Understanding Hypnosis By Hugh Sadlier, M.Ed.
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his article discusses the application of hypnosis for dealing with such issues as habit control, stress, excessive eating, smoking, fears, motivation, self-confidence, concentration, learning enhancement, attitude modification, pain management, insomnia, goal-setting, relationships and other areas which lead to unhappiness, dysfunction or difficulty in achieving personal goals.
What It Is and How It Works
Hypnosis is not mind control, magic, unconsciousness or sleep. It is a relaxed state of heightened suggestibility during which a person is receptive to “acceptable” suggestions. It is a process that frees us from analytical, unbending thinking (con- scious mind) and lets us use creative and imaginative resources (subconscious mind). Hypnosis is a tool used by trained hypno- tists to stimulate the body’s healing powers, resulting in self- healing and self-improvement. Hypnosis is a natural experience that happens to most people every day. We easily go into spontaneous states of hypnosis while absorbed in doing something such as driving, working, reading or watching television. While in hypnosis, a person’s body becomes as deeply relaxed as it is during sleep, but one’s senses remain awake and alert. The person is always in control during hypnosis and will only say or do what she/he would say or do in the conscious state. The person will return to full con- sciousness whenever he/she wants or feels the need. Self-hypno- sis, which can be taught to virtually any client, can provide the recipient with a lifetime of benefits.
A Brief History of Hypnosis Early people books depict mogurs, shamans, medicine men
and women, and healers using chanting, drumming, singing, shouting, and “magic”, to inspire confidence and create expec- tations, while simultaneously mesmerizing and hypnotizing. Egyptian art shows brain surgery: a triangular cut into the skull to access the brain, being performed routinely. Cultural anthro- pologists say there was no anesthesia or sterile practices avail- able.
Greek doctors used certain magic processes similar to mod- ern mesmerists. Plato said: “The cure of the part should not be
12 Essential Living Maine ~ September 2014
attempted without treatment of the whole. No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul. Let no one per- suade you to cure the head until he has first given you his soul to be cured, for this is the great error of our day, that physicians first separate the soul from the body.” Hippocrates said, “The af- fections suffered by the body, the soul sees quite well with shut eyes.”
Romans breathed on diseased parts, or allayed pain by stroking of the hands and sending patients into long, refreshing sleeps for the recovery of health. The effects produced were identical in character to mesmeric phenomena of today. Healing by the laying on of hands was common among Jews in Bibli- cal times. Some Native American tribes, particularly the Hopi, developed skilled medical practices. They performed complex surgery without pain, through mind alteration. The beginnings of Modern Hypnotism started with An-
ton Mesmer, a young French doctor, in 1775. Called animal magnetism, mesmerism was a system of healing that believed a disturbance of equilibrium of a “universal fluid” caused disease. Magnetic readjustment of the invisible fluid cured the disease. The process involved a large metal tub partially filled with iron filings and bottles submerged in water. Magnets hung overhead, while metal rods extended from the tub and the afflicted grasped them while gentle background music played. Mesmer or one of his students would enter and say: “be healed” – resulting in anything from mild euphoria to extreme convulsions. When symptoms were gone (one to three hours), illness or complaint was also gone. Mesmer cured headaches, paralysis, infections, insanity, blindness, lameness, tumors and gout. Traditional doc- tors called it a hoax and trickery. A group commissioned by Louis XVI (which included Ben
Franklin) decided that “imagination is everything, magnetism is nothing.”
In 1839, James Baird, a British doctor intrigued by stage experiments, magnetized his wife and servants and did several years of experiments. He realized it was not the power of the magnetism that produced the sleep-like state, but something within the subject.
He called it Hypnosis, from the Greek word hypnos, mean- ing sleep. In 1850, James Esdaile, a Scottish surgeon practicing in India, performed over 2,000 surgeries, including 300 major operations using only hypnosis (no anesthesia, antibiotics or antiseptic practices).
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