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What is
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy
means the use of hypnosis for the treatment and relief of a variety
of somatic and psychological symptoms.
Hypnotherapy can be used to bring relief to existing conditions or
to change areas where there are issues. The list of situations where
it can aid the individual is endless and it is particularly
effective for those who wish to take greater control—or perhaps
regain control—of some aspect of their life.
Certain uses are well known such as for quitting smoking and for
pain relief, but did you know that hypnotherapy can also be used to
overcome a fear of public speaking, to improve performance on the
playing field or even to prevent blushing?
Some of the many conditions that can be treated through
hypnotherapy:
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Thanks to the On-line
Medical Dictionary for their descriptions of these conditions.
 Agoraphobia
- An unexplained fear of
open spaces.
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another page for list of phobia / fears
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- Anorexia
- The uncontrolled lack or
loss of the appetite for food.
(Note that Anorexia Nervosa is described as an eating disorder
characterised by a misperception of body image. Individuals with
anorexia nervosa often believe they are overweight even when
they are grossly underweight.)
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- Anxiety
- It is a word that has a
wide ranging description, but technically it is the unpleasant
emotional state consisting of psychophysiological responses to
anticipation of unreal or imagined danger, ostensibly resulting
from unrecognised intrapsychic conflict. (You asked!)
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- Arthritis
- An inflammatory
condition that affects joints.
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- Assertiveness
- Assertiveness training
is a form of therapy in which a client learns to feel free to
make legitimate demands and refusals in situations which
previously elicited inappropriate responses.
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- Asthma
- A disease process that
is characterised by paradoxical narrowing of the bronchi (lung
passageways) making breathing difficult.
Symptoms include wheezing, difficulty breathing (particularly
exhaling air) and tightness in the chest.
Factors which can exacerbate asthma include rapid changes in
temperature or humidity, allergies, upper respiratory
infections, exercise, stress or smoke (from cigarettes).
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- Bed-wetting
- Technically known as
'Nocturnal Enuresis', it is the involuntary passage of urine at
night-time in children. Most bed-wetting stops by the age of
three and is twice as common in boys as in girls.
Causes have been attributed to delay in bladder muscle
development, adjustment disorder (parents too controlling or
aggressive), too early (and too coercive) to toilet training,
diabetes and spinal cord lesions (rare).
A urinary tract infection should be excluded in the cases of a
sudden onset of bed-wetting.
Treatment includes behaviour modification (rewarding good
behaviour), supportive and helpful attitude by parents, limiting
fluids at bedtime and alarm devices (a sleep pad that sets off
an alarm when it gets wet). Vasopressin nasal spray has been
used successfully to treat this condition in some children.
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- Blushing
- Involuntary reddening,
especially of the face, associated with feelings of
embarrassment, confusion or shame.
As most sufferers will tell you, it is not the blushing that is
the problem, but the fear of blushing, hence the alternative
name of 'Erythrophobia'. (Erythro- is used to denote reddening,
associated with red blood cells)
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- Bruxism
- Compulsive grinding or
clenching of the teeth especially at night.
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- Bulimia
- An eating disorder which
is characterised by self-induced vomiting after eating.
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- Compulsive
behaviour
- The behaviour of
performing an act persistently and repetitively without it
leading to reward or pleasure. The act is usually a small,
circumscribed behaviour, almost ritualistic, yet not
pathologically disturbing.
Examples of compulsive behaviour include twirling of hair,
checking something constantly, not wanting pennies in change,
straightening tilted pictures, etc.
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- Creativity
enhancement
- Hypnotherapy can be
beneficial in overcoming writers' or artists' blocks, along with
other situations where creativity is useful, such as for problem
solving.
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- Dentist
fears
- 'Dentist-phobia' leads
to dental problems associated with lack of dental hygiene and
dental maintenance. The phobia should be addressed before the
dental situation becomes unpleasant.
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- Depression
- A mental state of
depressed mood characterised by feelings of sadness, despair and
discouragement. Depression ranges from normal feelings of the
blues through dysthymia to major depression.
It in many ways resembles the grief and mourning that follow
bereavement; there are often feelings of low self-esteem, guilt
and self-reproach, withdrawal from interpersonal contact and
somatic symptoms such as eating and sleep disturbances.
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- Eczema
- A pruritic
papulovesicular dermatitis occurring as a reaction to many
endogenous and exogenous agents. It is characterised in the
acute stage by erythema, oedema associated with a serous exudate
between the cells of the epidermis (spongiosis) and an
inflammatory infiltrate in the dermis, oozing and vesiculation
and crusting and scaling and in the more chronic stages by
lichenification or thickening or both, signs of excoriations and
hyperpigmentation or hypopigmentation or both. Atopic dermatitis
is the most common type of dermatitis
Once an organic cause has been ruled out, Eczema - as with most
skin conditions - responds very well to hypnotherapy.
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- Emotional
difficulties
- Many emotional
difficulties can be relieved by hypnotherapy either by enabling
one to cope better with those emotions, or by finding different,
more appropriate emotions to replace those that are causing
difficulty.
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- Exam
nerves
- Hypnotherapy is
excellent for those who suffer with anxiety before examinations.
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- Fear
of flying
- Many sufferers only seek
help for flying phobias when they are have the prospect of a
flight ahead, and they can't avoid it.
Hypnotherapy can help in the short term, to enable the sufferer
to take that flight, or in the long term, to dissolve the phobia
completely.
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- Headaches
- Headaches come in many
forms, and those related to anxiety and stress are particularly
amenable to hypnotherapeutic intervention.
Note that headaches can be of organic origin so it is important
to have a medical check before seeking hypnotherapeutic
treatment.
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- IBS
- A functional bowel
disorder characterised by recurrent crampy abdominal pain and
diarrhoea. Invasive gastrointestinal diagnostics are often
unrevealing.
There is some feeling that IBS is primarily anxiety-based in
origin, and it is known to respond well to hypnotherapy.
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- Impotence
- Impotence is the
inability to achieve or sustain a penile erection, however there
are many sexual conditions that can be relieved by hypnotherapy,
and the umbrella term for them is 'psychogenic infertility'.
Note that this refers to the fact that there is no organic
origin behind the complaints. Any new sexual disfunction should
always be investigated by your doctor first to rule out the
possibility of an organic cause.
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- Interpersonal
skills
- In business, or in one's
social life, the ability to interact easily and efficiently with
others is a boon. Self-confidence issues can prevent this, and
hypnotherapy can help individuals to find their inner-confidence
and overcome their fears of interpersonal interaction.
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- Interview
preparation
- For those who feel they
get unduly nervous before an interview, hypnotherapy can be used
to great effect to bring out the confidence and strengths that
are present in other situations and use them to overcome
excessive fear.
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- Lack
of concentration
- The ability to
concentrate depends on the ability to focus on one thing and
ignore distractions. By addressing the causes of the lack of
concentration, individuals can discover the ability to focus
intensely, with the advantage that this brings of greater
retention and more efficient learning.
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- Lack
of confidence
- The bread and butter of
hypnotherapy - everyone goes through periods and situations
where they lack confidence, but when it is sustained then
hypnotherapy can help to bring it back in a positive way.
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- Low
self-esteem
- Low self-esteem can be
the result of a lifetime of events or from a single trauma.
Either way, it can be debilitating. A considered hypnotherapy
program can enable one to rediscover their own self-respect and
start to live the life that they always knew they could.
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- Nail-biting
- This is a common form of
habitual body manipulation which is an expression of tension. It
can often be successfully treated in just one session.
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- Nightmares
- My search for an
official definition found this: A condition in sleep usually
caused by improper eating or by digestive or nervous troubles,
and characterised by a sense of extreme uneasiness or discomfort
(as of weight on the chest or stomach, impossibility of motion
or speech, etc), or by frightful or oppressive dreams, from
which one wakes after extreme anxiety, in a troubled state of
mind.
Peaceful sleep can be achieved through hypnotherapeutic
intervention.
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- Over-eating
- Whether for weight
control or to stop binging, hypnotherapy is widely accepted as
an excellent therapy to help control the diet and to start to
eat more healthily.
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- Pain
control
- Hypnosis has been used
for pain control (and documented) - up to and including surgery
- for over 100 years. It is excellent for the pain associated
with arthritis, phantom limb pain and for anaesthesia in many
predictably painful situations (e.g. for dental work)
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- Panic
disorders
- Symptoms of a panic
attack usually begin abruptly and include rapid heartbeat, chest
sensations, shortness of breath, dizziness, tingling, and
anxiety.
Hypnotherapy can help identify the root cause of the anxiety and
can provide tools to be used to stop a panic attack. Just
knowing that you will be able to handle an attack when it
happens, can greatly reduce the impact of the event.
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- Performance
anxiety
- Many people experience
acute anxiety before they have to 'perform', whether it be on a
stage, a sports field, in front of an audience, or even in bed.
In all situations, the underlying causes have some similarity
and some uniqueness. Investigation via hypnotherapy can lead to
resolution and dissolution of the problem.
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- Pre-operative
fears
- It is natural to become
nervous before any significant event, but when this leads to
avoidance, and that avoidance is harmful, then hypnotherapy can
help to bring out the confidence and calmness required to deal
with the situation.
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- Post-operative
recovery
- Recovery from an
operation can be hastened, scarring and bruising reduced, and
pain and discomfort relieved if hypnotherapy, and - once taught
- self-hypnosis are used.
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- Psoriasis
- A common chronic,
squamous dermatosis, marked by exacerbations and remissions and
having a polygenic inheritance pattern. The most distinctive
histological findings in well developed psoriasis are Munro
microabscesses and spongiform pustules.
It is characterised clinically by the presence of rounded,
circumscribed, erythematous, dry scaling patches of various
sizes, covered by greyish white or silvery white, umbilicated
and lamellar scales, which have a predilection for the extensor
surfaces, nails, scalp, genitalia and lumbosacral region.
Central clearing and coalescence of the lesions produce a wide
variety of clinical configurations, including annular or
circinate, discoid or nummular, figurate and gyrate
arrangements.
Like all skin conditions, if there is no organic cause, then
stress-related factors are the likely culprit, and hypnotherapy
can produce relief from symptoms.
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- Sleeping
problems
- Insomnia, early waking,
disturbed sleep, snoring... when you are asleep your unconscious
mind is still at work looking after you, and it can take care of
many of the things that bother us - if only we could access it
more directly. With hypnotherapy, we can do just that.
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- Smoking
- Perhaps the most widely
known and accepted use of hypnotherapy is to help stop smoking.
It is effective, there are no negative side-effects (there are
many positive ones) and it can normally be achieved in one
session. All that is required is the motivation to become a
non-smoker.
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- Snoring
- The act of respiring
through the open mouth so that the currents of inspired and
expired air cause a vibration of the uvula and soft palate, thus
giving rise to a sound more or less harsh.
Once any suggestion of an organic condition has been ruled out
by a doctor, hypnotherapy can be utilised to help the sufferer
to find their own way of sleeping peacefully and quietly.
Or, if the sufferer is not the snorer, but the snorer's partner,
then it is the partner who can be helped - by learning to
appreciate and enjoy the deep relaxation that the snorer is
demonstrating.
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- Speech
impediments
- Stammering, stuttering,
mumbling... many such conditions can be aided by behavioural
training whilst in hypnosis.
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- Tics
- Spasmodic muscular
contractions most commonly involving the face, mouth, eyes,
head, neck or shoulder muscles. The movement often appears
purposeful but is involuntary.
As such activity is often exacerbated by stress, great relief
can be achieved when the stress can be dealt with in an
appropriate fashion.
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- Weight
control
- After 'stop smoking'
treatments, this is perhaps the most well known use for
hypnotherapy. You can achieve the weight that you desire - you
already know how to do it.
Hypnotherapy can help you to bring out the strengths and
resources within you to make it happen, and more importantly, to
adjust to the new life that you will have, so that you maintain
it.
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