The Possibilities in Hypnosis, Where the Patient Has the Power

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The Possibilities in Hypnosis, Where the Patient Has the Power

By JANE E. BRODY

_http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/health/04brody.html?_r=1 & oref=slogin_

(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/health/04brody.html?_r=1 & oref=slogin)

 

My husband, Richard, smoked cigarettes for 50 years, having failed several

attempts to quit on his own. When a friend told him in August 1994 that

hypnosis had enabled her to quit, he decided to give it a try.

 

**It didn’t work; I wasn’t hypnotized,** he declared after his one and

only session. But it did work; since that day, he has not taken one puff of a

cigarette.

 

Gloria Kanter of Boynton Beach, Fla., thought her attempt in 1985 to use

hypnosis to overcome her fear of flying had failed. **When the therapist

brought

me out, I said it didn’t work,** she recalled in an interview. **I told her,

*I heard everything you said.* **

 

Nonetheless, the next time she and her husband headed for the airport, she

was not drenched in sweat and paralyzed with fear. **I was just fine,** she

said, **and I*ve been fine ever since.**

 

Like many others whose knowledge of hypnotism comes from movies and stage

shows, my husband and Mrs. Kanter misunderstood what hypnosis is all about.

While in a hypnotic trance, you are neither unconscious nor asleep, but rather

in a deeply relaxed state that renders the mind highly focused and ready to

accept suggestions to help you accomplish your goals.

 

Hypnosis has been mired in controversy for two centuries, and its benefits

are often overstated. It does not help everyone who wants to quit smoking, for

example; then again, neither do other kinds of treatments.

 

And the patient’s attitude is critical. In the words of Brian Alman, a

psychologist who practices hypnosis in San Diego, **The power of hypnosis

actually

resides in the patient and not in the doctor.**

 

Roberta Temes, a clinical hypnotist in Scotch Plains, N.J., insists that

hypnosis cannot make people do anything they don’t want to do. Hypnosis can

succeed only in helping people make changes they desire, she said in an

interview.

 

In her book **The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hypnosis,** Dr. Temes points out

that success in achieving your goal is the best proof that you were really

hypnotized. She also suggests a second or third session if you didn’t quite

reach your goal after the first try.

 

What Hypnosis Can Do

 

In effect, hypnosis is the epitome of mind-body medicine. It can enable the

mind to tell the body how to react, and modify the messages that the body

sends to the mind. It has been used to counter the nausea of pregnancy and

chemotherapy; dental and test-taking anxiety; pain associated with surgery,

root

canal treatment and childbirth; fear of flying and public speaking; compulsive

hair-pulling; and intractable hiccups, among many other troublesome health

problems.

 

Writing in The Permanente Journal in 2001, Dr. Alman said that **useful

potential** for benefiting from hypnosis **exists within each patient.** **The

goal of modern medical hypnosis,** he said, **is to help patients use this

unconscious potential.**

 

Dr. Alman described a 65-year-old concentration camp survivor who repeatedly

choked when she tried to swallow, though examinations of her esophagus

revealed no obstruction. After three hypnotherapy sessions, her problem was

solved. **I was liberated from my esophagus,** the patient said.

 

You may not even have to be face to face with a hypnotist to benefit

medically. Dr. Temes said hypnosis could be helpful even if done with a

cassette

tape or CD, or by telephone, which she offers as part of her practice. She said

many helpful CD’s could be found through the Web site

_www.hypnosisnetwork.com_ (http://www.hypnosisnetwork.com) .

 

Ellen Fineman, a physical therapist in Portland, Ore., had had five

surgeries to repair a retina that kept detaching. Hoping that a sixth attempt

would

hold, she used a hypnosis tape prepared by Dr. Temes for patients undergoing

surgery.

 

The hypnosis tape **was very calming and reassuring,** Ms. Fineman said in

an interview.

 

**It told me that I would be in the hands of professionals who would take

good care of me and that I’d have minimal swelling,** she said. “This time

the

surgery went superbly — no inflammation, no swelling and no more detachment.

The surgeon was amazed and asked what I had done differently this time.â€

 

While not everyone is easily hypnotized, nearly everyone can slip into a

therapeutic trance, Dr. Temes maintains. Another of her patients, Dr. Susan

Clarvit, a New York psychiatrist, thought she could not be hypnotized — she

was

too scientific, too rational a person, she said.

 

**But I was desperate,** Dr. Clarvit said in an interview. **I was pregnant

with my second child and too nauseated to be alive. Dr. Temes asked me what I

held most often, and I said a pen. She hypnotized me so that when I held a

pen I had an overall feeling of wellness. I held a pen all the time, even

while driving, and didn’t feel nauseated.**

 

Under hypnosis, Dr. Clarvit was given a posthypnotic suggestion that linked

holding a pen to feeling well. Such suggestions enable people to practice a

new, desired behavior after being brought out of the trance.

 

Someone trying to overcome snacking on sweets might be told, **When you are

hungry, you will eat vegetables.** The suggestion to a smoker might be **you

will drink water when you want a cigarette,** and someone terrified of public

speaking might be told **you will do deep breathing when you feel scared.**

 

Many patients are also taught to practice self-hypnosis to reinforce the new

behavior. Dr. Karen N. Olness, a professor of pediatrics at Case Western

Reserve University who is the president of the International Society of

Hypnosis, said that “self-hypnosis training in children is an effective and

practical

strategy to prevent migraine episodes.â€

 

Indirect Benefits

 

Sometimes patients with well-established illnesses can benefit indirectly

from hypnosis.

 

Dr. Alman told of a woman with multiple sclerosis who was treated with

hypnosis for depression that had failed to improve with antidepressants. Almost

immediately, he reported, not only did the woman*s depression ease, but her

gait and speech improved markedly.

 

He explained that for many patients the medical problem is so complex that

specific directions and commands may be ineffective. The benefit from hypnosis

may rely more on unleashing unconscious processes within the patient. He

suggested that there exists **a wealth of material in the patient’s

unconscious

that can be used in healing** but lamented the fact that although medical

hypnosis can often produce rapid change even in difficult cases, it is

**underutilized as a therapeutic tool.**

 

As with any other profession, some hypnotherapists are more talented than

others. Dr. Temes suggests that word of mouth may be the best way to find

someone practiced in hypnosis for the kind of problem you’re trying to solve.

Also

helpful is the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, at _www.asch.net_

(http://www.asch.net) , which maintains a referral list of therapists, both

certified and not, by location and specialty.

 

 

 

 

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