Hypnosis is an altered state of awareness and improved relaxation that increases focus and concentration. If your only experience with hypnosis comes from the movies or a stage act, you probably have some misconceptions about this type of therapy, also known as hypnotherapy, that has been practiced by numerous cultures for thousands of years. First and foremost, it’s important to note that you cannot be hypnotized against your will, and you’re always in control.
“With hypnosis, you always have free will, so you can notice these changes, but you can decide to allow these changes or not to,” said Rashmi Kumar, a psychotherapist and NGH-certified hypnotherapist at Shanti Psychotherapy. “You always know where you are; you’re always aware of your surroundings; they just don’t matter as much unless they need to.” Rashmi uses the analogy of not remembering passing certain landmarks when driving a familiar route, but if a car swerved in front of you, you’d be immediately alert.
Part of what hypnosis is doing is letting the conscious mind take a break and connecting with the subconscious mind, which is where all of our patterns of thought, our habits, and our beliefs about ourselves are stored. “With hypnosis, we can connect with the subconscious mind and heal those beliefs and help program new beliefs that the client actually wants and chooses,” said Rashmi.
Essentially, a hypnosis session is at least 30 minutes long and has two parts. The first part is called induction, where the hypnotherapist may start with a progressive relaxation that focuses on all the different muscles in the body, relaxing and focusing on the client’s breathing and bringing in relaxation with every breath. The practitioner counts the client down from ten to one, allowing them to get more relaxed. The second part of hypnosis is focusing on the specific challenge the individual wants to change, and that part will look different for everybody.
“Working with anxiety is probably one of the things that can be most effective to use hypnosis for. We can do specific hypnosis sessions for stress and anxiety, but just the act of hypnosis in general, even if I’m doing hypnosis for someone who’s afraid to drive on the highway or somebody who wants to eat less sweets, because hypnosis involves relaxing the mind and body, it’s great for anxiety and stress anyway,” said Rashmi. “No matter what you use it for, it’s teaching you how to bring relaxation to your mind and body. If someone is suffering from anxiety, we might talk about techniques to keep this peace and calm with them whenever they want it.”
