relax so deeply that you are able to experience the deepest calm".
- Binds - tension on a bind causes trance. This is like "the centipede who when asked which comes first, the left foot or the right, lost his concentration, stumbled, then rolled into the ditch".
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