Health & Wellbeing

Lifestyle

Hypnotherapy – exploding the myths

1. Some people can’t be hypnotised
False. All you need is willingness to participate, desire to achieve your goals, the power of your imagination and the focus of your concentration and you will go into trance.

2. Under hypnosis you are helpless
False. In a trance state you are more in touch and aware of your thoughts and feelings. It is extremely difficult to get a hypnotised person to go against their moral principles.

3. Hypnosis is the same as sleep
False. You may have your eyes closed or open. You are aware of sounds and surroundings but with a heightened sense of focus on the topic. Trance is more like meditation than sleep.

4. Hypnosis can cure problems in one session
Maybe. People sometimes find they are able to stop smoking after one session but that is not usual. Most change requires commitment and persistence; to produce lasting results, 4 to 6 sessions is a usual course of treatment.

5. Hypnosis can retrieve lost memories
True. It is possible to use hypnosis to recover lost memories, but what may surface will depend strongly on age and emotional state at the time of the experience, and may be influenced by imagination as well. If a memory is not readily available there may be a reason it is being hidden from consciousness.

6. You can’t lie under hypnosis
False. In trance your imagination is enhanced to the extent that you can visualise the most way-out things and accept things you would normally not consider, for instance: curing the fear of flying.

7. You have never been hypnotised
False. Trance is a natural state we experience daily. For instance, daydreaming, being engrossed and lost in a movie, the time between waking and sleeping.