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 Table of Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Hypnotherapy and it's types.............................................................................................................3

Traditional hypnotherapy.................................................................................................................4

Ericksonian hypnotherapy................................................................................................................4

Cognitive/behavioral hypnotherapy.................................................................................................5

Curative hypnotherapy.....................................................................................................................5

Self-hypnosis....................................................................................................................................5

A typical hypnotherapy session........................................................................................................6

Effectiveness of Hypnotherapy........................................................................................................6

References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction

Hypnotherapy is a combination of hypnosis and therapeutic intervention. The therapist

leads the patient to positive change while the patient is deeply relaxed in a state of heightened

suggestibility called trance (www.minddisorders.com)

Hypnosis has been claimed as an 'altered state of consciousness' (ASC) at several occasions

that is qualitatively different from normal waking consciousness. Advocates have termed it 'state' or

'non-state' depending on theoretical orientation. State theorists suggests that hypnosis is an altered

state of consciousness whereas non-state theorists argue that the effects of propositions can be

experienced with or without the preceding facilitation of a hypnotic induction and would "what is

the requirement for an altered state?"

An interesting factor to be noted is when considering non-state theories is that subjects are

always 'faking', or not truly experiencing a hypnotic response (www.hypnoistools.com). Although

non-state explanations use terms such as 'role enactment' or 'self-presentation' they are still entirely

consistent with the notion that hypnotized participants have unusual experiences. Psychologists also

claims that hypnosis is only one of a number of ways of inducing non ordinary states of

consciousness (NOSC) which facilitate significant therapeutic change (Linda Edwards; 2008).

Hypnosis is only one of many methods for inducing these NOSC which have been reported to

increase psychological well-being and decrease suffering (Goleman, 1974; Grof, 1985; Haartman,

1998; James, 1902/1961; Noble, 1987; Rao, 1993; Walsh, 1992; 1993; Walsh & Vaughan, 1980;

Ward, 1989) as sighted in Edwards; 2008

Hypnotherapy and it's types

Hypnotherapy is a process in which hypnotherapists help people to use their own mental

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associations, memories, and life potentials to attain their own therapeutic achievements. Hypnotic

suggestion can facilitate the utilization of abilities and potentials that already exist within a person

but that remain unused or underdeveloped because of a lack of training or understanding. The

hypnotherapist carefully diagnoses a patient's personality to find out what life achievements,

experiences, and mental skills are accessible to cope with the problem. The therapist then facilitates

a session to trance experience wherein the patient may use these personal internal events to achieve

therapeutic goals. There are different types of hypnotherapy, mentioned below;

Traditional hypnotherapy

The form of hypnotherapy practiced by most Victorian hypnotists, including James Braid

and Hippolyte Bernheim, mainly utilizing direct symptom removal, with the help of therapeutic

relaxation and sometimes for aversion to alcohol, smoke and drugs, etc. (Kraft T & Kraft D; 2005)

Ericksonian hypnotherapy

During the 50's Milton H. Erickson came up with a logical and different approach to

hypnotism, which is subsequently become known as "Ericksonian hypnotherapy" or "Neo-

Ericksonian hypnotherapy." Erickson employed an informal conversational approach with many

clients seeking therapeutic help and used complex language patterns, and strategies. (Weitzenhoffer;

2000)

This approach may be viewed as a three-stage process (Erickson, Rossi ;1979):

(1) A period of preparation during which the therapist investigates the patients life experiences

and administrates formative frames of reference to point the patient toward therapeutic

change;

(2) An stimulation and utilization of the patient's own intellectual skills during a period of

therapeutic trance;

(3) A careful acknowledgment, evaluation, and ratification of the therapeutic change that takes

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 place.

Cognitive/behavioral hypnotherapy

Cognitive behavioral hypnotherapy (CBH) is a unified psychological therapy which uses

two clinical hypnosis and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) together as one integrated approach.

(Robertson, 2012) The use of CBT in concurrence with hypnotherapy may result in greater

treatment effectiveness. A meta-analysis of eight different researches disclosed "a 70% great

betterment" for patients undergoing an integrated treatment to those using CBT only. (Kirsch,

Montgomery, Sapperstein,1995)

An influential review by Theodore Barber and his colleagues in 1974 was published in a

research in which they argued earlier social psychology of Theodore R. Sarbin, that hypnotism was

better understood not as a "special state" but as a consequence of normal psychological variables,

such as active imagination, expectation, appropriate attitudes, and motivation. (Barber, Spanos,

Chaves, 1974) Barber is known for introducing the term "cognitive-behavioral" to elaborate the

non-state theory of hypnotism, and discussed its application to behavior therapy.

Curative hypnotherapy

Curative hypnotherapy is a method of working strictly with the subconscious mind to

understand and correct particular details which have played a part in the first creation of a symptom.

Its application relies heavily on Specific Questioning of the subconscious and the use of Ideomotor

phenomenon (IMR) to identify the precise and unique life experiences which then led on to a

triggering of a symptom at some later date.

Self-hypnosis

It has been observed on several occasions that self-hypnosis is usually given a preference

upon the traditional hypnosis because the influential factor in psychotherapy is the clients
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capability for self-healing (Tallman & Bohart, 1999) and successful use of self-hypnosis enables the

client to take charge of their own healing rather than to believe they need to rely on a therapist. This

immediately restricts suitable inductions to those which clients can perform on themselves. It has

been seen people often with certain achievable goal tend to motivate themselves to perform an in-

administered hypnosis on themselves resulting in overwhelming and powerful observations.

A typical hypnotherapy session

In this session a patient is seated comfortably with their feet on the floor and palms on their

lap. It is up to their own choice to lie down if that option is available and if that will allows to

achieve patient's expectation. The therapist then sets the stage for a favorable outcome by asking

different questions like, "Would you prefer to be hypnotized in this chair or on the sofa?" As soon as

the patients make a choice, they are in effect agreeing to experience hypnosis. The next step of the

process can vary depending on the approach used by the therapist, but it often involves some form

of relaxation for the patient. Suggestions will direct the patient's mind to a progressively relaxed

state. The therapist may also confirm the depth of trance by performing variable tests with the

patient. An example of it is the famous eye locking technique in which the therapists may suggest

that the eye will be locked as soon as the patient closes them on will and cannot be opened.

Effectiveness of Hypnotherapy

Hypnosis can be successfully employed to temporarily take off the individuals

identification with both the unconscious and conscious aspects of the ego or conditioned

personality. This permits people to fully re-experience trauma as though watching a movie rather

than losing themselves in the feeling. If the previous blocked feelings are allowed to move freely,

they may transform to different emotions and sensations, shift to other parts of body, and disperse in

a few minutes. As the process ends, the defenses, which were protecting the person from re-

experiencing the psychic trauma, vanishes too. Hence, when something has been highly defended,

the cognitive restructuring can be striking, and the sensation produced by it can be felt as the inside

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of ones head has been re-structured.

There can be some issues which may arise with very strongly defended ego personalities,

particularly psychotics, as the hypnotherapy session is only the first stage of the process and the

person may come out of the Non-ordinary state of Consciousness appearing to be in a worse place

than they went in. It is not that damage cannot be reduced but the fact is that there is huge amount

of substantial phenomenon to be re-experienced and released and requires considerable time and

support. Hence, it is seen inappropriate to work with such people unless there is an assurance of

ongoing support available and the client understands and intends to engage in such a challenging

process.

However, the therapist cannot expect a single script or a single session to deal with the

unique needs of each client whether dealing with psychotics or non-psychotics. This is particularly

true of inner child work scripts. The Inner child work, is a popular contribution by Bradshaw (1990;

1992), which is about healing the injured inner child part of the person so that it becomes the

fantastic child partners with the inner elder as the center of the possible human (Wacks, 1994). The

therapy of the wounded inner child involves grieving childhood losses, demythologizing parents,

and re-parenting so that destructive patterns of reacting out of childhood trauma drop away (Kneisl,

1991). It has been warned by Bradshaw (1992) that the procedure is time consuming and that client

could become overwhelmed, especially if there is a presence of sexual abuse in the past. Therefore

through expert utilization of hypnosis, the inner child work can be quicker and less overwhelming.

Besides this hypnotherapy has been successfully employed by practitioners for minimizing

self-destructive and addictive habits like smoking, training over-eaters to leveling their urge for

excessive food, to relax and cure abnormal sleeping habits, to reduce incontinence uncontrolled

urination in sleep, to treat anxiety. Excessive stress can be sourced by number of factors and can be

the springboard for anxiety. Some of the commonly known sources of anxiety and stress for which

people seek hypnotherapy are: public speaking, test taking, and job stress. It is also an effective way

of treating other anxiety disorders such as phobias and has proven to be an effective treatment for

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mild to moderate depression.

In a study, hypnotherapy was utilized in concurrence with traditional cognitive therapy, to

help patients who felt terrible aversion to needles (Liossi, Christina and Paul White, 2001). This

type of treatment in cancer patients is necessary, as it is essential for each participant to receive

periodic medical injections. However, the participants would have become uncooperative without

the supportive intervention of hypnotherapy. In another case, which dealt with care for terminally ill

cancer patients, it was observed that hypnotherapy proved to be more effective at intensifying the

good quality of life and reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms in patients, when a comparison

was done with others who received traditional treatment and care.

There are also some qualitative analyzing done for utilization of hypnosis in rehabilitation.

In a study by (Diamond,Davis, Schaechter, Howe, 2006) the use of hypnosis has been practiced in

conjunction with rehabilitation therapy. There are some literary evidences in records which shows

effective improvement in stroke patients which dates back to the 1950s (Shires, Peters and Krout,

1954). These reports have described improvements in paretic limb function (Chappell, 1964,

Crasilnech and Hall, 1970; Manganiello, 1986), strength and range of motion (Vodovnik, Roskar,

Pajntar and Gros, 1979; Holroyd and Hill, 1989) and tolerance of therapy (Appel, 1990) as sighted

in (Diamond,Davis, Schaechter, Howe, 2006). Hypnosis in this context typically involves

suggestions from the hypnotist to the subject for imagined movements. An administered

hypnotherapy encourages and measure responses to suggestions (Green, Barabasz, Barrett and

Montgomery, 2005). This fact has served as an operational basis of practicing hypnosis in

rehabilitation treatment in the study.

The major observations discussed in the study of the hypnotic procedure was increased

range of motion, increased strength, and evidence of reduced spasticity of the paretic upper limb.

These alterations were worthy enough to be retained at follow-up sessions and were achieved

whereas there was no greater expectation of such a spontaneous recovery so long after the stroke

event. The participant patients were observed to consistently reporting an improved outlook,

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boosted motivation, higher awareness of the paretic limb and decreased effort to perform motor

tasks with the paretic limb. Hence these qualitative observations supported the research hypothesis

that a hypnotic procedure may be effective in the counteraction of learned non-use of the paretic

upper limb after stroke.

References

Barber, T. X.; Spanos, N. P.; Chaves, J. F. (1974).Hypnotism: Imagination & Human Potentialities.
Pergamon Press.

Bradshaw, J. (1992). Creating love: The next great stage of growth. New York: Bantam Books.

Brewer, J. F. (1998). Healing sounds. Complementary Therapies in Nursing & Midwifery, 4(1), 7-
12.

Diamond,S. G.; Davis O.C.; Schaechter J.D. and Howe R.D. (2006), Hypnosis For Rehabilitation
After Stroke: Six Case Studies, Contemp. Hypnosis 23(4): 173180

Edwards, L.A. (2008), Use of Hypnosis and Non-ordinary States of Consciousness In Facilitating
Significant Psychotherapeutic Change Monash University

Green JP, Barabasz AF, Barrett D, Montgomery GH (2005) Forging ahead: The 2003 APA division
30 defi nition of hypnosis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 53: 25964.

Kirsch, I.; Montgomery, G.; Sapperstein, G. (April 1995). "Hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive-
behavioral psychotherapy: A meta analysis".Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 63 (2):
214220.

Kraft T & Kraft D (2005)Covert Sensitization Revisited: Six Case Studies Contemporary
Hypnosis , 22, (4): 202-209

Liossi, Christina and Paul White (2001). "Efficacy of clinical hypnosis in the enhancement of
quality of life of terminally ill cancer patients."Contemporary Hypnosis 18 (2001): 145160.
Milton H. Erickson and Ernest L. Rossi (1979) Hypnotherapy, An Exploratory Casebook,
Irvington Publishers

Robertson, D (2012).The Practice of Cognitive-Behavioural Hypnotherapy: A Manual for

Evidence-Based Clinical Hypnosis. London: Karnac.

Tallman, K., & Bohart, A. C. (1999). The client as a common factor: Clients as self-healers. In M.
A. Hubble, B. L. Duncan, & S. D. Miller (Eds.), The heart and soul of change: What works in
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therapy. (pp. 91-131). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Weitzenhoffer, A. (2000). The Practice of Hypnotism.

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