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Dental hypnosis
following scene, which I am sure you, like me, know well:
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Stormtrooper: Let me see your identification. Obi-Wan: [with a small wave of his hand] You don't need to see his identification. Stormtrooper:We don't need to see his identification. Obi-Wan: These aren't the droids you're looking for. Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for. Obi-Wan: He can go about his business. Stormtrooper: You can go about your business. Obi-Wan: Move along. Stormtrooper:Move along... move along.
My son asked: “Wow Daddy, how did he do that?” I answered: “It’s called hypnosis.” Hypnosis is essentially the ability to create change in another person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours by using suggestion. Rather than being subjected on ‘the weak minded’, as suggested in Star Wars, it is more accurate to say it’s effective with people who are open minded, motivated and expectant, and in accordance with their core ethics, beliefs, desires and morals. This can occur during a trance-like ‘state’, but hypnotic techniques and language can also be effectively used in day-to-day situations. Medical and dental patients, for example, are often in a more suggestible frame of mind when seeing their clinician. In the main, they want to get better and are looking for help and guidance to achieve this and/or accept treatment. Patients will therefore often respond well to appropriate suggestions and language.
Dentist Dr Mike Gow explains some of the ways hypnotherapy can be used in day-to-day practice
Accentuate the positive Positive language is important. For example, if I ask you not to think about an elephant in the next 20 seconds, regardless of whether it is an Indian or African, you will find that you have to think about it. The task becomes harder if I also ask you not to think about a toy elephant or carving of an elephant, and to especially not think about the tusks. It is almost impossible not to think of elephants, isn’t it? This concept is actually the flaw in Obi-Wan’s mind trick, and is why it would be unlikely to work in reality. By saying ‘these are not the droids you are looking for’, Obi-Wan uses negative language
ODAY was a momentous day in my 4½-year-old boy’s life. It was his first time watching Star Wars. There are interesting moments in the film when Obi-wan uses ‘Jedi mind tricks’. Consider the
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