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- What hypnosis is—and is not—and the science behind it
- Common uses of hypnotherapy, from smoking cessation to weight loss
- How to find a qualified hypnotherapist and what to expect from a session
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What Is Hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a state of relaxed, focused concentration. It is a completely normal, entirely natural state of mind that all of us enter throughout our day. Hypnosis occurs whenever you become absorbed fully and imaginatively in an activity. Ways that people enter into hypnotic trances include:
- Reading an interesting book
- Watching an absorbing movie
- Gazing at a radiant sunset
- Daydreaming
Hypnosis vs. Hypnotherapy
Hypnosis is a state; hypnotherapy is the practice of using this state for therapeutic reasons. Hypnotists and hypnotherapists are professionals trained to help people enter into trance states—the difference is that hypnotherapists use hypnosis exclusively as a therapy.
Through various techniques, hypnotherapists teach their subjects to relax their conscious minds and to direct their attention instead to their subconscious minds, enabling them to use their unconscious minds to find solutions to problems or to achieve goals. The conscious mind is the part that perceives:
- Sight
- Smell
- Sound
- Taste
- Touch
The subconscious mind is the storage site of:
- Memories
- Fears
- Beliefs
- Dreams
Association
The subconscious mind can help you recognize things through a process called association. Association involves your understanding of what you see, hear, taste, smell, or feel based on a similar memory. For example, when we see something long, yellow, and curved, we think “banana”—and can even call to mind the taste of a banana.
Learning Through Association
Human learning occurs through association: from an early age, we learn that certain behaviors and conditions lead to pleasure, whereas others lead to pain. These associations then strengthen or weaken through experiences and choices that we make.
Unhelpful Associations
Sometimes the mind makes associations that are unhelpful or unproductive. Examples of these unhelpful associations that a person might make include:
- Seeing cigarettes as stress-relieving
- Seeing airplanes as dangerous and threatening
- Seeing job situations as hopeless
Associations tend to reinforce themselves. For example, a person who perceives her job situation as hopeless may tend to avoid making efforts to improve it. Subsequently, when she makes less effort, the situation generally seems more and more hopeless.
How Hypnotherapy Uses Association
Hypnotherapy works primarily by changing the associations in a person’s mind. When in hypnosis, you gain access to the deeper parts of your mind to work creatively with those associations. A hypnotherapist can make suggestions while you are in this hypnotic state to help your unconscious mind make changes.
Hypnotherapy seeks to create associations in the mind that will lead to a positive outcome and let go of unhelpful associations. Though associations may be well established in a person’s mind, all associations can—with willingness—eventually be uprooted and changed.
| Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
