Is Hypnotherapy The Best Remedy For Anxiety?
April 23, 2012 
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Hypnotherapists are known to be able to hypnotize people into a trance. However, what people don’t necessarily know is that there are people willing to pay for exactly that. Hypnotherapists have their own set of clients that avail of their powerful skills to help get them into a state that allows them to free their minds from certain anxieties and fears.
Although most people believe that hypnotherapists hypnotize people against their will, hypnotherapists have made a strong effort to help people understand that they simply guide people into this state naturally.
The success of hypnosis only increases as subsequent trances go deeper and deeper. Many first-time subjects of hypnosis are surprised to find that trance feels normal and natural, and they remain in control during trance. Afterwards, they may have a perception that something different has happened. The event may be a little dimmer in memory, almost like a dream state fairly well remembered.
However, the popularity of hypnotherapy has only increased as its medical properties have been very useful in treating a variety of ailments, including anxiety disorder.
The Difference between Stage Hypnosis and Anxiety Hypnotherapy
But how does hypnotherapy differ from stage hypnosis, where magicians ask members of the audience to come up on stage to be hypnotized? Is stage hypnosis also considered hypnotherapy for anxiety?
It’s been observed that many people who get up on stage to be hypnotized are extroverts who want to be the life of the party. Stage hypnotists use specific processes for selecting their subjects. Typically a good stage hypnotist will select those people who want to be on stage, either to show that they are good hypnotic subjects, or to just have fun in an uninhibited atmosphere where everybody expects them to act silly anyway. It’s commonly not believed that the people on stage are made to do anything they don’t want to. They simply do suggested things under the direction of their unconscious rather than their conscious mind. Read More
In therapeutic contexts, researchers have been very clear on the fact that an anxiety disorder patient should have total control. A patient under hypnosis will not do anything he would not normally do. Many of the phenomena produced in stage hypnosis however, such as full body catalepsy and amnesia for suggestions, have great value in therapeutic situations.
Consider a person with a back problem who is able to attain full body catalepsy during trance. He is able to actualize all his muscles becoming totally tense, then fully relaxed, then completely aligned. Think how this might help in eliminating his problem.
The Healing Power of Anxiety Hypnotherapy
Amnesia for suggestions is often the key to dramatic deeper level results. If a specific patient has a disease that he wants to heal and you do not want his conscious Mind to get in the way of your healing suggestions, you can give him a post-hypnotic healing suggestion and instructions to forget the suggestion consciously. This will allow the unconscious mind to do its inside job without conscious interference.
This approach can also work with smoking cessation. Simply suggest that the client forget to smoke and consciously forget your instruction. This could enable the client to forget about the behavior. The style differs greatly between stage hypnosis and hypnotherapy. But many useful phenomena are common to both.
A major difference between stage hypnosis and hypnotherapy is that in successful hypnotherapy, the deeper levels of trance are often not required. Researchers have observed that we can get results in light trance for some while others need to go into deeper trance for the desired results. It depends on what the client needs.
Most patients will not need more than light trance to be able to actualize desired changes. However, patients with more serious conditions of anxiety disorder should have more controlled, and stronger sessions of hypnotherapy anxiety.
Similarly, a person who has experienced only light trance cannot gain the full benefits of trance for himself or for conditions. If you have the full range of hypnotic phenomena available in the hypnosis toolbox of your hypnotherapists, you will be able to heal yourself in very powerful ways.
Hypnosis is excellent for deep interventions, such as pain control or getting the body to change its responses. There are hypnotherapy styles that are useful for changing behaviors more at a surface level.
So, for example, if a patient isn’t responding to a doctor’s treatment of their ulcers, they could go through specific hypnotherapy sessions that to go back and get rid of the mental source of the ulcers. Hypnotherapy can also get patients to tap into their unconscious mind to be able to heal the body.
Hypnotherapy is anchored on the fact that mind and body is solidly intertwined, with one affecting the other. Just as we heal the ailments in our body, we end up healing the wounds in our mind. Hypnotherapy can easily be used to allow a patient to open up about the source of their anxieties, especially when they aren’t forthcoming about it when lucid.
However, hypnotherapy for social anxiety isn’t for everybody. There are specific cases when hypnotherapy for panic attacks can easily be more harmful than it is helpful. If you aren’t sure if anxiety hypnotherapy is for you, then keep on reading.
Listed in the section below are a number of things that were written to help identify if you or a loved one is eligible for anxiety hypnotherapy.
When Not to Undergo Anxiety Hypnotherapy
The safest and most useful social anxiety hypnotherapy is when it is done, of course, by a licensed hypnotherapist. Patients can seek help with any kind of hypnotherapists, but their methods can be both dangerous and ineffective, depending on the styles and methods used on him.
Unless you are being treated by a licensed psychologist, medical doctor, dentist, social worker, or marriage, family and child counselor; you should limit the scope of your treatment to stress reduction, performance enhancement, and habit control issues such as smoking and weight loss.
If you’re looking to get into hypnotherapy for the first time, try asking a medical specialist or your doctor if they can refer to someone they can trust. Hypnotherapy and traditional medical treatments can prove to be very effective against anxiety disorders when done in tandem.
However the United States have very heavy restrictions on what hypnotherapists are allowed to do to their clients and patients. This is primarily because not all cases allow for anxiety hypnotherapy.
There are five instances in which hypnosis is specifically discouraged and/or prohibited.
First, when a patient’s personal history suggests that they may be dangerous to themselves or to others, the client is beyond the scope of treatment of an unlicensed hypnotherapist. In most states of the United States, even a psychologist will refer a client who is dangerous to self or others to a psychiatrist or a medical doctor.
Second, if the patient is dealing with highly repressed or traumatic issues, hypnotherapists may want to refer them to someone who has been trained to deal with those issues. Hypnosis alone may not be a sufficient intervention. Some hypnotherapies could be prescribed; but if the assigned hypnotherapist is not trained in it, they can refer the patient to a certified practitioner who is. In addition, it may be appropriate to have a psychiatrist or a psychologist work with the patient as well.
Third, if a patient is dealing with cancer or another life threatening disease, hypnosis is a controversial form of treatment and it’s insisted that they get a diagnosis and a written referral from a medical doctor before proceeding. Currently in the United States, it is not illegal to use hypnosis to help alleviate the symptoms of a disease. It is illegal to claim to cure disease by means of hypnosis. In most parts of the world, it is inappropriate to say that you will use hypnosis to cure cancer. Most hypnotherapists managed to get around this consideration by simply using a bit of honesty. They say, “What is important here is that I am not going to heal you, you are going to heal yourself. Whether or not that happens is going to depend on how well you can communicate with your unconscious Mind.”
That is a very important framework for many patients. They suddenly become pro-active instead of painstakingly passive. Hypnotherapists will never regret referring someone out if you have any question on whether you should be working with them.
Fourth, if a patient is suffering from psychiatric or neurological disorders such as multiple personality schizophrenia, bipolar disorders (manic-depressive), hysteria or epileptic seizures. It is appropriate for you to require a written referral from a medical doctor or psychiatrist before a hypnotherapist can even consider working with the patient.
Fifth, finally, it is only a common courtesy amongst hypnotherapists to only hypnotize people of the opposite sex when there is a witness present during the session. Do not allow a session to continue if you find yourself in a vulnerable position with your hypnotherapist. An alternate safeguard is to have all the sessions videotaped.
