8 years ago · Stuart Downing · 0 comments

Does Hypnotherapy Work (Scientifically)

When you’re looking online for information about hypnosis and hypnotherapy, you will find an abundance of information.

You’ll find article upon article, study after study, practitioner after practitioner. The problem? You don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, and how could you?

The real issue comes from the fact that anyone, whether accredited or not can set up as a “hypnotherapist” and offer services without any training or certificate. This leaves real qualified, certified professionals on the back-foot, as the work and training required to get to a level you can successfully work with clients takes time, study and practice. What sets aside those pushing bad advise and those pushing good advise? Particularly when you can brand yourself online, set up a website and be an “expert”.

What do the studies say? How can I find information?

The truth is that we don’t know the full extent of how powerful our minds are, and how hypnosis and hypnotherapy can really help improve our lives on many levels.

During the 20^th had great thinkers from psychologists such as Freud whose psychodynamic research shed light on both the conscious and subconscious mind, the behavioural and humanistic perspectives giving us the “Self-Image” and of course hypnotherapists such as Erikson that gave us compelling studies, work and research on the use of hypnosis as a therapy.

The fact is, we’re at the cutting-edge of psychological therapy. That is, there are so many choices. Truer still is that fact that often it can be the individual and their willingness to change that is of real importance, not the way in which you tackle the situation.

There are many studies out there, and the news is mostly good. We’ve just recent studies and articles that showcase hypnotherapy alters areas of the brain during hypnotic trances. We’ve had some excellent discoveries about how hypnotherapy can work with anxiety, depression, IBS, chronic pain and many other aspects of an individual’s life. Let’s look at some areas that hypnotherapy has been proven scientifically to work on:

You can find information on Google Scholar in regards to studies and case studies, and there are some great studies cited at the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy gives us some excellent insights into many separate issues that hypnotherapy can successfully deal with.

 

Anxiety/Phobia

Anxiety is one of the areas that hypnotherapy has some of the best results. Some of the changes I’ve seen in clients as we’ve gone through therapy has been nothing short of a miracle.

As we can actively deal with your thoughts, your mind and allow you to fully take control of your emotions, it seems that hypnotherapy is the best treatment for anxiety of them all (even the British Medical Association agrees).

“Following an extensive review of the existing literature on hypnotherapy, the British Medical Association concluded that hypnotherapy was not only effective but may be ‘the treatment of choice’ in dealing with anxiety (‘psychoneurosis’) and stress-related (‘psycho-somatic’) disorders: ‘The Subcommittee is satisfied after consideration of the available evidence that hypnotism is of value and may be the treatment of choice in some cases of so-called psycho-somatic disorder and psychoneurosis. It may also be of value for revealing unrecognised motives and conflicts in such conditions. As a treatment, in the opinion of the Subcommittee it has proved its ability to remove symptoms and to alter morbid habits of thought and behaviour. […]’ (BMA, ‘Medical use of hypnotism’, BMJ, 1955, vol. I, 190-193)”

 

Chronic Pain

The mind is a powerful resource.

You must remember that every sensation that you feel originates within your mind, whether emotional or physical.

Chronic pain is an area that I profusely enjoy working on, because I can see the relieve of patients when we’re finished with the therapy. During just a couple of hours, we can revolutionise how you feel in your everyday life.

Some excellent studies have proven the effectiveness of hypnotherapy on chronic pain.

“A recent ‘Clinical Review’ of hypnosis and relaxation therapies published in the BMJ looked at the existing research on hypnosis and concluded: ‘Randomised controlled trials support the use of various relaxation techniques for treating both acute and chronic pain,’ (Vickers & Zollman, ‘Hypnosis and relaxation therapies,’ BMJ 1999;319: 1346-1349)”

 

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Research and studies has shown that hypnotherapy has been successful in the improvement in symptoms of those with irritable bowel syndrome. I can attest to this personally and you will see that some of my testimonials include work I’ve done for my own clients with IBS within my testimonials page.

An experimental study of 12 patients with IBS showed that treatment resulted in significant improvement in symptoms and reduction in related anxiety. (Galovski, T.E., and E.B. Blanchard, ‘The treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with hypnotherapy.’ Applied Psychophysiology & Feedback, 1998: Dec., vo. 23(4):219-232)]

 

Insomnia

Insomnia can be a tough one for anyone. Again one of my specialities, there has been some excellent research done on hypnotherapy for insomnia that has provided us an insight into the effectiveness of treatment with hypnosis and relaxation therapies.

The results are extremely positive.

“A recent ‘Clinical Review’ of hypnosis and relaxation therapies published in the BMJ looked at the existing research on hypnosis and concluded that hypnosis was proven to be effective for treating insomnia. (Vickers & Zollman, ‘Hypnosis and relaxation therapies,’ BMJ 1999;319: 1346-1349)”

 

Self-Hypnosis

It seems that self-hypnosis has been used to treat a wide variety of clinical problems. Successful outcomes involving self-hypnosis with adults or children have been reported for the following areas:

• Anxiety
• PTSD
• Panic Disorders
• Chronic Pain
• Habit disorders (smoking, over-eating, alcoholism, drug addiction)
• Insomnia
• Depression
• Self-Confidence

Have you tried to change many times, but to no prevail? Sometimes we can be stuck in a succession of many habits, all of which consume our daily lives. Over time, we’ve become adjusted to this way of life. One change can make all the difference.

Categories: Hypnosis