Hypnosis is the cooperative interaction in which the participant responds to the
suggestions of the hypnotist. While hypnosis has become well-known thanks to
popular acts where people are prompted to performs unusual or ridiculous
actions, the technique has also been clinically proven to provide medical and
therapeutic benefits, most notably in the reduction of pain and anxiety and
quitting smoking.
When you hear the word hypnotist, what comes to mind? If you’re like many people, the word may conjure up images of a sinister stage-villain who brings about a hypnotic state by swinging a pocket watch back and forth.
The hypnotist does not hypnotize the individual. Rather, the hypnotist serves as a sort of coach or
tutor whose job is to help the person become hypnotized. While hypnosis is often described as a
sleep-like trance state, it is better expressed as a state characterized by
focused attention, heightened suggestibility and vivid fantasies.
The experience of hypnosis can vary dramatically from one person to another. Some
hypnotized individuals report feeling a sense of detachment or extreme
relaxation during the hypnotic state, while others even feel that their actions
seem to occur outside of their conscious volition. Other individuals may remain
fully aware and able to carry out conversations while under hypnosis. You cannot
be made to do what you do not want to do under hypnosis. The suggestions that
are given during hypnosis must congruent with an individual’s values. The
individual must want to for any hypnotic process to be successful.
The success to hypnosis is the unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind hold information
outside your consciousness, but it also manages sensation and body functions.
It is all about the mind body connection.
Not only does information from the mind affect the body, but there is now scientific
evidence that your mental processes, mental states and mental behaviors affect
all the cells of your body at the same time.
The unconscious mind not only manages sensation, movements and body functions, but
it also actually sends information that travels to and affects billions of
individual cells in the body giving us health or disease according to our
unconscious beliefs.
With quitting smoking the process communicates to the unconscious mind to change the
habit of smoking to the habit of breathing fresh air. The unconscious mind
wants what is best for the body and therefore responds to suggestions of better
health, but only if the individual wants to.