Does Hypnosis Work?

A common question people ask concerns the effectiveness or "reality" of hypnotherapy and hypnosis. "Is it real?", "So, how does that stage hypnosis work?". Many potential clients have a distorted view of hypnosis due to it's portrayal in the media and a history of misrepresentation by people who fail to fully understand it.

Hypnosis defined?

Hypnosis has been defined in a number of ways by a number of people. A quick hunt using your search engine of choice will bring up an enormous number of definitions. Each has it's own merits but some common themes focus on Elman's definition, "the bypass of the critical factor of the conscious mind followed by selective acceptable suggestion". In short, helping the client to go work beyond the conscious understanding of their behaviour and then deeply embedding suggestions which have already been found to be agreeable to the client.

Come again?

To shed a different type of light on the situation, we can use an everyday occurance which is common to most of us in order to show how we already know how to "do" these hypnotic states. For example...

Consider the times when you might have nicked yourself with a knife while preparing vegetables, or skinned a knuckle whilst tightening a bolt. There will doubtless have been occasions when you were completely unaware of the damage until some time afterwards. In some cases the pain may only have became apparent once you had noted the injury.

Could you have deliberately caused that deep a cut without being painfully aware it? (excuse the pun).

In the first instance, the act of intently focusing your attention elsewhere bypassed your unconscious reaction to the injury which would have brought it up to the level of your conscious awareness.

Why was this relevant?

Hypnosis utilises the very same procedures to focus your attention and keep your critical, conscious mind occupied whilst the unconcious is free to accept suggestions which it understands to be beneficial to you. These suggestions often deal with physiological reactions that the conscious mind cannot easily control such as pain, sleep disorders, irrational thoughts.